Tag: Literate Programming

Uniquely Name Source-Blocks and Headline IDs in Org-Mode

Always name all of your Source-Blocks and uniquely ID Headlines in Org-Mode. It is the only way to make Literate Programming pleasant and predictable. At the very least you will understand what is happening during tangling.

Org-Mode Release 8.3

Org 8.3 is now out.

Addendum: 2015-08-16
Interesting:

  • org-show-context-detail
  • Markdown export supports switches in source blocks
  • ASCII export additions
  • Export inline source blocks
  • ascii plot
  • date macro parms
  • mathjax cdn
  • viewport for html mobile
  • remotely edit footnote definition
  • texinfo image support
  • Removed option org-koma-letter-use-title
  • Three slash URI links
  • Footnotes in included files are now local to the file
  • When exporting, throw an error on unresolved id/fuzzy links and code refs

Easily Go To and Return From Headlines in Org-Mode

Quit using goto-line and isearch to navigate in your Org-Mode document. I didn’t want to use Helm or Imenu to do it and Org-Mode has a built in solution with org-goto. Be sure to bind the “pop” key very close-by to make it symmetrical and fast.
(define-key org-mode-map (kbd "s-u") #'org-goto)
(define-key org-mode-map (kbd "s-U") #'org-mark-ring-goto)

Vintage Computer Programming Book Market About To Explode!

Last week I was day-dreaming about Forth and vintage computers again. Same old day-dreams. The TI-99/4A with TurboForth seems like the perfect place to start learning about both. TurboForth has lots of features and it runs in emulators and “on the metal”. Cool.

The best way to learn Forth is interactively. How do you do it with Org Mode, though? Can we have the same features you would expect with any other programming language even though it is running inside of an emulator? There must be an easy way to run at the command line, redirect input and output, or maybe telnet into the machine.

V9t9 is a Java-based and open-sourced emulator there on GitHub. If it doesn’t have telnet into it, then it can be added. That got me thinking (daydreaming?) again about the fun of simple computers. Whatever approach you use to access them, using Org seems like a great way to write new books about them.

They are simpler. They are a great place to start. There is tons of great literature out there already. Now add Emacs and Org-Mode to the mix to practice Literate Programming.

It seems like there is a huge opportunity for great new books about old computers and programming languages. Export to LaTeX and publish, and there you go. Very fun and very cool.

How to Correctly Enable Flycheck in Babel Source Blocks

If you already have Flycheck turned on then you already have it running your babel source block buffers, but, it isn’t working how you expect it. That buffer hasn’t got a file name. Flycheck can’t be smart about helping you out here. Via this post, the solution follows.

(defadvice org-edit-src-code (around set-buffer-file-name activate compile)
  (let ((file-name (buffer-file-name))) ;; (1)
    ad-do-it                            ;; (2)
    (setq buffer-file-name file-name))) ;; (3)

This is one of those things that if you had though about it for a few minutes, you would have turned it on yourself. It reveals how easy it is to return to the mode of “application user” from “application designer”, of Emacs. That is the source of most of my dumb “misses” regarding workflow optimizations in Emacs.

How to Handle and Large Slow Org Files

When some of us open large Org mode files, Emacs becomes nearly unresponsive, and nearly unusable. My stock advice has always been to call #+STARTUP: showeverything or do a binary search more or less to figure out which package is stomping Emacs. In this post, though, Puneeth explains that the issue may go away entirely for some of us.