Cool Stuff
Some things I would recommend:
-
The programming language Objective Caml
is a dialect of ML. It has first-class functions and closures, as found in
Lisp, but it does type-checking at compile time. You get 95% of the power
of Lisp with faster debugging, fewer run-time errors, and cleaner code.
(Personally, I also get a certain warm fuzzy feeling from static
type-checking.) The free compiler can generate small, fast, native code
executables for lots of platforms, including Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X.
Many libraries and many interfaces to libraries written in other languages
are also freely available. Compiled programs can be distributed without
encumbrance - this makes it easy to give fast executable binaries to other
people. OCaml is my current language of choice.
- The VNC remote viewing
software lets one use a Unix X-windows session or a Windows computer
remotely. (It is like GNU screen,
but for graphical sessions.) This is handy if you want to access your
office machine from home or while traveling, or if you are stuck with
the wrong operating system on your desktop machine. It's better than
a remote X session because you can switch displays in the middle of a
session and the viewing software is free and available for many
platforms. (There is even a viewer written in Java so you can connect
to your X session from any web browser!)
- The Linux operating system is very
robust and portable. If you like to program, you'll like Unix.
- I'm currently
favoring the GNU Emacs
editor over XEmacs, but they
are both great programs.
- While we're talking about emacs, I'd like to recommend
the VM package for reading
email (see
also here),
especially in combination with
the BBDB package for managing
addresses.
- Speaking of email, if you are unfortunate enough to use the
Thunderbird email client, you should know about
the Nostalgy
extension for quickly filing email.
- LinkTiger finds broken
links on your site
and WatchThatPage will
tell you when a page (eg,
www.jair.org) changes.
- The Unison file
synchronizer is handy if you like taking part of your filesystem with
you on a laptop.
- Car sharing services are very
useful if you don't drive every day. You can save money and improve the
use of urban space at the same time! I've happily used City CarShare in the San Francisco
Bay area and ZipCar in the Northeast.
- I'm a big fan of farmer's markets. I've enjoyed the ones in
Cambridge (River St), MA; Palo Alto, San Francisco (Ferry Plaza),
Menlo Park, and Mountain View, CA; and Durham, NH. In Durham, be
sure to check out the UNH Organic Garden Club stand!
Wheeler Ruml