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    Bozhidar Batsov

    batsov.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2011

    Bozhidar Batsov, creator of RuboCop, CIDER and Emacs Prelude, writes about Emacs, Ruby, and developer tools.

    Visit blogRSSHN submissions
    Open Source & LinuxProgramming
    What HN says

    Commenters recommend his Prelude distribution as a nearly zero-config way to start with Emacs, and link his posts on Emacs setup and package management.

    Stats for nerds
    66HN people shared it
    83linked in comments
    4.2Kstory points
    Jun 2024last shared
    2011people per year2024

    Top posts on HN

    1. 1
      Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony
      3 people · 1.4K points · first shared 2021 · 651 comments on HN
    2. 2
      Why F#?
      1 person · 447 points · first shared 2025 · 413 comments on HN
    3. 3
      The Linux desktop experience is killing Linux on the desktop
      2 people · 270 points · first shared 2011 · 310 comments on HN
    4. 4
      Why Emacs: Redux
      1 person · 270 points · first shared 2021 · 206 comments on HN
    5. 5
      OCaml at First Glance
      2 people · 268 points · first shared 2022 · 78 comments on HN
    6. 6
      Why Emacs?
      2 people · 177 points · first shared 2011 · 128 comments on HN
    7. 7
      The Second Golden Age of Emacs
      1 person · 126 points · first shared 2024 · 93 comments on HN
    8. 8
      RuboCop – A Ruby static code analyzer
      3 people · 125 points · first shared 2015 · 38 comments on HN
    9. 9
      A Peek at Emacs 24
      2 people · 109 points · first shared 2011 · 22 comments on HN
    10. 10
      Django 1.3 vs Rails 3: A not so final showdown
      1 person · 103 points · first shared 2011 · 80 comments on HN

    What HN people wrote when they linked it

    • KronisLVDec 2021

      > It might be great but for now refuse to support anything that further strengthen Googles grip on the market.

      The question then becomes: "What else even is out there?"

      Because if you're looking for something that's even remotely feature complete for browsing the modern day web, the majority of the current browsers out there are indeed based on Chromium, as expressed in this article, "Firefox is the Only Alternative": https://batsov.com/articles/2021/11/28/firefox-is-the-only-alternative/

      Here's the table from the article in text format:

      Browser Based on Chromium Open-source Market Share (desktop + mobile)
      Chrome Yes No 64.7%
      Chromium Yes Yes -
      Edge Yes No 4.0%
      Brave Yes Yes -
      Vivaldi Yes No -
      Opera Yes No 2.4%
      Safari No No 19.0%
      Firefox No Yes 3.7%

      To me it seems like Firefox is the only viable alternative and putting all of our hopes on a singular browser and the company behind it, especially given that there has recently been some controversy around it, seems risky. For example: https://itdm.com/mozilla-firefox-usage-down-85-but-why-are-execs-salary-up-400/2050/ and https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/08/firefox-maker-mozilla-lays-off-250-workers-says-covid-19-lowered-revenue/

    • wes-expNov 2011

      I am a C# refugee, so I feel I can respond with some authority.

      Yes, the enhanced auto-complete capability that static typing enables is a great feature (I should note that dynamic languages can offer completion too, just not as comprehensively). But it must be weighed against the tradeoffs. I believe many of these language features like static vs. dynamic typing are not "one is better than the other", but simply characteristics that make certain tradeoffs.

      A decent comparison of static vs. dynamic typing can be found here: http://batsov.com/articles/2011/05/08/jvm-langs-scala/ (scroll down)

      For all C#'s strengths, you've got to also consider the negatives. For starters, you're dependent on Windows; for the development environment and the server. I don't know if you also do server administration, but let me tell you: running Windows servers is an exercise in pain.

      Second, in an age when many wonderful programming environments are available as open source, I question the wisdom of marrying yourself to something that is deeply proprietary. When you're first starting with .Net, you might not think about this. But years in, you may find that you are stuck in a system outside your control, dragging your code and livelihood along with it. As I did.

      C# has many strengths and I have great respect for its architect Anders Hejlsberg. That said, I am very much glad to be free of it!

    • ncavigNov 2012

      http://batsov.com/articles/2011/06/19/django-vs-rails/ appears to give a quick breakdown, but also misses some key features in my opinion. I've worked with rails for about 5 years and Django for a little over 16 months now. There's some things I do and don't like respectively for each framework.

      I suggest testing each out and see which you prefer. Ruby and Python are similar languages but different enough that you'll want to spend some time learning each. Both will benefit you in the long run, as I work with ruby and python daily and is useful knowing both.

      I will warn you that Django was easier for me to pick up than rails. Rails guys (me included) tout how easy it is to get going with rails, which is true. However, getting really good with rails is hard. Knowing exactly what's going on and why, how to extend ActiveModel or ActionController properly, monkey patching, proper testing practices, etc are quite the time sink, albeit a beneficial one in my opinion. I think if you have TDD or a client adamant about full test coverage, I've found rails support and practices are more flushed out than django's take.

      EDIT: typos

    • elias94Dec 2021

      I consider LinkedIn full of crap and marketing stuff.
      I hate the newsfeed and all the fake stuff that people post there. Messages are bloated with random recruiters, search is a pain and the algorithm is totally unclear.

      Indeed or similar are so basic that if you're lucky you will get an email reply from the company. Is less noisy than LinkedIn.

      I hope one day the process will be simple and without recruiters in the middle. Nothing against them, but are mostly 0 technical and you have to take calls where they read you a company presentation but they don't know nothing really about the company and nothing about you. So what is their utility?

      I prefer to speak directly with the company. And I don't like unwanted calls, and I don't like being ghosted (especially if I invested more than 20 mins on your company).

      I read this article few days ago, 100% correct
      https://batsov.com/articles/2021/11/03/a-note-about-recruiters/

    • samiur1204Mar 2013

      Hey there,

      I used to Vim too, and started using Emacs since I started doing a lot of Clojure development. Since then, I have not looked back. The power and flexibility of Emacs is second to almost none. Just the other day, I was working on a Latex file, and I had a buffer open with a pdf viewer right next to my tex file, that would update as soon as I saved changes to my tex file. And the community has done almost everything you can think of already. If not, just write it yourself!

      To get started, I would highly recommend using Emacs Prelude: https://github.com/bbatsov/prelude
      It's incredibly useful and user friendly, and makes your Emacs all the more powerful. This is a good intro article to it: http://batsov.com/prelude/

      The other blog that I find useful even as a fairly seasoned Emacs user is http://www.masteringemacs.org/
      It has some great guides and tutorials for beginners too.

    • whatevererMar 2012

      To be fair, Emacs has had a package manager package, package.el (heh), for quite some time now. It can download and install packages from a repository, like Marmalade, though I've found it to be a bit shaky in the past; I've had to manually delete the files of a botched package, and then who-knows-what to get it to fully disappear.

      It's, thankfully, been bundled in the default Emacs 24. And, thank the ghosts of the ancient lispers, that savagery of having a million-zillion different autocompletion interfaces for every damned thing may finally be put to an end with the new standardized autocompletion thingy.

      Source:
      http://batsov.com/articles/2011/08/19/a-peek-at-emacs24/

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