3 ms·

> Note: I have just learned that Bob Frankston also used VisiCalc to do his 1978 tax return. In the process, he discovered he needed a lookup table for the tax

by galkk 2y ago

> Note: I have just learned that Bob Frankston also used VisiCalc to do his 1978 tax return. In the process, he discovered he needed a lookup table for the tax rates, and incorporated the @lookup command then and there. One of most impressive and sad parts for me. Sad in the sense that nowadays everything is so complicated that you almost never can implement significant pieces of tech just because you need it and competent

d0mine 2y ago
It depends on the tools you use e.g., emacs is programmable not just in theory but in practice. Every key press executes a customizable command. It scales from just a few use-package tweaks in your init.el to complete apps such as Magit, Org-mode. CLI tools can be easily composable and help automate everyday tasks: accept input from stdin/write results to stdout, put diagnostic on stderr, exit with non-zero code on error. Once you'd learned shell pipeline syntax in 1978, you are set for decades. Modern web is less useful to support something like Yahoo pipes but there are http APIs that are relatively easy to access. Scraping might be an option still. Combining ios shortcuts with Pythonista scripts can help on mobile.
WillAdams 2y ago
One still can, if one uses tools which are programmable. Rather than use Autodesk Fusion 360, I use OpenSCAD, so when I wanted my own CAM setup I began work on: https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview (which was muchly boosted by: https://pythonscad.org/ https://pythonscad.org/ ) Rather than be limited by Quark XPress and PageMaker, I learned and used TeX which has allowed me to do pretty much anything I can write a (La)TeX macro for --- current project is a recursive macro which takes a list of water systems and their connections and outputs each system's connections --- but it allows one to do pretty much anything one needs: https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/31088/any-automated-system-to-compute-the-linear-length-of-a-letters-in-a-word-or-ph/31094#31094 https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/31088/any-... That said, I did do a lot of AppleScript programming, and the InDesign integration was esp. nice (even managed to write a script which could manage four-level deep indexes which was said to be impossible by Adobe's Scripting Evangelist). I'd love to see a list of scriptable opensource applications --- some notable ones from memory: - LyX - pyspread - Krita

by galkk 2y ago

d0mine 2y ago

It depends on the tools you use e.g., emacs is programmable not just in theory but in practice. Every key press executes a customizable command. It scales from just a few use-package tweaks in your init.el to complete apps such as Magit, Org-mode. CLI tools can be easily composable and help automate everyday tasks: accept input from stdin/write results to stdout, put diagnostic on stderr, exit with non-zero code on error. Once you'd learned shell pipeline syntax in 1978, you are set for decades. Modern web is less useful to support something like Yahoo pipes but there are http APIs that are relatively easy to access. Scraping might be an option still. Combining ios shortcuts with Pythonista scripts can help on mobile.

WillAdams 2y ago

One still can, if one uses tools which are programmable. Rather than use Autodesk Fusion 360, I use OpenSCAD, so when I wanted my own CAM setup I began work on: https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview (which was muchly boosted by: https://pythonscad.org/ https://pythonscad.org/ ) Rather than be limited by Quark XPress and PageMaker, I learned and used TeX which has allowed me to do pretty much anything I can write a (La)TeX macro for --- current project is a recursive macro which takes a list of water systems and their connections and outputs each system's connections --- but it allows one to do pretty much anything one needs: https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/31088/any-automated-system-to-compute-the-linear-length-of-a-letters-in-a-word-or-ph/31094#31094 https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/31088/any-... That said, I did do a lot of AppleScript programming, and the InDesign integration was esp. nice (even managed to write a script which could manage four-level deep indexes which was said to be impossible by Adobe's Scripting Evangelist). I'd love to see a list of scriptable opensource applications --- some notable ones from memory: - LyX - pyspread - Krita