EmacsConf 2019 - Shared shownotes pad

Amin Bandali and Sacha Chua

• Welcome to the conference - Amin Bandali
  • RMS is watching as well \o/
• Emacs community update - Sacha Chua
  • more than 100 languages are supported with Org mode/babel
  • Planet Emacslife RSS feed: if you do have Emacs-related feeds, hand it in to Sacha
  • popular Emacs-like features/addons/plugins in non-Emacs tools
  • EmacsConf 2019 - Curious to hear what you guys think/hope these new languages will be :) : emacs
  • increased popularity through killer apps: spacemacs, Org mode, magit, pandoc, org to Hugo exporter
    • https://ox-hugo.scripter.co/
    • http://joostkremers.github.io/pandoc-mode/
    • https://magit.vc/
    • http://spacemacs.org/
  • https://github.com/sachac/emacs-conf-2019-community-update

John Wiegley

• Notes by John
• maintenance was moving to Eli Zaretskii
• support for big integers
• integration for harfbuzz
• Orthographic ligature - Wikipedia
• Cairo not experimental any more (Linux)
  • this also paves the way to Wayland
• Emacs 27 with new built-in tab-bar
  • also switching window configuration
• Built-in support for image scaling and rotation
  • no more dependency for imagemagick
• portable dumper
  • Scripts from an older talk, there you can see/learn what the dumper actually is: https://dancol.org/pdumperpres.pdf
  • Pre-loading some essential elisp code at build-time by taking a memory snapshot
• initial support for XDG directory specification
  • More info on that:
    • https://github.com/emacs-mirror/emacs/blob/master/lisp/xdg.el
    • https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2018-05/msg00081.html
  • new (XDG spec is now several years old!)
  • directory structure for config and other files, so that your ${HOME} isn't as full as before.
  • Config files are now in ${HOME}/.config/$APPLICATION/something
• Network Security Manager (NSM) module
• built-in support for indicator columns
• so-long-mode
  • performance win for buffers with long lines
• full internationalization, e.g., that errors come in your local language
  • ngettext?

Zen Monk Alain M. Lafon, https://200ok.ch

• Video online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQKc0hcFXCk
• https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice
• JavaScript-based Org mode tool for working on local files that sync via WebDAV, Dropbox and such
• Support for a sub-set of Org mode syntax (so far)
  • non-supported elements may get removed

Tom Faulkenberry

• Video online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEP2NTJhhfk
• https://github.com/tomfaulkenberry/orgFoils
• nice explanation to set it up

related:

• https://karl-voit.at/2019/10/12/org-reveal-handout/
• mentioned on IRC: https://opensource.com/article/18/4/how-create-latex-documents-emacs

Andrew J. Dougherty (adougher9@gmail.com) (aindilis)

• Video online: https://frdcsa.org/~andrewdo/frdcsa-emacsconf2019-final.webm
• landing-page: https://frdcsa.org/frdcsa/
• homepage: https://frdcsa.org/~andrewdo
• use case: https://frdcsa.org/~andrewdo/writings/homeless-story.html
• github: https://github.com/aindilis
• user manual: http://frdcsa.org/~andrewdo/writings/README.html
• slides: http://frdcsa.org/~andrewdo/panoply-presentation.odp
• irc: #frdcsa and #freelifeplanner @ freenode
• vm: Panoply VM to be released in 1-3 months

related:

• https://www.nctm.org/Publications/Teaching-Children-Mathematics/Blog/Current-Research-on-Gender-Differences-in-Math/

Parham Doustdar (parham90@gmail.com)

• screen readers
• Emacs is making things possible for blind people that would be hard or impossible otherwise :-)
• Questions:
  • Are there any modes that come with Emacsspeak configuration "out of the box"?
    • No Emacs packages come with Emacspeak configuration, but Emacspeak itself comes with a lot of configuration for different packages like org-mode, Magit, and many many others.
  • Do you, Parham, prefer emacs modes to not have any customizations around emacsspeak so that you can customize them yourself?
    • Yeah, no customizations is great. The problem with most applications, outside Emacs, is that people try and guess how a blind user for example would use their package/application. However, in Emacs, the cool thing is that you don't have to do it any more and let the user figure it out.
  • Are there any "rules" that package developers for emacs could use to make them more emacsspeak friendly or at least avoid being emacsspeak hostile?
    • I would say that the best way would be to just use Emacs functionality. Some packages do weird things with custom overlays, for example, which Emacspeak has a hard time accessing.

Marcin Swieczkowski (scatman@bu.edu)

• slides: https://www.bytedude.com/files/managing-your-life-with-org-mode.html
• repository + org file: https://github.com/m-cat/managing-your-life-with-org-mode
• using a single Org mode file: todo.org
• not using TODO keyword
  • he was forgetting to mark tasks as TODO
  • TODO headings scattered around all org files
• how does he get items to his agenda?
  • schedule it
  • deadlines are hard deadlines
  • daily agenda shows scheduled items, not TODO items
• strict heading hierarchy for his items
• on finishing a recurring task -> re-schedule
• org-super-agenda
• categories within property drawers
• org-recur
  • defining recurrence delta for single tasks
  • visual cue on the recurring delta on the agenda
  • provides more flexible recurrence config like wkdy -> not supported in ord-schedule
• git
  • reviewing commits on a weakly basis
• bonus: misc tools on the slides (not mentioned live)
• https://github.com/m-cat/init.el
• https://bytedude.com/

related:

• https://karl-voit.at/2019/09/25/categories-versus-tags
• https://karl-voit.at/2017/01/15/org-clone-subtree-with-time-shift/
• https://karl-voit.at/2014/08/20/org-losses-determining-post-commit/

David Bremner

• https://notmuchmail.org/
• Questions:
  • I think the ability to create links from mails and even from mail queries is a killer feature. I e that in mu4e. I guess this is also possible in emacs notmuch?
    • Yes. Look for "org-notmuch.el" in https://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/.

Aaron Jacobs (atheriel@gmail.com, https://twitter.com/unconj1, https://unconj.ca/blog/)

• https://www.twitch.tv/
• mentioned: Kris Jenkins - A Spotify Client in 16 minutes
• https://github.com/atheriel/helm-twitch

Miguel Suárez and Quiliro Ordóñez

• tracking expenses using ledger-mode
• presentation video: https://archive.org/details/ledger-mode_EmacsConf2019

related:

• https://plaintextaccounting.org/

Alain M. Lafon (alain@200ok.ch)

• teaser version
  • full two hour talk: "Playing Emacs like an instrument"
  • also talk + slides on https://200ok.ch/posts/2018-04-27_Play_Emacs_like_an_Instrument.html
• motivation: everybody needs a text processor since almost all information is text-based

related:

• web browsing: https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CategoryWebBrowser
• https://next.atlas.engineer/

Jonathan Chu @jonathanchu (https://jonathanchu.is/)

• slides: https://github.com/jonathanchu/emacsconf-2019-magit-deep-dive
• "I don't remember any git commands" :-)
• mentioned xkcd comic
• status
• diffing
  • (setq magit-diff-refine-hunk 'all)
• blaming
• staging/unstaging
  • selective on hunks or lines
• committing
  • go through previous commit messages while writing a new one: M-p and M-n
• branching
  • spin a new branch
• reverting
• squashing
• rebasing
• bisecting
• more
  • tagging
  • notes
  • submodules
  • worktree
• magit helps understanding (complicated) git paradigms
• Q&A
  • modified doom theme
  • org-present used for the presentation
  • git hygiene
  • C-c M-g: global magit mode
  • resolving rebase conflicts

related:

• https://magit.vc/
• https://magit.vc/manual/magit/
• his init.el: https://github.com/jonathanchu/dotemacs
• https://git-scm.com/doc
• https://magit.vc/manual/magit/Wip-Modes.html

Howard Abrams

• @howardabrams http://www.howardism.org
• love/hate-relationship with the shell
  • https://github.com/akermu/emacs-libvterm
• interactive vs. scripts
• demo: Piper
• scripts
• (video outage for 5 minutes approximately)
• Q&A
  • sharing workflow with non-emacs persons: no, mostly for himself in private life
  • (further video issues; audio worked)
  • working with huge buffers
  • how does piper work for you on large files (10k lines or so?)
    • haven't checked
  • is the key to thinking about the workflow is to convert stuff to buffer and operating on it?
    • the emacs/lisp way of doing things
  • Name suggestion: husk

related:

• https://github.com/howardabrams
• https://github.com/junegunn/fzf
• https://docs.racket-lang.org/rash/index.html
• https://gitlab.com/howardabrams/emacs-piper
• (was he mentioning that?) Land of Lisp http://landoflisp.com/
• https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/rx
  • https://gist.github.com/aterweele/11bdefcac0255baa3a8a71d498236d0d
  • https://francismurillo.github.io/2017-03-30-Exploring-Emacs-rx-Macro/

Damien Cassou

• slides: https://files.petton.fr/cassou/emacsconf2019/presentation.html
• checklist for MELPA
• naming, docstrings, small functions, automated tests, package metadata
• avoid warnings; speaker believes they are just as important as errors
• suggests Melpa's contributing.org as a good reference for quality: https://github.com/melpa/melpa/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.org
• Example ERT test setup example
• Example of a Buttercup test
  • M-x buttercup-run-at-point
• He tends to use ERT most often
• Example of using flycheck in a buffer
• Advice: run flycheck on your own code, don't worry about everyone else
• Remote setup
  • tools needed: cask, emacs-package-checker, emake, makel
• makel can use Makefiles to ensure dependencies and alias commands -> good for continuous integration
• Configuring CI to use specific version of Emacs to be tested:
  • evm, nix-emacs-ci, silex' emacs, kelleyk's ppa
• Example configurations for TravisCI, Gitlab CI, Gitea+Drone,
• Q&A
  • Gitlab..
  • Any CI systems using Guix yet?
    • A: not sure yet
  • Is Melpa's standard the accepted one?
    • Their contributing.org file is a really good one

related:

• https://melpa.org/#/buttercup
• https://melpa.org/#/package-lint
• https://melpa.org/#/flycheck
• https://melpa.org/#/flycheck-package

Damien Cassou

• video: https://files.petton.fr/cassou/emacsconf2019/navigel-shorter.ogv

related:

• https://gitea.petton.fr/DamienCassou/navigel/
• Question: What screenkey-like program is Damien using?
  • It's nicely less intrusive than screenkey.
  • https://github.com/nibrahim/showkeys
  • personal tips from Damien:
    • https://emacsconf.org/2019/tips (at the bottom):
    • "to start 3 processes simultaneously: showkeys, ffmpeg for audio and ffmpeg for video" https://gist.github.com/DamienCassou/0e3663ce3bdb710a44eeb7122870f621

David O'Toole

related:

• What's the repo for the spreadsheet?
  • https://gitlab.com/dto/mosaic-el, with the data files here https://gitlab.com/dto/violin.mosaic
  • the main documentation page is http://xelf.me/scheme-mosaic.html but it doesn't have much about the emacs side yet

Torstein Krause Johansen @torsteinkrause, http://skybert.net/

• slides: https://github.com/skybert/skybert-net/blob/master/src/talks/2019-awesome-java/slides.md
• Q&A
  • snippets used: yas(nippet)

related:

• (he used it in the past) https://github.com/emacs-eclim/emacs-eclim
• Torstein's Emacs config for Java: https://gitlab.com/skybert/my-little-friends/blob/master/emacs/.emacs#L780
• This looks pretty helpful: http://www.skybert.net/emacs/enterprise-java-development-in-emacs/

Jānis Mancēvičs

• using all CPU cores instead of one for rendering processes of blender
• rocknightstudios -> twitter handles and so forth
  • https://www.twitch.tv/rocknightstudios
  • https://twitter.com/rocknightgames

related:

• https://sachachua.com/blog/2014/04/emacs-chat-janis-mancevics/

MetroWind

• (tech difficulties due to different virtual desktops not catching the Emacs windows)
• switching to pre-recorded talk in-between 2019-11-02T18.38.40
• 2019-11-02T18.49.29 trying to resume screen sharing
• 2019-11-02T18.52.45 continuing
• modifying time/date not only in Org
• Beancount
  • https://github.com/bean count/beancount
  • https://bitbucket.org/blais/beancount/commits/
• Emacs docu: "system interfaces"
• https://github.com/MetroWind/
  • https://github.com/MetroWind/dotfiles-mac

related:

• https://alexjj.com/blog/2016/managing-my-personal-finances-with-beancount/
• https://github.com/MetroWind/dotfiles-mac/blob/master/emacs/files/.emacs-pkgs/tsmanip.el

David Bremner

related:

• https://github.com/takaxp/org-tree-slide
• https://emacsconf.org/2019/debemacs

Matt Ray (emacs@mattray.dev, @mattray)

• https://github.com/mattray/emacsconf2019
• https://mattray.dev
• https://github.com/mattray/home-directory/
• https://www.softwaredefinedtalk.com/
• https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Shell-Mode.html
• tramp mode
  • https://www.gnu.org/software/tramp/
• testing infrastructure: "Test Kitchen"
  • https://kitchen.ci
• Vagrant
• Chef
• InSpec
• pry
  • Ruby interactive debugger
  • http://pryrepl.org/
• Q&A
  • using multiple ssh sessions
  • he is using nohup to get it to background
  • relocating is not a requirement for Matt (tmux advantage)
  • What are the main advantages on using shell within Emacs in contrast to terminal/(ssh/)tmux/zsh directly? (handling of ssh connection loss, zsh features not available in Emacs shell, …)
    • Sat 20:56 < rwp> In Tramp just the single feature of editing a remote file and then typing M-x compile and it automatically doing a remote compile is a killer feature that really wows people I show it too.

related:

• Tramp Cheatsheet https://imgur.com/a/3jDEFhV
• defun toggle-alternate-file-as-root(): https://gist.github.com/ieure/885335e047878d504d39b34e1a1ff4e6
• https://github.com/nflath/sudo-edit
• https://www.vagrantup.com/
• https://www.chef.io/, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chef_(software)

Greg Farough

• Campaigns Manager at FSF (https://www.fsf.org/about/staff-and-board/)
• Q&A
  • How to introduce total non-information savy users to Emacs?
  • […]
  • Contributing for documentation is very good as well.

related:

• https://karl-voit.at/2017/02/10/evolution-of-systems/
• Quote from https://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.en.html
  • "It was Bernie Greenberg, who discovered that it was (2). He wrote a version of Emacs in Multics MacLisp, and he wrote his commands in MacLisp in a straightforward fashion. The editor itself was written entirely in Lisp. Multics Emacs proved to be a great success — programming new editing commands was so convenient that even the secretaries in his office started learning how to use it. They used a manual someone had written which showed how to extend Emacs, but didn't say it was a programming. So the secretaries, who believed they couldn't do programming, weren't scared off. They read the manual, discovered they could do useful things and they learned to program."

• done at this point so that nobody is missing it due to overtime
• stay tuned for the next pre-recorded videos!

Perry E. Metzger

• parallel/concurrent code is critical for future
• "so far, only Rust has a good story on concurrency"
• "C is dying"
  • "C cannot be written safely by mortals"
• "C has to go"
• Current language slows down Emacs evolution
• Incrementally replace C with Rust
• displaying not-text
  • currently, can't render web pages properly
  • native PDF rendering
• HTML done right is complicated: security/privacy features
• proper rendering of HTML is crucial for Emacs future
  • emails, …
• native LSP support
• Debug Adapter Protocol
• Emacs should be more like an operating system
• better Email experience
  • IMAP
• PIM integration
  • CalDAV
  • CardDAV
• markdown support
  • view Org or Markdown as rendered?
• Issue: Org is separate from Emacs
  • needs to be pervasively integrated?
• better chat clients
  • instead of Slack, Discord, …
• rendering of web widgets (video, …)
• Hacker-friendly user interface
  • Emacs bindings everywhere!
  • macOS vs. KDE/Gnome
• Using emacs for everything
• everything should feel like Emacs
• bad
• keyboard design/layout
• priority
  1. HTML rendering
  2. LSP support
  3. modern email, PIM, …
  4. concurrency model + future extension language
• Q&A starting with 2019-11-02T21.45.10
  • Web rendering and daily updates
  • Future non-programmers as Emacs users
  • JavaScript-intense sources and Emacs support
  • default Emacs config to help new users
  • Is Rust also a candidate to replace Elisp or just C? No, just C.
  • Running Emacs within a browser
  • Mobile Emacs
  • Remacs project
    • Emacs in Rust
    • lovely but no user-basis and therefore bad situation
    • better to use it from inside and not as a fork
  • Long-term competitors except vim

related:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TECO_(text_editor)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebKit
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slack_(software)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discord_(software)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servo_(layout_engine)
• https://next.atlas.engineer/
• (used LaTeX/Beamer for presentation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beamer_(LaTeX)
• https://karl-voit.at/2017/02/10/evolution-of-systems/

Eduardo Ochs

• slides + video: http://angg.twu.net/emacsconf2019.html

related:

• http://angg.twu.net/#eev
• http://angg.twu.net/eev-intros/find-audiovideo-intro.html
• http://angg.twu.net/LATEX/2019emacsconf.pdf

Damien Cassou

• video: https://files.petton.fr/cassou/emacsconf2019/mpdel.ogv

related:

• https://gitea.petton.fr/mpdel/mpdel
• https://github.com/mpdel/mpdel
• https://www.musicpd.org/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Player_Daemon
• https://github.com/DamienCassou
• https://github.com/DamienCassou/navigel
• https://gitea.petton.fr/DamienCassou/navigel/

Mackenzie Bligh

• Uses org-babel w/ restclient-mode

related:

• https://github.com/mack1070101/emacs-conf-2019

Ben Slade

• eshell dropdown terminal (à la quake-style games)

related:

• https://github.com/emacsmirror/equake
• https://gitlab.com/emacsomancer/equake

Tony Aldon @tonyaldon

related:

• https://github.com/tonyaldon
• https://joaotavora.github.io/yasnippet/index.html
• https://github.com/joaotavora/yasnippet
• IRC comment: A note about saving yasnippet files: it doesn't enforce a file extension, you could save it as just 'app' and it works. As long as you save the snippet in the directories scanned by Yasnippet
• Manage snippets within an Org mode file: https://github.com/Kungsgeten/yankpad

Zaiste @zaiste, https://zaiste.net/

• Started by using Emacs Doom: "A starter pack"
  • liked currated packages, and opinions.
  • allowed for a lesser learning curve. maintained productivity
• VSCode "works out of the box"
• Community has Visual Documentation
  • Videos, GIFs, walkthrough articles
• Emacs has no common practices
  • hard to find an answer for common tasks, like search-and-replace

related:

• https://github.com/zaiste
• https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs
• his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/ohzaiste
• his Emacs Doom Screencasts https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhXZp00uXBk4np17N39WvB80zgxlZfVwj, https://invidio.us/playlist?list=PLhXZp00uXBk4np17N39WvB80zgxlZfVwj&hl=en-US

Sachin Patil

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOZ2KZpl4OM (~ 30m)

https://200ok.ch/posts/2019-09-17_announcing_the_official_emacsconf_zurich_satellite.html

• Desktop sharing tool used: https://jitsi.org/
• https://gitea.petton.fr/DamienCassou/navigel/ (IRC 2019-11-02T16.42.46 CET)
• please take a look my-dired-recent-dirs on https://github.com/novoid/dot-emacs/blob/master/config.org#L2705 - jumping to dired folders on steroids
• For future reference, do you all think we can have a conference code of conduct that's more similar to the useR! conference (https://user2018.r-project.org/code_of_conduct/) instead of the current one? The useR! conference code of conduct is really comprehensive.
• https://live0.emacsconf.org/ -> current statistics on feeds
• statistics
  • 2019-11-02T15.07.12 statistics for the current moment:
    • over 300 people on the live stream in total
    • 200 people in IRC
  • 2019-11-02T20.02.57
    • 190 viewers on live-streams (with multiple "users" consisting of groups of people)
  • 2019-11-02T20.42.53
    • 176 viewers

• http://www.bundesbrandschatzamt.de/~baron/
• Shakthi Kannan ("mbuf")
• Perry E. Metzger
• Karl Voit
• Simon Leinen
• Derek Feichtinger (dfeich)
• Raimon Grau (rgrau)
• Christer Enfors (Enfors)
• Bob Proulx <rwp> bob@proulx.com
• Bhavin Gandhi (bhavin192)

• Karl Voit happily joins the orga team for next time

• bandali: organizing, coordinating, setting up infrastructure, handling streaming and switching
• sachac: tech checks, help with schedule
• all the speakers
• satellite event organizers
• FSF: streaming setup tips
• aindilis: transcripts
• bremner, dto, ggoes: helping with questions
• KarlVoit: pad
• so many people! attendees, volunteers

• Transcode videos to free formats
• Upload somewhere
• Link agenda to videos
• Make a playlist for easier downloading and playing
• Transcribe videos - https://emacsconf.org/2019/transcripts
  • With STT technology available (see Google Pixel 4): isn't there a possibility to get at least a raw transcription from an algorithm?
  • Check speakers' resources for scripts, too
• Scale down VPS - bandali
• Copy this pad to https://emacsconf.org/2019/pad and format it nicely
  • Karl is volunteering for that
  • To be done beforehand by the official orga team having all the contacts:
    1. ask all speakers to add links, info, … to it (probably checking all FIXXMEs left)
    2. decide on one-shot or multiple conversions: whether or not the pad->webpage should be more or less copy&paste so that viewers of the videos within the next weeks/months are able to contribute more content (if this is feasible) and the webpage archives snapshots until changes get sparse
    3. set a final deadline so that all desired changes are finalized on the pad
    4. Karl needs to know the target format (Org, HTML, …) - see comment/question/task on simple copy&paste above to be able to do this multiple times with minimal manual effort
    5. Karl needs access or somebody needs to publish it
• Write about your favorite parts, what you learned, what you're going to do next, etc.
• Harvest Q&A from IRC, summarize under each talk
• Braindump lessons learned
• Subscribe to the mailing list if you want to get notified when more resources are up - https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacsconf-discuss
  • Karl: is there an active Gmane bridge for that ML?
  • Bandali: gmane.emacs.emacsconf
• Go forth and do awesome