Category: Programming

Let ChatGPT Index Your LaTeX Documents

Indexing documents is an ongoing chore. You would think picking out “good” book or article index words would be a trivial pseudo-sampling-sorting task, but that is not the case. Building a useful index requires something like “comprehending” the text. You must read the document, understand what’s in it, and then judiciously select words that elucidate, … Continue reading Let ChatGPT Index Your LaTeX Documents →

J graphviz’s Euclid’s Elements

In Sarah Hart’s new book Once Upon a Prime she relays John Aubrey’s account of the philosopher John Hobbes’s1 first exposure to Euclid’s Elements. Being in a gentleman’s library Euclid’s Elements lay open, and ’twas the forty-seventh proposition in the first book. He read the proposition. “By God,” said he, “this is impossible!” So he … Continue reading J graphviz’s Euclid’s Elements →

Ethanol is Excrement in the Gas Tank

Like many U.S. government programs, the blended corn ethanol mandate has done little to address its avowed goals, i.e., strengthen energy security, reduce carbon emissions, and lower prices for consumers. By some accounts it, consumes more energy than it produces, increases consumer prices, distorts food production, wastes vast tracts of arable land, and contributes to … Continue reading Ethanol is Excrement in the Gas Tank →

“Managing” a SQLite Database with J (Part 2)

When faced with unfamiliar program code Roger Hui, the co-creator of the J Programming Language would sometimes wipe out all the code comments. He told me this forced him to concentrate on the actual code and not the opinions of previous developers. Roger was an exceptional programmer; he knew that program comments are often dated, … Continue reading “Managing” a SQLite Database with J (Part 2) →

Branding XMP Sidecar Files with J

During my long and not-so-storied IT career I covertly dispatched “irritants” with the J programming language. An irritant is an annoying software problem that does not merit a full-blown project-style approach. The last thing you want when dealing with irritants is to drag in IT bureaucrats. You know of whom I speak: the niggling little … Continue reading Branding XMP Sidecar Files with J →