Thomas Hartmann @hartmann@mastodon.technology

Let's try a little #introduction to start things off:

#hello, I'm Thomas.

Software dev currently particularly enamored with #Rust and #Haskell, trying to dive ever deeper into the functional and theoretical ends of the pool.

I want to start writing and talking about programming, so I'll try and use this as a little outlet to set me on the right path.

Keyboard customizer, Oxford comma proponent, and all-round good guy.

Maybe I'll actually manage to rack up some posts this time around?

Cheers!

I wonder if I could do the OCaml/ReasonML thing and make a syntax that makes Rust look like Haskell 🤔

I'd call it... Rascal 👌

And the final thing: I'm not sure how you're intended to reach some of the further thumb keys. The bottom row is fine, third is alright, but that middle one that's the furthest from your starting position ... Maybe I'll get used to it.

Hmm, that q might actually be a single quote. Oh, well, it's not the expected e, anyway.

What I'm not yet happy with is Norwegian letters.

Whenever I interact with people in Norwegian, it'd be nice to have the extra three vowels, but that'd mean I'd have to completely reprogram the keyboard with Norwegian symbols, which would mess up some characters, where the shifted version would not be what I expected.

The macOS US layout let's you combine qoa with alt to get æøå, but I've not found a magical key like that for Linux or Windows yet.

General feelings: very positive.
I've sorted out my initial dual key issues and have mostly settled on a layout for now.

Found that I was getting some strain in my right pinky after too much CLI work, so I moved hyphen, shifts, and return to other places on the keyboard. The fact that l can do that is 👌

Wish I had more of these, so I wouldn't have to take it with me to work all the time.

So turns out you can change how dual function keys work on the ErgoDox, but it's hidden in the advanced settings. I'm very happy about this, but also confused as to why they would set the default to be to deliver them as separate values if you're a "fast typist".

Anyway, went through about 5 iterations at work today, definitely getting somewhere.

Also, using a regular laptop keyboard was weird after a day of ortholinearity 🙄

Think I've found an initial layout that I can work with for my ErgoDox. The ortholinearity still feels a bit strange, but I'll take it into work tomorrow and we'll see how it goes.

Biggest downside so far: I've had to move away from dual-function shift keys, as I tend to release the shift key before the other key. This would result in two things like `\a` instead of `A` for instance.

That said, I've still got access to those symbols in other places.

Also, why are we still shipping things with paperclip holes? Who even has paperclips anymore?

Was about to run to the shop when I realized that I had some tiny screwdrivers that'd do the job.

Got my ErgoDox EZ today 🎉
Feels promising, but haven't finished the setup just yet. I'm a bit disappointed that I can't map any arbitrary symbol combination, but it's understandable due to how keyboards work.

Depending on the order in which I activate my monitors, I can get either awful, multi-second latency or perfect responsiveness.

Is this normal? Also: Is it related to my desktop environment?

Everything is smooth in the ttys and at the login prompt, but as soon as xfce takes over, it's pretty much a coin toss.

I'm planning on moving to (at least test out) EXWM; is there a chance that'll fix it, or is it a separate concern?

Miiiight have caved and picked up an ErgoDox EZ when receiving my holiday pay early today 🤷

I've been drooling over it for the past couple of months, so better just to get it out of the way, right?

So I'm not sure exactly what happened, but now all the monitors work with no drop in performance 👏

I am, of course, super paranoid that any moment it'll just fall apart, but we'll see.

If it stays this way then I can finally move onto other things like window managers, and, dare I say it, development environments!

Anyway, I think it's high time I documented some of what I've been doing 🗒️

OH, MY GOD, I HAVE MONITORS!

Took me a solid 3-4 weeks of troubleshooting, but I finally have support for external monitors on my #NixOS install. Now, the performance absolutely tanked, so I'll need to look into that (any ideas?), but I am nonetheless over the moon about this.

I knew my first non-trivial #Linux distro would be an uphill battle, but damn, that turning tide tastes so sweet.

Update: nope. You can not add a submodule to a path that's within another submodule if they're both direct submodules of the same repo.

Could I simply add these secondary levels to the top level repo at a path that expects the intermediary repo to have been cloned?

Now, this is a pretty silly example, as I doubt there's much development going on with this specific repo, so I could easily just add the files to my repo, but I also use Spacemacs, for instance, and if I'm adding something to the private dir (such as a Reason layer), I'd like to keep that in sync without too much hassle.

What's the best way to deal with multiple levels of submodules when you only 'own' the top repo? More specifically:

I have a dotfiles repo. As part of that, I would like to use 'oh-my-tmux', which is a specific git repo that someone else owns. However, to add plugins to tmux, for instance, I need to add files (more repos) to the .tmux directory. I'd like to have this saved and automatically cloned when requested.

I'd prefer not to maintain forks of any of the intermediary repos.

Hey, peeps,

So I wanna get on this writing train and chronicle some of the experiences I've been having over the last couple of weeks, but I don't know where to do it.

What's the easiest, most approachable way to put it up somewhere?

Ideally, I'd be able to just link it to a version controlled repo and start publishing org mode files, but I'm not aware of any services like that.
(Maybe I should actually look? 🤔)

Anyway, I appreciate any and all suggestions 🙏

So after a couple days of messing about I managed to fix the keyboard sitch (I think). Turns out systemd was running an old version of the service even if I'd rebuilt the system multiple times and that my changes weren't taking effect. Renaming the service made it build the new one and, in the end, it seems that `systemctl disable` was what allowed me to update (or replace) the original service. Learning experience. #NixOS

So I've been spending two whole days now trying to get #NixOS to boot with my custom keyboard config (making return an extra Control_R) 😅 It's mildly frustrating but at least I'm getting a nice tour of the various internet forums while I'm at it, right?