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diff --git a/2023/talks/cubing.md b/2023/talks/cubing.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..b8f11327 --- /dev/null +++ b/2023/talks/cubing.md @@ -0,0 +1,105 @@ +[[!meta title="Speedcubing in Emacs"]] +[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 2023 Vasilij "wasamasa" Schneidermann"]] +[[!inline pages="internal(2023/info/cubing-nav)" raw="yes"]] + +<!-- Initially generated with emacsconf-publish-talk-page and then left alone for manual editing --> +<!-- You can manually edit this file to update the abstract, add links, etc. ---> + + +# Speedcubing in Emacs +Vasilij "wasamasa" Schneidermann (he/him) - Pronunciation: [vɐˈsʲilʲɪj] [vazamaza] [ˈʃnaɪ̯dɐman], IRC: wasamasa, Website: <https://emacsninja.com> Fediverse: @wasamasa@lonely.town, <mailto:mail@vasilij.de> + +[[!inline pages="internal(2023/info/cubing-before)" raw="yes"]] + +Emacs is well-known for its kitchen-sink nature and sheer extensibility. +However, its utility for tasks beyond text manipulation is still +disputed. While it is possible to do most of your computing inside +Emacs, the existing solutions are of varying quality. Sometimes it is +necessary to create a custom solution tailored to one's personal needs +and I believe Emacs to be a worthwhile platform for this. + +In this talk I present my journey of building a package to assist me +with speedcubing, a competitive sport with the goal of solving the +Rubik's Cube as fast as possible. Along with a demo, useful Emacs +features and challenges that came up during development will be shown. + + +# Discussion + +## Questions and answers + +- Q: I see that there is a way to document the time it took to + complete the puzzle; however, what about other things such as the + date and time, and potentially a note on technique or warm up + routine etc? It seems like an interface that included these things + would also help people who are practicing and trying to improve. It + would help answer the question... what kinds of things do I need to + do to improve. ;;Thank you for your answer. + - A: Currently, only the timestamp and completion time are + recorded for the puzzle/label. However, I've looked at + twisty-timer and it does record both the used scramble and a + comment field as well, so I plan adding those once the other + features work properly. This would allow keeping track of + particularly good/bad solves for example. +- Q: As a side-note, could you say something about how you use emacs + to help with your cybersecurity or CTF actifivities? Are there some + recommended packages or do you use all of your own templates and + procedures to speed your activity? Maybe just post a link to your + homepage or GH repositories. + - A: It's pretty much only Org usage to document my activities in + a way that I know what I did 3 weeks ago and can pick up my + research from then. I do not use Emacs for source code review + specifically (depending on the target environment, there are + better suited tools). The thing with the field is that often, + one has to resort to work with whatever tools are at hand and to + make the most of them, which is kind of at odds with using Emacs + first and foremost as an integrated environment for everything. + Other than Org, I use it as an editor for pretty much any + programming language I encounter. +- Q: What are the biggest challenges to using transient? + - A: The documentation was very high-level compared to what I'm + used to, so I had to skim it a lot to find out how to use it for + basic tasks. I think it would be useful to have some slightly + more hands-on examples for common tasks. One issue I've run + into a few times was the code using generic functions, so it was + difficult to debug errors (like using a non-interactive lambda + form when a command was expected and getting an unhelpful error + message). + - <https://github.com/positron-solutions/transient-showcase> + might be helpful. + - Definitely, but as I've remarked in the talk, the + examples felt very "generic". Slightly more realistic + examples would make it even better. +- Q: Very cool project. Alas I'm not a cuber, so my question is + merely, what did you learn in the process of making this + presentation? + - A: I've never recorded a demo video happening outside of my + laptop before, so getting the external recording setup right + was... fun. It involved a ladder, several cardboard boxes and + my phone. After five attempts (one of which ended up with the + cube rolling off the desk loudly), I finally got an okayish + recording to use for the presentation. +- Q: Does svg.el support tap events? + - A: svg.el is only responsible for generating valid SVG documents + and one can put whichever tags/attributes there they wish. From + my understanding, anything interactive usually solved with JS in + the browser would need to be rewritten using Emacs Lisp instead. + Tap events for example could be solved with the ":map" + property put on the image and would work for other image formats + than SVG as well. + +Notes + +- There's probably quite a few cubers in here. =) I tend to average 50s on 3x3, the kiddo is usually a bit faster. +- I've recently got a 45s best with LBL +- I have some code in my config to draw last-layer diagrams as SVGs and an Org link thing like #+LINK: pll https://alg.cubing.net/?stage=PLL&type=alg&setup=x_y_z&view=playback&alg=%s to link to algs quickly; https://sachachua.com/blog/2023/02/using-org-babel-to-learn-rubik-s-cube-algorithms/ + - speaker: ah yes, I've had the idea to try out roofpig or cubing.js for doing that in org documents, nice to see it has been done before +- FWIW transient just had a v0.5.0 release which adds and fixes things. It continues to improve thanks to tarsius's tireless work. +- i'm glad you're exploring Emacs UI wasamasa , i've also been confounded trying to write a transient, and its nice to see that sqlite is working for ya +- to be fair, I've considered to just stick to my usual approach of writing boring code that does work on as many machines as possible, but there were so many new features that would help making a nice looking and working package that I decided to just depend on emacs 29.1 + +[[!inline pages="internal(2023/info/cubing-after)" raw="yes"]] + +[[!inline pages="internal(2023/info/cubing-nav)" raw="yes"]] + + |