• "EasyMotion provides a much simpler way to use some motions in vim. It takes the <number> out of <number>w or <number>f{char} by highlighting all possible choices and allowing you to press one key to jump directly to the target." This is very clever.
    (tags: vim editor plugin motion )
  • "Fountain is a plain text markup language for screenwriting." More plaintext formats for writing in. This is good.
    (tags: markup screenwriting plaintext )
  • "When I'm evaluating entrepreneurs and their ideas, I look for "innovation bipolarity," a version of F. Scott Fitzgerald's first-rate intelligence: "the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." Entrepreneurs should be able to argue passionately that their idea will change the world, and then, without skipping a beat, honestly assess the risks standing in the way of its success and describe what they are doing to mitigate them."
    (tags: innovation passion business )
  • "I wanted to make the ship move, and I wanted to make it speak, and I wanted to speak back to it, with it, together. To make something." The poetry of creation is important. Also, @shipadrift is lovely, but you already knew that.
    (tags: bots codedspace jamesbridle stml shipadrift )
  • More useful vim stuff.
    (tags: editor vim tips development )
  • "In my forthcoming book Alien Phenomenology, at the start of the chapter on Carpentry (my name for making things that do philosophy), I talk about the chasm between academic writing (writing to have written) and authorship (writing to have produced something worth reading). But there's another aspect to being an author, one that goes beyond writing at all: book-making. Creating the object that is a book, that will have a role in someone's life—in their hands or their purses, around their mail, in between their fingers. Now, in this age of lowest common denominator digital and POD editions, it's time to stop writing books and to start making them." I am not totally sure I buy all of Bogost's argument, but I like his points explaining the role of artefacts. However, POD is weirder than he gives it credit.
    (tags: ianbogost books pod making )
  • "[Was shooting The Artist very different to making a 'regular' movie?] No, it’s a regular picture. The only difference is, there is no boom mic. And the story is not being told by what comes out of your mouth. If you want to tell the story, the story being the narrative, not the plot—the plot’s fairly simple—but if you want to tell the narrative, then you have to be concise with your reaction, and let the reaction get into your body and your face in a way you don’t necessarily do when you have dialogue, because the dialogue takes care of that." James Cromwell interview by the AV Club. I enjoyed this line especially.
    (tags: jamescromwell avclub interview film acting )
  • Really good look at getting your head around vim from Mislav. Especially on the money with regard to starting slow, and adding things as you need them. The worst thing you can do is _start_ with somebody else's .vim files.
    (tags: vim programming editor learning )

Jakarta Velocity bundle for Textmate

13 July 2006

Problem: there’s no Velocity (VTL) bundle for Textmate.

Solution: write one yourself.

I’m currently working on a basic Velocity bundle for Textmate. We use it as a templating language at work, and, let’s face it, Textmate is an awesome editor with many, many ways to make your life easier. Given that it’s listed as a bundle people might be interested in… I’d better get started on it, right?

If you’re interested, leave a comment or drop me an email. So far I’ve got some basic function and syntax highlighting, along with autocompletion of some common constructs. Once it’s more finalised – and has been built in accordance to the VTL spec, not just the way I write it, I’ll start putting out releases.

(And if none of this makes much sense: Velocity/VTL is a templating language for Java web-apps. It’s one of the least sucky Java templating languages, apparently, but it’s not as mature of fully-featured as, say, Smarty.)

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