LISP's non-C-style syntax has something for everyone! For LISP users, they don't have to use C-style syntax. For non-LISP users, they can pretend that the reason they don't use LISP is something silly like the syntax, instead of admitting that they're too committed to their existing thought model of programming.

If you don't want to use LISP, that's totally fine with me. There is a beautiful diversity of programming languages out there (and even if you want to use C/C++/Java, that's still perfectly wonderful, keep at it you brilliant prince). Claiming that the language is deficient because of its syntax means you're missing something, unless you have a proposal for an alternate syntax that is still homoiconic. Let me know!

(destructuring-bind (a b (c d)) '(1 (2 3) (4 (5 6)))
    "Should be 1 (2 3) 4 (5 6)"
    (list a b c d))

The Property List Editor (plist editor for Mac) is at

/Developer/Applications/Utilities/Property List Editor.app

You get it when you install Xcode.

Mac environment variables are set by adding them to

  ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist.

Don't add an entry for $PATH there, though. I'm still reeling from that.

To convert to/from hexidecimal in emacs, it's advised to use M-x calculator instead of M-x calc. The single-quote key (M-x calculator-rotate-displayer) will eventually get you to the point that you're outputting with the correct formatter (instead of scientific notation). Then:

• H to switch to hex i/o
  
• C-y to yank a hex number in
  
• D to switch to decimal
  
• M-x calculator-copy to copy the number
  
• backspace to clear the number from calculator
  

Then it's just on the killring and you can C-x o over and yank it.

Reverse the lines in a pipe with

( cat -n | sort -nr | cut -f 2- )

I hear there's something called 'tac' to do this, but I don't have it on my Mac (and can't find it in ports).

The gcc argument to print out all the preprocessor macros and their
definitions is -E -dD. (The -E is 'preprocess only and output to
stdout', the -dD is 'dump definitions'.) Make sure that
-fmessage-length is not set to 0 and probably you don't want -quiet
either if you're doing this inside Xcode.

# simple git pre-commit hook to prevent checkins of stuff marked @NOCHECKIN
if test "$(git diff --cached | grep ^\+.*@NOCHECKIN)"
then
 echo "@NOCHECKIN detected"
 exit 1
fi

On MacOS / iPhone OS, NSNotificationCenter is the implementation of
signals/slots, like Boost.Signals.

hi

I'm a dude who writes code and plays around with a lot of different stuff, rarely getting anything done. I remember my thesis advisor had a huge knowledge base that he kept inside emacs, so that whenever he learned anything that was helpful but likely to slip his mind later, he would create a quick little note with as many searchable keywords as possible, so that he could look it up later. As I'm getting older and my memory is getting (more) terrible, I kinda want to do the same thing. Especially as I set up new machines, I keep forgetting how I did something on an old machine, and it's a superbummer.

So, here, I'm going to keep notes tagged with 'ffr' (for future reference) so that I can search all this crap later. Keeping it in emacs would be nice, but there's always the chance that if I'm descriptive enough, it'll help somebody else too.