For some weird reason, Emacs started opening some Html files using
html-helper-mode on my Ubuntu 11.04. I have never used nor installed
this package and don't really know how it got here. My problem is that
the package isn't properly installed. From what I can see there's only
one file /etc/emacs/site-start.d/50html-helper-mode.el trying to load
the mode but the mode isn't there. When I open html files
html-helper-mode is sometime used instead of html-mode and fails to
load. In order to fix the problem you have two solutions. You can
either install html-helper-mode using sudo apt-get install
html-helper-mode or you can comment or remove 50html-helper-mode.el.
If you have an explanation, please share.

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Python provide some functional programming features. However, the return value of a function has to be explicit. You have to use the keyword return in order to tell the function to return a value. Else, the function will return None. In some languages, the last value of a function is the return value. I like this behavior and I would like to have that in Python too. It turns out, that it's possible to modify the language by hacking the code AST (abstract syntaxe tree). The code below transforms the last expression of a function into a return.

from compiler.ast import *
import compiler, inspect

def modify(f, alter):
    "Modify function f using alter and make the new function available"
    # get code and modify
    raw = compiler.parse(inspect.getsource(f))
    raw.node.nodes[0].getChildren()[5].nodes = alter(raw.node.nodes[0].getChildren()[5].nodes)
    # generate
    compiler.misc.set_filename("temp", raw)
    expr = compiler.pycodegen.ExpressionCodeGenerator(raw).getCode()
    eval(expr, f.func_globals)

def hack(nodes):
    "Transform the last node of the AST into a return"
    newnodes = []
    for node in nodes:
        newnodes += [node]
    last = newnodes[-1]
    if "Discard" in str(last):
        newnodes[-1] = Return(last.getChildren()[0])
    return newnodes

def square(x):
    x*x

modify(square, hack)
print square(3)

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I've been using emacs for nearly 10 years. Here are my favorite features in no particular order:

dired-mode is a mode to manage files and folders. It allows you to list the content of folders, mark files and do operations on them. The most common commands  (copy, move, chmod...) are accessible via bindings. And in order to execute more specific commands it's possible to enter a program name and arguments. The classic bindings like C-s work and for example, you can rename files using the search and replace command.

org-mode is a mode for todo list and agenda. I use it to organise my projects and save important information. The main advantage of this system is that it makes hierarchical lists editing very easy. It also allows you to count time spent on projects.

vc-* commands offer access to the main version control systems (svn, git, hg...) inside emacs. You can view the differences between versions of a file inside a buffer or check the change log of a file. Another cool thing is the vc-dired command. It lists the files of a repository and allows you to execute commands (commit, diff...) on a selection of files.

tramp is a system to open files on remote server using popular protocols like ssh or ftp. Once the file is opened, the buffer acts like a normal buffer. Saving the file will send the content of the file to the server and may feel a little slow. In order to use tramp, just type /protocol:user@example.com when you open a file. There is a wide list of protocols ssh, ftp...

Having hundred of files opened at once is another really cool thing about emacs. Instead of having to search files in directories, I open all the files I need and never kill any buffer. I have around 300 files opened and when I need something, I just selected a buffer using ido-mode. In order to improve the matching mechanism, you can turn ido-enable-flex-matching on and enable uniquify.

Emacs has a highly configurable user interface and you can get rid of all the pieces you don't use. I've personally removed all I could (no scrollbars, menus or toolbars). The result is more space for what you're working on. Finally, Emacs environment is dynamically editable with elisp. It makes hacking commands easy and fun.

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Les clients de Bouygues Télécom ont accès via le site internet de Bouygues à un service gratuit d'envoi de sms. Chaque jour, on peut envoyer jusqu'à 5 messages vers n'importe quel numéro. Cependant l'interface web est assez décourageante. Il y a de nombreuses étapes avant d'accéder au service et les pages se chargent lentement. Pour faciliter son utilisation, j'ai écrit un script python qui offre une interface en ligne de commande.

Python offre de nombreux modules pour contrôler une interface web. J'ai décidé d'utiliser mechanize qui permet l'accès à des pages ssl. Le script est disponible sur github. Pour envoyer un SMS, il suffit d'appeler la fonction smsservice avec votre identifiant, le destinataire et votre message. Ce script a été écrit il y a plus de 6 mois et il est possible que des modifications soient nécessaires pour le faire fonctionner. 

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Org-mode is a great todo and agenda application. It's possible to use it to clock how much time you spend on a task. I've been clocking my work for a few months using org-mode. I love that I can get a summary of how much time I have spent on each stuff I do. However, it's difficult to see how much time you spend daily. You have to look at each clock entry and sum the durations. Not very friendly. My idea was to chart the hours spent per day. You put the cursor on any task and you get a bar chart showing you how much time was spent per day.

It's turning this:

*** project1
**** task1
     CLOCK: [2010-11-20 Sun 19:42]--[2010-11-20 Sun 20:14] =>  0:32
     CLOCK: [2010-11-20 Sun 18:54]--[2010-11-20 Sun 19:24] =>  0:30
     CLOCK: [2010-11-20 Sun 17:25]--[2010-11-20 Sun 17:40] =>  0:15
     CLOCK: [2010-11-20 Sun 15:07]--[2010-11-20 Sun 15:45] =>  0:38
     CLOCK: [2010-11-20 Sun 10:06]--[2010-11-20 Sun 12:37] =>  2:31
     CLOCK: [2010-11-19 Sat 17:21]--[2010-11-19 Sat 19:33] =>  2:12
     CLOCK: [2010-11-19 Sat 14:52]--[2010-11-19 Sat 16:53] =>  2:01
     CLOCK: [2010-11-18 Fri 17:45]--[2010-11-18 Fri 18:27] =>  0:42
     CLOCK: [2010-11-18 Fri 11:17]--[2010-11-18 Fri 15:20] =>  4:03
**** task2
    :LOGBOOK:
    CLOCK: [2010-11-19 Sat 12:51]--[2010-11-19 Sat 14:52] =>  2:01
    CLOCK: [2010-11-18 Fri 17:08]--[2010-11-18 Fri 17:45] =>  0:37
    CLOCK: [2010-11-18 Fri 11:17]--[2010-11-18 Fri 11:17] =>  0:00
    CLOCK: [2010-11-17 Thu 12:40]--[2010-11-17 Thu 13:05] =>  0:25
    CLOCK: [2010-11-17 Thu 10:16]--[2010-11-17 Thu 11:58] =>  1:42
    CLOCK: [2010-11-16 Wed 19:32]--[2010-11-16 Wed 20:29] =>  0:57
    CLOCK: [2010-11-16 Wed 14:06]--[2010-11-16 Wed 16:04] =>  1:58
    CLOCK: [2010-11-16 Wed 11:55]--[2010-11-16 Wed 13:00] =>  1:05
    CLOCK: [2010-11-15 Tue 16:32]--[2010-11-15 Tue 17:59] =>  1:27
    CLOCK: [2010-11-15 Tue 10:55]--[2010-11-15 Tue 12:27] =>  1:32
    CLOCK: [2010-11-14 Mon 18:05]--[2010-11-14 Mon 19:52] =>  1:47
    CLOCK: [2010-11-14 Mon 16:10]--[2010-11-14 Mon 17:46] =>  1:36
    CLOCK: [2010-11-14 Mon 14:40]--[2010-11-14 Mon 15:24] =>  0:44
    CLOCK: [2010-11-14 Mon 09:50]--[2010-11-14 Mon 11:34] =>  1:44
    CLOCK: [2010-11-13 Sun 22:22]--[2010-11-13 Sun 23:17] =>  0:55
    CLOCK: [2010-11-13 Sun 15:23]--[2010-11-13 Sun 18:56] =>  3:33
    CLOCK: [2010-11-12 Sat 14:25]--[2010-11-12 Sat 17:08] =>  2:43
    CLOCK: [2010-11-11 Fri 19:25]--[2010-11-11 Fri 19:52] =>  0:27
    CLOCK: [2010-11-11 Fri 15:30]--[2010-11-11 Fri 18:15] =>  2:45
    CLOCK: [2010-11-11 Fri 10:26]--[2010-11-11 Fri 12:26] =>  2:00
    CLOCK: [2010-11-10 Thu 15:12]--[2010-11-10 Thu 18:49] =>  3:37
    CLOCK: [2010-11-10 Thu 10:08]--[2010-11-10 Thu 12:42] =>  2:34
    CLOCK: [2010-11-09 Wed 22:18]--[2010-11-10 Thu 00:13] =>  1:55
    CLOCK: [2010-11-09 Wed 15:09]--[2010-11-09 Wed 15:59] =>  0:50
    CLOCK: [2010-11-09 Wed 14:05]--[2010-11-09 Wed 14:50] =>  0:45
    :END:

Into this:

Behind the scene, I've used Google chart api, and a few lines of emacs lisp. If you like that, copy the code below in your .emacs and bind a key to org-chart-clocks-current-item (define-key org-mode-map [f4] 'org-chart-clocks-current-item).

(defun org-time-delta-seconds (time-string seconds)

  (format-time-string

   "%Y-%m-%d"

   (seconds-to-time

    (+ (org-float-time (apply 'encode-time

     (org-parse-time-string time-string)))

       seconds))))

(defun org-list-clocks-current-item ()

  "Extract clocked hours per day of current item"

  (save-excursion

    (save-restriction

      (org-narrow-to-subtree)

      (goto-char (point-max))

      (let ((re (concat "^[ \t]*" org-clock-string

"[ \t]*\\(?:\\[\\([0-9-]+\\).*?\\]-+\\(\\[.*?\\]\\)\\|=>[ \t]+\\([0-9]+\\):\\([0-9]+\\)\\)"))

   (one-day (* 3600 24)))

(re-search-backward re nil t)

(setq match (match-string 2)

     ts (substring match 1 11)

     te (org-time-delta-seconds match one-day)

     res '()

     dates '())

(while (< (org-float-time

  (apply 'encode-time(org-parse-time-string ts)))

 (org-float-time (current-time)))

 (org-clock-sum ts te)

 (setq res (cons (/ org-clock-file-total-minutes 60.0) res)

dates (cons (substring ts 8 10) dates))

 (setq ts te

te (org-time-delta-seconds ts one-day)))

(list dates res)))))

(defun org-chart-clocks-current-item ()

  "Request a Google Chart with the clocked time of the current item."

  (interactive)

  (let* ((x (org-list-clocks-current-item))

(dates (reverse (car x)))

(res (reverse (cadr x)))

(active-days (length (remove-if (lambda (x) (= x 0)) res)))

(sum-hours (reduce (lambda (a b) (+ a b)) res)))

    (browse-url (format "http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chxl=1:|%s&chxr=0,0,8|1,0,105&chxt=y,x&chbh=15&chs=600x400&cht=bvg&chco=80C65A&chds=0,8&chd=t:%s&chg=0,25,0,0&chma=|5,10&chtt=Clocked+Activity+(%d+days,+%d+hours)&chm=h,FF0000,0,%f,1"

     (mapconcat (lambda (x) x) dates "|")

     (mapconcat (lambda (x) (format "%s" x)) res  ",")

     active-days

     sum-hours

     (/ sum-hours active-days 8)))))

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I started using lisp a few years ago when I wanted to configure the hell out of emacs. After understanding lisp better thanks to some great videos,I built my own lisp interpreter. After two days of work, I had a somewhat working system. The interpreter is not complete however it runs some basic expressions. I guess the code is interesting for CS students trying to understand lisp better. There aren't much comments in the source code but the logic is split into small functions. It shouldn't be too difficult to read. First the lisp string is turned into a list that is passed to the eval-apply cycle and voila.

You can get the source code and add issues on the Google Code page.

Examples of what you can evaluate

(defun fact (x) (if (<= x 1) 1 (* x (fact (- x 1)))))
(fact 5)

Reverse a list

(defun reverse- (x r)
(if (not (car x)) r (reverse- (cdr x) (cons (car x) r))))
(defun reverse (x) (reverse- x (list)))
(reverse (list 1 2 3 4))

Map a list

(defun mapcar (x f)
(if (not (car x)) (list) (cons (f (car x)) (mapcar (cdr x) f))))
(mapcar (list 1 2 3) (lambda (x) (* x x)))

Here's what you can use

More javascript lisp interpreters

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print_r prints human-readable information about a variable.

The source code is available on github. 

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I have built a bunch of Ubiquity commands.

• Purify Page gets rid of all the images and flash contents of the current page. Turns the page black and white.
• Ubiquity Gmail Messages shows up to 9 of your most recent unread messages. Press ALT+number to open a message in gmail.
• Holiday Calendar shows you the current and the next month plus all the localized holidays. The current day is highlighted.
• Multi Search is a specific sites search with preview using Bing. Here are the commands you can use: python, django, php, javascript, w3.org, jquery. Press ALT+number to open a result in a new tab.

Google code page

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Dired-mode is my only file manager and every once in a while I copy large files. It causes emacs to freeze for a few minutes. The copying is done by copy-file. It's the low level function blocking emacs. I first tried to replace it with dired-do-async-shell-command. I told my script to use the shell's cp command asynchronously. It worked well when copying 1 file but with 2+ files, I got a prompt asking me if I want to kill the running shell. I decided to go with a simpler solution:

- select some files
- press !
- type cp * /path-to-dest/ &

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