getting started with org mode in emacs - emacs

I am new to computer science - so far, I have written a kinetic monte carlo simulation in Python and my background is in physics.
I am trying to learn org-mode in emacs, but it seems that I am lacking some very basic knowledge, and I don't know where to start obtaining it.
For example, I don't know exactly what this tutorial is telling me to do from the very beginning:
https://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/orgtutorial_dto.html
How do I "point the Emacs load path to the lisp directory in the Org-mode distribution"
It says:
"Activation
Add the following to your .emacs:"
Where is my .emacs?
I know these are very basic questions.
I understand how to write code to some extent and have written programs in visual basic and java, but I am lacking in some fundamentals of CS. What is the knowledge base I am lacking, and what courses/resources can I use to obtain it?

Related

Tool for testing/grading IPython notebook homeworks

I'll be teaching a scientific computing class with IPython notebook in the next term. Both the course content and the homework will be distributed/returned as IPython notebooks.
I remember that about half a year ago, I had stumbled across a tool designed to hand-in homework as IPython notebook. In my recollection, it had some really nice features such as
tracking of returned homework tasks per student
integrated grading system
auto-testing for errors / code compliance
unit-testing of code segments
auto-grading features based on various metrics (e.g. speed of implementation)
Unfortunately, it seem I never saved the link - anyone seen this or any similar tool?
Writing this question actually made me think about the right buzz-words for my web search - et voila "notebook grading system" gives https://github.com/jupyter/nbgrader right at the top (quite in contrast to "ipython notebook homework tool")!
Sorry for the noise...

Can we check unreal blue script code in code editor?

I just start to learn things about Unreal4, and when I check "Blue print tutorials" I realize that blue print is a kind of combination of unreal script and kismet, only it's visualized. But all the logic and behavior seem to be as same as unreal script, so I'm wondering is there anyway we can use code editor like VS or sublime text to open the blue print source file to code it in a traditional way because as a programmer it's much more faster if we code it directly rather than drag it all over the screen. I bet epic have sort of mid-language behind blue print and translated to visual graphics in the run-time.
If we can't, I can understand all the mid-language codes are generated and followed a strict coding convention. It will be a chaos, if it's open for every one to code it directly.
As I have been learning Unreal4 recently (since March 2016), I have found that I am going to code my logic in C++ and then use the Blueprints for the visual interactions.
Epic does not intend for you to step in between the engine and the Blueprints. I imagine you can if you step in the engine source code yourself, but you are not getting any assistance from Epic to do this and in all my digging to learn how to use this engine, I have not come across efforts to make this possible. The purpose of the Blueprints is for folks without a traditional programming background to help them get started.
I agree with you, programming in Blueprints is a mess to me. Assigning variables and if-then statements are way too much of a mess in Blueprints.

What is a good resource/method for me to learn making Qt GUIs for Perl?

I am decent with Perl, and I've chosen to start learning making GUI interfaces for my Perl programs. That said, I've found it hard to learning how to make a GUI with Qt. I have the bindings from http://code.google.com/p/perlqt4 which seem to be the most recent, but as to how to use them I'm still a bit stumped. All the books and tutorials on the net that I can find are either geared towards using Qt with C++ or with Python.
I'm an absolute Qt beginner and would like to learn how to use it with Perl, but unfortunately the net seems scarce on material for me to use. I can make a GUI design with QtDesigner but don't know how I can fit the code that it generates together with Perl. I can copy the examples from http://code.google.com/p/perlqt4/source/browse/qtgui/examples/tutorial , but those are simple programs withe no accompanying documentation that would allow me to know what is going on or why the code was written that way.
I don't know how Qt or the bindings work but I'd like to learn. Everything that I can find is either obsolete or written for bindings for other languages which I don't understand. I was hoping that some people who've already done this would give me some solid advice or point to some good resources so that I could start learning.
If making a GUI is what you want to do, please consider CitrusPerl that builds on top of wxPerl which is nothing more than a wrapper around wxWidgets. It also makes it very easy to create installers or packagers with the use of Cava Deployment Tools.
TIMTOWTDI
After struggling a further day with the stuff qt4 + perl ..it works in that (stackexchange) way. I use a standard debian wheezy distribution with the packages libqtcore4-perl and libqtgui4-qt etc. Sources from Chris Burel can be found under CPAN or GIT. Regards

Common Lisp; Paradigms of AI Programming examples not working

I got Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming because I've read tons of good reviews about it, but every example have errors, I tried using SBCL and Lispworks on windows 7.
For example, I'm trying to write a scheme interpreter, this file has undefined functions, this file has undefined operators, and this file, there's something wrong with REQUIRE.
Google didn't help, it seems that I'm the only guy having these errors. The book is really amazing but I'm dying to see a working code. would you please copy/paste and see if it works for you? Is it only me who has these kind of errors?
Should i try a Clisp or something? Should i contact the author asking him to correct his code? but he is a director at google now, he won't reply to a stupid guy like me, therefore i'm coming here for help, you can't find lisp experts everywhere
Your problem is that you are treating each file as a stand-alone system. They are not independent, but build on each other.
You need to follow the instructions in the README file you link to instead of loading the individual files.

Emacs for Erlang with vi like keybindings and handy short references?

I have come accross vi-style keybindings for Emacs, but my past experience in mixing Lisp based config in .emacs file for enabling various modes etc., hasn't been very pleasant so far.
Read several articles on Emacs + Erlang, but is there something that might be slightly easier for folks familiar mostly with vi (and who are unfamiliar with Lisp)?
The entire set of possibilities (keybindings) is quite overwhelming. Is there a condensed key-map/shortcuts reference specially relevant for Erlang development?
Just use vi and a command line. There are numerous people doing that and it seems to work just fine for them. Even though I use Emacs, it is not the Emacs-erlang interaction I use. Rather I usually just have a separate Erlang shell and then I load modules in that shell with the l() command for interaction.
Answering your questions one by one:
Debugging in Erlang is funny. Firstly, if your program is kept functional you will find that you need much less debugging to figure out what the program does incorrectly because you can simply write small tests for each of the numerous functions to test its correctness. And you can add those into unit-test frameworks.
As soon as you add multiple processes to the mix you will find that traditional debugging doesn't work anymore anyway. The trick is then to trace and assert, and you will need to learn a way to read programs without running them and see where they go with a debugger.
That said, try to execute debugger:start() in an Erlang shell :) There are also the tracing systems and redbug, a 3rd party tool built on top of them (part of the eper suite).
Profiling can be done with one of the 3-4 profilers: cprof, eprof and fprof are all slightly different in scope and in how much impact they have on your program and if they can be run on a production system or not. I tend to use eprof and I have a knob in my program which will spawn an eprof and then attach it at program start.
Try appmon:start() in a shell.
The standard vi-way of browsing large code bases is to create tags-files so you can jump to the definition point of the thing-under-the-cursor. Emacs can do the same. I have a make tags target to create these files so I can easily make jumps around in the source code. When jumping you have a stack of the former jumps so you can return to the point you jumped from later on.
Finally there are tools like xref which can be worked to create call graphs and find odd things in the code. It will require some coding on your part, but it does provide you with the necessary tooling.
Viper mode provides Vi-style keybindings. That's probably the easiest way to start. Enabling a new mode in your .emacs is a pretty fundamental part of using Emacs, so it's a learning hurdle best cleared early!
The Emacs manual contains more detailed information about making individual changes to your keybindings.
You may find Xah's keybinding tutorial helpful, as it provides many examples.