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Where should mailing list replies go?

John Billings writes:

I'd also like to change it so that when you hit reply the messge
goes to the list and not the sender.

Although this is common behavior, there are good reasons to consider
keeping the current setting of not overriding Reply-To. This is a
fairly religious topic thoroughly covered in the following pages:

Keeping Reply-To intact:

Overriding Reply-To:

(Not that number should indicate anything, but the pages are
interesting in themselves.)

Here are the reasons why I think not overriding Reply-To: makes sense
for this community.

The Mail-Followup-To: header is often used to redirect a thread to
another, more appropriate mailing list. For example, if something on
the admin mailing list becomes of general interest, then you could add
a Mail-Followup-To: header that automatically redirects replies to
that message to, say, the people mailing list. On the other hand, if
the admin mailing list overrides Reply-to: and no one distinguishes
between Reply and Followup, then people would have to make a conscious
effort to post to the right mailing list.

Also, discarding the Reply-To: set by the user loses information and
makes it difficult to send off-list replies to people whose
originating addresses may not be the same as their preferred address.
This is the case when people have multiple e-mail addresses subscribed
or recognized so that they can send mail from anywhere, but prefer
receiving all their list mail through one account (gmail, for example,
so that it can be archived nicely).

Many mailing lists choose to override the Reply-To: in order to
accommodate people who don't distinguish between Reply and Follow-Up,
but the distinction makes it much easier for people who are used to
making conscious decisions to reply on or off list. Your mail client
should have a separate command for Follow up, which you can use for
replying to mailing lists. I recommend keeping the current setting for
NIPL mailing lists.

More thoughts about home

| philippines, plans

ka edong is right. we do what we can. but coming back to the
philippines? i dunno. opportunities are not as plenty in the
philippines as in, say, the us, canada, australia or japan.
especially in my field (chemistry). how am i expected to do science
if i have to think what i'll eat tomorrow? and what of instrument
and equipment? i only want to do science, and where ever there is an
opportunity, i'll go there. your desire to help the philippines by
going back is great. i admire that. tell me that again after five
years, and i'll admire you more. –

I've heard some people can do six months in one country and six months
in the other. In fact, it works quite well: skip winter, skip really
hot summers… If you're important enough to a lab or company that
they'll let you do that, or you run your own business, then that's
very doable.

Sometimes it's not about exploring the limits of what you can do for
yourself, but rather finding out how you can improve as many people's
lives as possible. In the process of finding out how to apply what you
know to people's lives, you might find that you can go farther and
faster than you imagined.

I like computer science, but I don't want only to do computer science.
I want to help people learn life management and communication skills,
and technology is just a way for me to do that.

Let's use a better example. You'd think biotechnology would be
something needing millions of dollars in lab equipment, right? But
technopreneur Maoi Arroyo's not in some comfy lab in MIT or Cambridge.
She's out there, jumpstarting the Philippine biotech industry by
helping people commercialize their discoveries—while remaining hooked
into the global scene, jetsetting and making deals with people
overseas. Not bad for someone in her twenties.

But technology and science are different, you might argue. Science is
a pursuit of knowledge for knowledge's sake. Let's look at Kendra
Castillo, taking up her master's in environmental management at UP.
She may not have the supersensitive equipment or the finegrained
meteorological data available in other countries, but there are _real_
questions still addressable by the lab she joined. The lack of
resources forces her to be more resourceful and inventive. It's
frustrating to deal with incomplete data and broken equipment, but
that only opens up more questions to tackle through research.

The only limits are those we set ourselves. Sure, the Philippines may
not have given us much. It may not give us opportunities to be highly
paid for doing exactly what we do. But the secret to success is
realizing that we _make_ our opportunities. We determine our future.

I want to make the Philippines better and I am willing to devote time
and effort to doing this. Just words for now. I'm naive and
idealistic, perhaps. But I know older, more accomplished people who
are doing just that. They're bridging the divide through their
efforts. They care about nationbuilding. Through their initiatives,
they create jobs and wealth and _meaning_ for people who are just
waiting for opportunities to come their way.

It's not too late to discover how you can make a difference. All you
have to do is try.

Not the only one

| issues, philippines

It's great to know that I'm not the only one who thinks loving one's
country isn't passe. From a chat with
Jijo:

 Hey Sacha! How are things in Canada? I just read your
              entry on coming back home to the Philippines. Very very
              very positive attitude! If more progressive people like
              you (and me!) thought more about what we can do for this
              country than merely what it can do for us, I'm sure it
              wouldn't be in the rut it is now. We have a lot of work
              to do, but as early as now, brava! :)
 Awww... =)
 Things are fine in Canada, although I _really_ need to find
         other Filipinos who care about the Philippines and don't go
         on and on about the Good Life here or say things like "You
         know, I was also patriotic when I was young..."
 Yeah.
 I read the "Walang Kwenta Ang Pilipinas" email that's been going around.
 I couldn't finish it because I found that it just said
              too much of the obvious and the wrong. We all know we're
              in a rut, and just writing about the rut we're in
              doesn't solve things.
 Your blog entry, though short, inspired me. Knowing that
              I have like-minded colleagues like you give me the
              strength to continue standing up for this country,
              amidst the exodus of professionals and the shit that our
              politicians just keep ramming down our throats.
 I hope you find more like-minded people there. The
              feeling of being the only one can be very discouraging.

Ka Edong of Technobiography
also wrote, “There's a lot to be done for the Philippines. We do what
we can.”

Awww. =)

I want to find other Filipinos in Toronto who are passionate about
nationbuilding and who believe we can do something even from this
distance.

I know people like that can exist outside the country. I mean, if
MIT has enough people to start MIT PESO,
why not UToronto?

Working with Emacs

| development, emacs, free and open source

A recent post on the Philippine Linux Users' Group suggested a
separate plug-emacs mailing lists for all the Emacs messages that have
popped up recently. The suggester said:

There is a
difference between discussion and stroking each other's ego. :)

Working with Emacs is a humbling experience. It brings you face to
face with accumulated centuries of developers' work. Emacs involves
people in its development to an unusual extent. Working with vi and
even Eclipse made me feel more like a user than a co-developer.
Working with Emacs made me feel part of the community, even when I was
still struggling to make sense of the parentheses.

If in that sense, Emacs worship is considered ego-stroking, then sure,
I'm guilty. I can't help but express my appreciation for one of those
things that has really changed my life and made free, open source
software really meaningful to me. For the culture, really, that made
it possible. It's a piece of software, but it's also a conversation
with so many developers around the world.

To newbies: if you're curious about the thrills of open source
development and you want a nice, easy way to get started, why not try
modifying Emacs? It's easy to pick up. All the source code is there,
and you can modify it on the fly. We've had complete non-programmers
try it out and fall in love with programming. They get thrilled when
they share their tweaks and other people respond with comments and
suggestions. This is good stuff. Try it out. =)

I suppose Emacs is off-topic. After all, it's cross-platform, not
Linux-specific. I could easily be extolling the wonders of Emacs on
Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, or BSD. Emacs doesn't require Linux.
(Neither does Apache, but you don't see people waxing lyrical about
web servers that often, do you?) The flood of Emacs-related posts that
deluge the list whenever someone unwittingly brings up the topic is
probably incomprehensible to people who've never tried Emacs or tried
Emacs as just an editor and didn't like it.

Still, I want to share what makes open source real for me. Not kernel
hacking, which is still too intimidating despite the existence of
projects like kernel-janitor. Not network or system administration,
which I don't have the patience to do. Just the free and flexible
customization of something I use everyday and the thrill of sharing
these customizations with other people in a community that spans the
world.

I guess that's why I post on PLUG instead of plug-misc. I don't think
PLUG should just be a venue for asking and answering technical
questions, but also for sharing nifty hacks and examples of how far a
Linux system can be pushed. Other people push their systems in terms
of hardware and services. I push mine in terms of how well it can fit
me, how well it can anticipate my needs.

I want to stroke other people's egos. I want people to discover how
they can contribute to free and open source software, to experience
the thrill of seeing their code out there and being used. Open source
development isn't just for PHP wizards or C freaks who can contribute
to existing projects or launch an entirely new project on their own.
Maybe—just maybe!—people who thought themselves just users of a text
editor will be inspired to think about how they can start customizing
their own.

clair ching says:

I can't help but agree with you. Emacs is the way that I
appreciated FOSS more compared to GNU/Linux per se. Why? It's because
I easily felt part of the community of Emacs users and hackers on the
Emacs Wiki. That kind of interaction makes it less scary for newbies,
IMHO. I mean, not all people on the Emacs Wiki are very friendly, I
suppose, but the ones I have interacted with as I was learning to use
various tools and modes available showed me that I can do something
for the FOSS community, which is to write about what I learn. I don't
even know ELISP but at least I know that my blog entries are helpful
to others too. =)

I guess we have been too giddy over Emacs on the PLUG mailing list
that is why someone suggested that. Well, I know I have always been
giddy about it but I can't help myself! ^_^ Emacs is wonderful…

Besides there are so many hacks in Emacs that make FOSS usage,
learning and advocacy so much fun! Like the Planner mode that allows
me to somewhat organize my life, my thoughts, my schedule. Eshell
allows me to do some things without opening a separate terminal. In
Planner, I also store my notes on advocacy and my blog entry drafts. I
also listen to music on Emacs. And when something goes wrong on
whatever mode I am using, I can email the maintainer immediately, to
tell him/her what happened so that the bug can be fixed, etc. I try to
be as detailed as possible when I do that. So I guess that is my
contribution. =)

In any case, I also enjoy the company of people using Emacs, not just
because we talk about Emacs but because I am learning so much about
you guys =)

Hipster PDA: Waste of paper?

| emacs

An insightful but anonymous person wrote in:

Not sure if anyone else has mentioned this, but even though the
HipsterPDA is excellent for notetaking etc., it really is a waste of
paper!

“My notes and to dos are NOT a waste” I hear you cry. But that’s not
what I’m referring to. I’m referring to using ONE index card for
writing a phone number, or an address, or a task. When this
information is then transferred to the necessary electronic or paper
area, the card is thrown in the trash – what a waste!

I apologise to those of you who recycle your cards, but from the many
articles, comments I’ve read re: HipsterPDA, most people just trash
the card and that’s it.

I’m not a great fan of the digital world, but this disrespect for
paper (and ultimately the rainforests) is just not on.

Hmm. Good point. Index cards require more processing than cheap paper
notebooks do. I like the feel of heavy paper, and index cards require
more chemicals and raw material than paper notebooks do.

I use one index card for all my notes regarding a meeting (and
sometimes two if I need to segregate topics or spill over). I throw
the card away after I get the data into my Planner. I don’t really use
my index cards for keeping track of tasks, as most of my tasks so far
have been computer-related. My deck of index cards is really more for
jotting down notes, making quick sketches, or giving information to
other people.

I feel the trade-off is justified. I work better with index cards. A
pack of 100 or 500 index cards is a small price to pay if it helps me
keep track of things I should do or little nuggets of information I
should pass onto other people.

Even if you multiply that by all the billions of people in the world,
as long as they use their index cards to help themselves keep track of
things worth keeping track of, then I think that’s a net win for the
earth.

Conservation is important, but it is not enough to see the evil in
little things. We make a lot of choices that cost the environment.
Food. Clothes. Housing and furniture. Should we stop eating because
cooking by gas or electricity uses a lot of energy from non-renewable
sources and the amount of waste going on in fast food places and
restaurants is staggering? Should we stop patronizing bookstores
because the vast majority of books don’t get read and reused? Should
we take our fingers off our keyboards now in protest against the way
computers contribute to environmental problems? Should we take direct
steps to end the world’s population problem? We make choices.

In this case, I think my pack of index cards is certainly worth it. I
respect paper, which is why I write down things that are worth writing
down. I respect trees. I really, really like trees, and wish we had
more in the city.

After I fill up the card and store it somewhere, I won’t be able to
use it a lot. I could write on my cards with a pencil and erase my
writing until the card falls apart, but my time and the earth’s time
isn’t worth that.

It’s good to look for ways to save the environment. Reduce, reuse and
recycle. However, don’t lose sight of the forest for the trees. Little
things matter, but if they help you do better things, then maybe it’s
worth it. You just need to make sure that what you’re doing is worth
the cost.

It’s one more thing to add to the pile of recyclable material (not
that garbage is really segregated in this country), one more problem
contributing to the death of the earth, but it’s something I choose to
use. Not that this is going to convince hard-core environmentalists
that I’m not a selfish, evil person, but at least I know and take
responsibility for my choice.

E-Mail from Richi’s server

Software Freedom Day

| free and open source

1. Why Sept. 10? What’s the significance of that date?

Hehe… well, that wss the day that Open Minds (now the Opensource
Technology Association of the Philippines) declared “war” on
Microsoft in a press conference back in 2002.

Note that the Software Freedom Day, worldwide, strongly discourages
bashing of any companies or individuals. Including Microsoft.

It’s not about war. It’s about freedom.

For consumers, it could be as simple as the freedom to take advantage
of freely-available quality software that they might not know about.
Tell your friends about Mozilla Firefox, GAIM, GIMP, and other neat
programs that run on even Microsoft Windows.

For students and hobbyists, it could be the freedom to participate in
world-wide projects and make a difference not only through code but
also through equally valuable efforts like art, translation, and
documentation.

For companies, it could be the freedom to deploy best-of-breed
solutions without having to allocate budget for yearly licensing.

This is your opportunity to show people what they can do. Listen to
their needs and help them find answers.

Most people don’t care about being anti-Microsoft. If people think
that the best arguments we can make for Free software is that it’s not
Microsoft and it doesn’t cost a thing, then we’re even further from
Freedom than we thought.

On teaching programming

Posted: - Modified: | education

why do I have to write all this syntactic sugar to just do the canonical “Hello, world”?

I firmly believe that the canonical “Hello, world” program is one of
the worst ways to introduce Java, or even programming in general.

I like BlueJ. It’s a nice, clean, object-oriented environment that
immediately visualizes the difference between objects and classes and
allows students to interact with objects before they even see Java
code. I like the way BlueJ lets you interact with complex systems,
learning about control structures and logic along the way.

A popular Python tutorial starts with using Python as a calculator
instead of just getting it to print strings. Isn’t that a great way
for people to see how immediately useful a programming language can
be?

I wouldn’t start an Emacs Lisp tutorial with (print “Hello, world!”).
I would start it by taking a look at an existing function and
modifying it.

Languages should not all be taught the same way. Just because we might
have learned with “Hello, world” doesn’t mean that “Hello, world” is
the best way to learn how to program. I think there are better ways to
teach computer science, and I want to spend a fairly significant chunk
of my life looking for them.

You can, too. Just remember that you can improve on the way things
have always been done.

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