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Diffstat (limited to 'users/Profpatsch/blog')
| -rw-r--r-- | users/Profpatsch/blog/README.md | 7 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | users/Profpatsch/blog/default.nix | 481 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | users/Profpatsch/blog/notes/an-idealized-conflang.md | 298 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | users/Profpatsch/blog/notes/preventing-oom.md | 33 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | users/Profpatsch/blog/notes/private-trackers-are-markets.md | 46 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | users/Profpatsch/blog/notes/rust-string-conversions.md | 53 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | users/Profpatsch/blog/posts/2017-05-04-ligature-emulation-in-emacs.md | 123 |
7 files changed, 1041 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/users/Profpatsch/blog/README.md b/users/Profpatsch/blog/README.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..0753ebdea542 --- /dev/null +++ b/users/Profpatsch/blog/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +# (Parts of) my website + +This is a part of https://profpatsch.de/, notably the blog posts. + +The other parts can be found in [vuizvui](https://github.com/openlab-aux/vuizvui/tree/master/pkgs/profpatsch/profpatsch.de). It’s a mess. + +And yes, this implements a webserver & routing engine with nix, execline & s6 utils. “Bis einer weint”, as we say in German. diff --git a/users/Profpatsch/blog/default.nix b/users/Profpatsch/blog/default.nix new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..f233eda9bbdc --- /dev/null +++ b/users/Profpatsch/blog/default.nix @@ -0,0 +1,481 @@ +{ depot, pkgs, lib, ... }: + +let + bins = depot.nix.getBins pkgs.lowdown [ "lowdown" ] + // depot.nix.getBins pkgs.cdb [ "cdbget" "cdbmake" "cdbdump" ] + // depot.nix.getBins pkgs.coreutils [ "mv" "cat" "printf" "test" ] + // depot.nix.getBins pkgs.s6-networking [ "s6-tcpserver" ] + // depot.nix.getBins pkgs.time [ "time" ] + ; + + # / + # TODO: use + toplevel = [ + { + route = [ "notes" ]; + name = "Notes"; + page = { cssFile }: router cssFile; + } + { + route = [ "projects" ]; + name = "Projects"; + # page = projects; + } + ]; + + # /notes/* + notes = [ + { + route = [ "notes" "private-trackers-are-markets" ]; + name = "Private bittorrent trackers are markets"; + page = { cssFile }: markdownToHtml { + name = "private-trackers-are-markets"; + markdown = ./notes/private-trackers-are-markets.md; + inherit cssFile; + }; + } + { + route = [ "notes" "an-idealized-conflang" ]; + name = "An Idealized Configuration Language"; + page = { cssFile }: markdownToHtml { + name = "an-idealized-conflang"; + markdown = ./notes/an-idealized-conflang.md; + inherit cssFile; + }; + } + { + route = [ "notes" "rust-string-conversions" ]; + name = "Converting between different String types in Rust"; + page = { cssFile }: markdownToHtml { + name = "rust-string-conversions"; + markdown = ./notes/rust-string-conversions.md; + inherit cssFile; + }; + } + { + route = [ "notes" "preventing-oom" ]; + name = "Preventing out-of-memory (OOM) errors on Linux"; + page = { cssFile }: markdownToHtml { + name = "preventing-oom"; + markdown = ./notes/preventing-oom.md; + inherit cssFile; + }; + } + ]; + + projects = [ + { + name = "lorri"; + description = "<code>nix-shell</code> replacement for projects"; + link = "https://github.com/nix-community/lorri"; + } + { + name = "netencode"; + description = ''A human-readble nested data exchange format inspired by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netstring">netstrings</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bencode">bencode</a>.''; + link = depotCgitLink { relativePath = "users/Profpatsch/netencode/README.md"; }; + } + { + name = "yarn2nix"; + description = ''nix dependency generator for the <a href="https://yarnpkg.com/"><code>yarn</code> Javascript package manager</a>''; + link = "https://github.com/Profpatsch/yarn2nix"; + } + ]; + + posts = [ + { + date = "2017-05-04"; + title = "Ligature Emulation in Emacs"; + subtitle = "It’s not pretty, but the results are"; + description = "How to set up ligatures using <code>prettify-symbols-mode</code> and the Hasklig/FiraCode fonts."; + page = { cssFile }: markdownToHtml { + name = "2017-05-04-ligature-emluation-in-emacs"; + markdown = ./posts/2017-05-04-ligature-emulation-in-emacs.md; + inherit cssFile; + }; + route = [ "posts" "2017-05-04-ligature-emluation-in-emacs" ]; + tags = [ "emacs" ]; + } + ]; + + # convert a markdown file to html via lowdown + markdownToHtml = + { name + , # the file to convert + markdown + , # css file to add to the final result, as { route } + cssFile + }: + depot.nix.runExecline "${name}.html" { } ([ + "importas" + "out" + "out" + (depot.users.Profpatsch.lib.debugExec "") + bins.lowdown + "-s" + "-Thtml" + ] ++ + (lib.optional (cssFile != null) ([ "-M" "css=${mkRoute cssFile.route}" ])) + ++ [ + "-o" + "$out" + markdown + ]); + + # takes a { route … } attrset and converts the route lists to an absolute path + fullRoute = attrs: lib.pipe attrs [ + (map (x@{ route, ... }: x // { route = mkRoute route; })) + ]; + + # a cdb from route to a netencoded version of data for each route + router = cssFile: lib.pipe (notes ++ posts) [ + (map (r: with depot.users.Profpatsch.lens; + lib.pipe r [ + (over (field "route") mkRoute) + (over (field "page") (_ { inherit cssFile; })) + ])) + (map (x: { + name = x.route; + value = depot.users.Profpatsch.netencode.gen.dwim x; + })) + lib.listToAttrs + (cdbMake "router") + ]; + + # Create a link to the given source file/directory, given the relative path in the depot repo. + # Checks that the file exists at evaluation time. + depotCgitLink = + { + # relative path from the depot root (without leading /). + relativePath + }: + assert + (lib.assertMsg + (builtins.pathExists (depot.path.origSrc + ("/" + relativePath))) + "depotCgitLink: path /${relativePath} does not exist in depot, and depot.path was ${toString depot.path}"); + "https://code.tvl.fyi/tree/${relativePath}"; + + # look up a route by path ($1) + router-lookup = cssFile: depot.nix.writeExecline "router-lookup" { readNArgs = 1; } [ + cdbLookup + (router cssFile) + "$1" + ]; + + runExeclineStdout = name: args: cmd: depot.nix.runExecline name args ([ + "importas" + "-ui" + "out" + "out" + "redirfd" + "-w" + "1" + "$out" + ] ++ cmd); + + notes-index-html = + let o = fullRoute notes; + in '' + <ul> + ${scope o (o: '' + <li><a href="${str o.route}">${esc o.name}</a></li> + '')} + </ul> + ''; + + notes-index = pkgs.writeText "notes-index.html" notes-index-html; + + # A simple mustache-inspired string interpolation combinator + # that takes an object and a template (a function from o to string) + # and returns a string. + scope = o: tpl: + if builtins.typeOf o == "list" then + lib.concatMapStringsSep "\n" tpl o + else if builtins.typeOf o == "set" then + tpl o + else throw "${lib.generators.toPretty {} o} not allowed in template"; + + # string-escape html (TODO) + str = s: s; + # html-escape (TODO) + esc = s: s; + html = s: s; + + projects-index-html = + let o = projects; + in '' + <dl> + ${scope o (o: '' + <dt><a href="${str o.link}">${esc o.name}</a></dt> + <dd>${html o.description}</dd> + '')} + </dl> + ''; + + projects-index = pkgs.writeText "projects-index.html" projects-index-html; + + posts-index-html = + let o = fullRoute posts; + in '' + <dl> + ${scope o (o: '' + <dt>${str o.date} <a href="${str o.route}">${esc o.title}</a></dt> + <dd>${html o.description}</dd> + '')} + </dl> + ''; + + posts-index = pkgs.writeText "projects-index.html" posts-index-html; + + arglibNetencode = val: depot.nix.writeExecline "arglib-netencode" { } [ + "export" + "ARGLIB_NETENCODE" + (depot.users.Profpatsch.netencode.gen.dwim val) + "$@" + ]; + + # A simple http server that serves the site. Yes, it’s horrible. + site-server = { cssFile, port }: depot.nix.writeExecline "blog-server" { } [ + (depot.users.Profpatsch.lib.runInEmptyEnv [ "PATH" ]) + bins.s6-tcpserver + "127.0.0.1" + port + bins.time + "--format=time: %es" + "--" + runOr + return400 + "pipeline" + [ + (arglibNetencode { + what = "request"; + }) + depot.users.Profpatsch.read-http + ] + depot.users.Profpatsch.netencode.record-splice-env + runOr + return500 + "importas" + "-i" + "path" + "path" + "if" + [ depot.tools.eprintf "GET \${path}\n" ] + runOr + return404 + "backtick" + "-ni" + "TEMPLATE_DATA" + [ + # TODO: factor this out of here, this is routing not serving + "ifelse" + [ bins.test "$path" "=" "/notes" ] + [ + "export" + "content-type" + "text/html" + "export" + "serve-file" + notes-index + depot.users.Profpatsch.netencode.env-splice-record + ] + "ifelse" + [ bins.test "$path" "=" "/projects" ] + [ + "export" + "content-type" + "text/html" + "export" + "serve-file" + projects-index + depot.users.Profpatsch.netencode.env-splice-record + ] + "ifelse" + [ bins.test "$path" "=" "/posts" ] + [ + "export" + "content-type" + "text/html" + "export" + "serve-file" + posts-index + depot.users.Profpatsch.netencode.env-splice-record + ] + # TODO: ignore potential query arguments. See 404 message + "pipeline" + [ (router-lookup cssFile) "$path" ] + depot.users.Profpatsch.netencode.record-splice-env + "importas" + "-ui" + "page" + "page" + "export" + "content-type" + "text/html" + "export" + "serve-file" + "$page" + depot.users.Profpatsch.netencode.env-splice-record + ] + runOr + return500 + "if" + [ + "pipeline" + [ + bins.printf + '' + HTTP/1.1 200 OK + Content-Type: {{{content-type}}}; charset=UTF-8 + Connection: close + + '' + ] + depot.users.Profpatsch.netencode.netencode-mustache + ] + "pipeline" + [ "importas" "t" "TEMPLATE_DATA" bins.printf "%s" "$t" ] + depot.users.Profpatsch.netencode.record-splice-env + "importas" + "-ui" + "serve-file" + "serve-file" + bins.cat + "$serve-file" + ]; + + # run argv or $1 if argv returns a failure status code. + runOr = depot.nix.writeExecline "run-or" { readNArgs = 1; } [ + "foreground" + [ "$@" ] + "importas" + "?" + "?" + "ifelse" + [ bins.test "$?" "-eq" "0" ] + [ ] + "if" + [ depot.tools.eprintf "runOr: exited \${?}, running \${1}\n" ] + "$1" + ]; + + return400 = depot.nix.writeExecline "return400" { } [ + bins.printf + "%s" + '' + HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request + Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 + Connection: close + + '' + ]; + + return404 = depot.nix.writeExecline "return404" { } [ + bins.printf + "%s" + '' + HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found + Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 + Connection: close + + This page doesn’t exist! Query arguments are not handled at the moment. + '' + ]; + + return500 = depot.nix.writeExecline "return500" { } [ + bins.printf + "%s" + '' + HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error + Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 + Connection: close + + Encountered an internal server error. Please try again. + '' + ]; + + capture-stdin = depot.nix.writers.rustSimple + { + name = "capture-stdin"; + dependencies = [ depot.users.Profpatsch.execline.exec-helpers ]; + } '' + extern crate exec_helpers; + use std::io::Read; + fn main() { + let (args, prog) = exec_helpers::args_for_exec("capture-stdin", 1); + let valname = &args[1]; + let mut v : Vec<u8> = vec![]; + std::io::stdin().lock().read_to_end(&mut v).unwrap(); + exec_helpers::exec_into_args("capture-stdin", prog, vec![(valname, v)]); + } + ''; + + # go from a list of path elements to an absolute route string + mkRoute = route: "/" + lib.concatMapStringsSep "/" urlencodeAscii route; + + # urlencodes, but only ASCII characters + # https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent-encoding + urlencodeAscii = urlPiece: + let + raw = [ "!" "#" "$" "%" "&" "'" "(" ")" "*" "+" "," "/" ":" ";" "=" "?" "@" "[" "]" ]; + enc = [ "%21" "%23" "%24" "%25" "%26" "%27" "%28" "%29" "%2A" "%2B" "%2C" "%2F" "%3A" "%3B" "%3D" "%3F" "%40" "%5B" "%5D" ]; + rest = [ "A" "B" "C" "D" "E" "F" "G" "H" "I" "J" "K" "L" "M" "N" "O" "P" "Q" "R" "S" "T" "U" "V" "W" "X" "Y" "Z" "a" "b" "c" "d" "e" "f" "g" "h" "i" "j" "k" "l" "m" "n" "o" "p" "q" "r" "s" "t" "u" "v" "w" "x" "y" "z" "0" "1" "2" "3" "4" "5" "6" "7" "8" "9" "-" "_" "." "~" ]; + in + assert lib.assertMsg (lib.all (c: builtins.elem c (raw ++ rest)) (lib.stringToCharacters urlPiece)) + "urlencodeAscii: the urlPiece must only contain valid url ASCII characters, was: ${urlPiece}"; + builtins.replaceStrings raw enc urlPiece; + + + # create a cdb record entry, as required by the cdbmake tool + cdbRecord = key: val: + "+${toString (builtins.stringLength key)},${toString (builtins.stringLength val)}:" + + "${key}->${val}\n"; + + # create a full cdbmake input from an attribute set of keys to values (strings) + cdbRecords = + with depot.nix.yants; + defun [ (attrs (either drv string)) string ] + (attrs: + (lib.concatStrings (lib.mapAttrsToList cdbRecord attrs)) + "\n"); + + # run cdbmake on a list of key/value pairs (strings + cdbMake = name: attrs: depot.nix.runExecline "${name}.cdb" + { + stdin = cdbRecords attrs; + } [ + "importas" + "out" + "out" + depot.users.Profpatsch.lib.eprint-stdin + "if" + [ bins.cdbmake "db" "tmp" ] + bins.mv + "db" + "$out" + ]; + + # look up a key ($2) in the given cdb ($1) + cdbLookup = depot.nix.writeExecline "cdb-lookup" { readNArgs = 2; } [ + # cdb ($1) on stdin + "redirfd" + "-r" + "0" + "$1" + # key ($2) lookup + bins.cdbget + "$2" + ]; + +in +depot.nix.readTree.drvTargets { + inherit + router + depotCgitLink + site-server + notes-index + notes-index-html + projects-index + projects-index-html + posts-index-html + ; + +} diff --git a/users/Profpatsch/blog/notes/an-idealized-conflang.md b/users/Profpatsch/blog/notes/an-idealized-conflang.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..5c6b39f6e81b --- /dev/null +++ b/users/Profpatsch/blog/notes/an-idealized-conflang.md @@ -0,0 +1,298 @@ +tags: netencode, json +date: 2022-03-31 +certainty: likely +status: initial +title: An idealized Configuration Language + +# An Idealized Configuration Language + +JSON brought us one step closer to what an idealized configuration language is, +which I define as “data, stripped of all externalities of the system it is working in”. + +Specifically, JSON is very close to what I consider the minimal properties to represent structured data. + +## A short history, according to me + +In the beginning, Lisp defined s-expressions as a stand-in for an actual syntax. +Then, people figured out that it’s also a way to represent structured data. +It has scalars, which can be nested into lists, recursively. + +``` +(this is (a (list) (of lists))) +``` + +This provides the first three rules of our idealized language: + +1. A **scalar** is a primitive value that is domain-specific. + We can assume a bunch of bytes here, or a text or an integer. + +2. A **list** gives an ordering to `0..n` (or `1..n`) values + +3. Both a scalar and a list are the *same kind* of “thing” (from here on called **value**), + lists can be created from arbitrary values *recursively* + (for example scalars, or lists of scalars and other lists) + + +Later, ASN.1 came and had the important insight that the same idealized data structure +can be represented in different fashions, +for example as a binary-efficient version and a human-readable format. + +Then, XML “graced” the world for a decade or two, and the main lesson from it was +that you don’t want to mix markup languages and configuration languages, +and that you don’t want a committee to design these things. + +--- + +In the meantime, Brendan Eich designed Javascript. Its prototype-based object system +arguably stripped down the rituals of existing OO-systems. +Douglas Crockford later extracted the object format (minus functions) into a syntax, and we got JSON. + +``` +{ + "foo": [ + { "nested": "attrs" }, + "some text" + ], + "bar": 42 +} +``` + +JSON adds another fundamental idea into the mix: + +4. **Records** are unordered collections of `name`/`value` pairs. + A `name` is defined to be a unicode string, so a semantic descriptor of the nested `value`. + +Unfortunately, the JSON syntax does not actually specify any semantics of records (`objects` in JSON lingo), +in particular it does not mention what the meaning is if a `name` appears twice in one record. + +If records can have multiple entries with the same `name`, suddenly ordering becomes important! +But wait, remember earlier we defined *lists* to impose ordering on two values. +So in order to rectify that problem, we say that + +5. A `name` can only appear in a record *once*, names must be unique. + +This is the current state of the programming community at large, +where most “modern” configuration languages basically use a version of the JSON model +as their underlying data structure. (However not all of them use the same version.) + +## Improving JSON’s data model + +We are not yet at the final “idealized” configuration language, though. + +Modern languages like Standard ML define their data types as a mixture of + +* *records* (“structs” in the C lingo) +* and *sums* (which you can think about as enums that can hold more `value`s inside them) + +This allows to express the common pattern where some fields in a record are only meaningful +if another field—the so-called `tag`-field—is set to a specific value. + +An easy example: if a request can fail with an error message or succeed with a result. + +You could model that as + +``` +{ + "was_error": true, + "error_message": "there was an error" +} +``` + +or + +``` +{ + "was_error": false, + "result": 42 +} +``` + +in your JSON representation. + +But in a ML-like language (like, for example, Rust), you would instead model it as + +``` +type RequestResult + = Error { error_message: String } + | Success { result: i64 } +``` + +where the distinction in `Error` or `Success` makes it clear that `error_message` and `result` +only exist in one of these cases, not the other. + +We *can* encode exactly that idea into JSON in multiple ways, but not a “blessed” way. + +For example, another way to encode the above would be + +``` +{ + "Error": { + "error_message": "there was an error" + } +} +``` + +and + +``` +{ + "Success": { + "result": 42 + } +} +``` + +Particularly notice the difference between the language representation, where the type is “closed”only `Success` or `Error` can happen— +and the data representation where the type is “open”, more cases could potentially exist. + +This is an important differentiation from a type system: +Our idealized configuration language just gives more structure to a bag of data, +it does not restrict which value can be where. +Think of a value in an unityped language, like Python. + + +So far we have the notion of + +1. a scalar (a primitive) +2. a list (ordering on values) +3. a record (unordered collection of named values) + +and in order to get the “open” `tag`ged enumeration values, we introduce + +4. a `tag`, which gives a name to a value + +We can then redefine `record` to mean “an unordered collection of `tag`ged values”, +which further reduces the amount of concepts needed. + +And that’s it, this is the full idealized configuration language. + + +## Some examples of data modelling with tags + +This is all well and good, but what does it look like in practice? + +For these examples I will be using JSON with a new `< "tag": value >` syntax +to represent `tag`s. + +From a compatibility standpoint, `tag`s (or sum types) have dual properties to record types. + +With a record, when you have a producer that *adds* a field to it, the consumer will still be able to handle the record (provided the semantics of the existing fields is not changed by the new field). + +With a tag, *removing* a tag from the producer will mean that the consumer will still be able to handle the tag. It might do one “dead” check on the removed `tag`, but can still handle the remaining ones just fine. + +<!-- TODO: some illustration here --> + +An example of how that is applied in practice is that in `protobuf3`, fields of a record are *always* optional fields. + +We can model optional fields by wrapping them in `< "Some": value >` or `< "None": {} >` (where the actual value of the `None` is ignored or always an empty record). + +So a protobuf with the fields `foo: int` and `bar: string` has to be parsed by the receiver als containing *four* possibilities: + +№|foo|bar| +|--:|---|---| +|1|`<"None":{}>`|`<"None":{}>`| +|2|`<"Some":42>`|`<"None":{}>`| +|3|`<"None":{}>`|`<"Some":"x">`| +|4|`<"Some":42>`|`<"Some":"x">`| + +Now, iff the receiver actually handles all four possibilities +(and doesn’t just crash if a field is not set, as customary in million-dollar-mistake languages), +it’s easy to see how removing a field from the producer is semantically equal to always setting it to `<"None":{}>`. +Since all receivers should be ready to receive `None` for every field, this provides a simple forward-compatibility scheme. + +We can abstract this to any kind of tag value: +If you start with “more” tags, you give yourself space to remove them later without breaking compatibility, typically called “forward compatibility”. + + +## To empty list/record or not to + +Something to think about is whether records and fields should be defined +to always contain at least one element. + +As it stands, JSON has multiple ways of expressing the “empty value”: + +* `null` +* `[]` +* `{}` +* `""` +* *leave out the field* + +and two of those come from the possibility of having empty structured values. + +## Representations of this language + +This line of thought originally fell out of me designing [`netencode`](https://code.tvl.fyi/tree/users/Profpatsch/netencode/README.md) +as a small human-debuggable format for pipeline serialization. + +In addition to the concepts mentioned here (especially tags), +it provides a better set of scalars than JSON (specifically arbitrary bytestrings), +but it cannot practically be written or modified by hand, +which might be a good thing depending on how you look at it. + +--- + +The way that is compatible with the rest of the ecosystem is probably to use a subset of json +to represent our idealized language. + +There is multiple ways of encoding tags in json, which each have their pros and cons. + +The most common is probably the “tag field” variant, where the tag is pulled into the nested record: + +``` +{ + "_tag": "Success", + "result": 42 +} +``` + +Which has the advantage that people know how to deal with it and that it’s easy to “just add another field”, +plus it is backward-compatible when you had a record in the first place. + +It has multiple disadvantages however: + +* If your value wasn’t a record (e.g. an int) before, you have to put it in a record and assign an arbitrary name to its field +* People are not forced to “unwrap” the tag first, so they are going to forget to check it +* The magic “_tag” name cannot be used by any of the record’s fields + + +An in-between version of this with less downsides is to always push a json record onto the stack: + +``` +{ + "tag": "Success", + "value": { + "result": 42 + } +} +``` + +This makes it harder for people to miss checking the `tag`, but still possible of course. +It also makes it easily possible to inspect the contents of `value` without knowing the +exhaustive list of `tag`s, which can be useful in practice (though often not sound!). +It also gets rid of the “_tag” field name clash problem. + +Disadvantages: + +* Breaks the backwards-compatibility with an existing record-based approach if you want to introduce `tag`s +* Verbosity of representation +* hard to distinguish a record with the `tag` and `value` fields from a `tag`ed value (though you know the type layout of your data on a higher level, don’t you? ;) ) + + +The final, “most pure” representation is the one I gave in the original introduction: + +``` +{ + "Success": { + "result": 42 + } +} +``` + +Now you *have* to match on the `tag` name first, before you can actually access your data, +and it’s less verbose than the above representation. + +Disavantages: + +* You also have to *know* what `tag`s to expect, it’s harder to query cause you need to extract the keys and values from the dict and then take the first one. +* Doing a “tag backwards compat” check is harder, + because you can’t just check whether `_tag` or `tag`/`value` are the keys in the dict. diff --git a/users/Profpatsch/blog/notes/preventing-oom.md b/users/Profpatsch/blog/notes/preventing-oom.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..59ea4f747700 --- /dev/null +++ b/users/Profpatsch/blog/notes/preventing-oom.md @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +tags: linux +date: 2020-01-25 +certainty: likely +status: initial +title: Preventing out-of-memory (OOM) errors on Linux + +# Preventing out-of-memory (OOM) errors on Linux + +I’ve been running out of memory more and more often lately. I don’t use any swap space because I am of the opinion that 16GB of memory should be sufficient for most daily and professional tasks. Which is generally true, however sometimes I have a runaway filling my memory. Emacs is very good at doing this for example, prone to filling your RAM when you open json files with very long lines. + +In theory, the kernel OOM killer should come in and save the day, but the Linux OOM killer is notorious for being extremely … conservative. It will try to free every internal structure it can before even thinking about touching any userspace processes. At that point, the desktop usually stopped responding minutes ago. + +Luckily the kernel provides memory statistics for the whole system, as well as single process, and the [`earlyoom`](https://github.com/rfjakob/earlyoom) tool uses those to keep memory usage under a certain limit. It will start killing processes, “heaviest” first, until the given upper memory limit is satisfied again. + +On NixOS, I set: + +```nix +{ + services.earlyoom = { + enable = true; + freeMemThreshold = 5; # <%5 free + }; +} +``` + +and after activation, this simple test shows whether the daemon is working: + +```shell +$ tail /dev/zero +fish: “tail /dev/zero” terminated by signal SIGTERM (Polite quit request) +``` + +`tail /dev/zero` searches for the last line of the file `/dev/zero`, and since it cannot know that there is no next line and no end to the stream of `\0` this file produces, it will fill the RAM as quickly as physically possible. Before it can fill it completely, `earlyoom` recognizes that the limit was breached, singles out the `tail` command as the process using the most amount of memory, and sends it a `SIGTERM`. diff --git a/users/Profpatsch/blog/notes/private-trackers-are-markets.md b/users/Profpatsch/blog/notes/private-trackers-are-markets.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..88fe5f07e5d7 --- /dev/null +++ b/users/Profpatsch/blog/notes/private-trackers-are-markets.md @@ -0,0 +1,46 @@ +# Private bittorrent trackers are markets + +Private bittorrent trackers have a currency called ratio, +which is the bits you upload divided the bits you download. + +You have to keep the ratio above a certain lower limit, +otherwise you get banned from the market or have to cut a deal with the moderators → bancruptcy + +New liquidity (?) is introduced to the market by so-called “freeleech” events or tokens, +which essentially allow you to exchange a token (or some time in the case of time-restricted freeleech) +for some data, which can then be seeded to generate future profits without spending ratio. + +Sometimes, ratio is pulled from the market by allowing to exchange it into website perks, +like forum titles or other benefits like chat-memberships. This has a deflationary effect. +It could be compared to “vanity items” in MMOs, which don’t grant a mechanical advantage in the market. +Is there a real-world equivalent? i.e. allowing rich people to exchange some of their worth +for vanity items instead of investing it for future gain? + +Sometimes, ratio can be traded for more than just transferred bits, +for example by requesting a torrent for a certain album or movie, +paying some ratio for the fulfillment of the request. + +--- + +Based on how bittorrent works, usually multiple people “seed” a torrent. +This means multiple people can answer a request for trading ratio. +Part of the request (i.e. the first 30% of a movie) +can be fulfilled by one party, part of it by a second or even more parties. + +For small requests (e.g. albums), often the time between announcing the trade +and filling the trade is important for who is able to fill it. +Getting a 1 second head-start vastly increases your chance of a handshake +and starting the transmission, so on average you get a vastly higher ratio gain from that torrent. +Meaning that using a bittorrent client which is fast to answer as a seeder will lead to better outcomes. +This could be compared to mechanisms seen in high-speed trading. + +--- + +Of course these market-mechanisms are in service of a wider policy goal, +which is to ensure the constant availability of as much high-quality data as possible. +There is more mechanisms at play on these trackers that all contribute to this goal +(possible keywords to research: trumping, freeleech for underseeded torrents). + +In general, it is important to remember that markets are only a tool, +never an end in themselves, as neoliberalists would like us to believe. +They always are in service of a wider goal or policy. We live in a society. diff --git a/users/Profpatsch/blog/notes/rust-string-conversions.md b/users/Profpatsch/blog/notes/rust-string-conversions.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..99071ef9d370 --- /dev/null +++ b/users/Profpatsch/blog/notes/rust-string-conversions.md @@ -0,0 +1,53 @@ +# Converting between different String types in Rust + +``` +let s: String = ... +let st: &str = ... +let u: &[u8] = ... +let b: [u8; 3] = b"foo" +let v: Vec<u8> = ... +let os: OsString = ... +let ost: OsStr = ... + +From To Use Comment +---- -- --- ------- +&str -> String String::from(st) +&str -> &[u8] st.as_bytes() +&str -> Vec<u8> st.as_bytes().to_owned() via &[u8] +&str -> &OsStr OsStr::new(st) + +String -> &str &s alt. s.as_str() +String -> &[u8] s.as_bytes() +String -> Vec<u8> s.into_bytes() +String -> OsString OsString::from(s) + +&[u8] -> &str str::from_utf8(u).unwrap() +&[u8] -> String String::from_utf8(u).unwrap() +&[u8] -> Vec<u8> u.to_owned() +&[u8] -> &OsStr OsStr::from_bytes(u) use std::os::unix::ffi::OsStrExt; + +[u8; 3] -> &[u8] &b[..] byte literal +[u8; 3] -> &[u8] "foo".as_bytes() alternative via utf8 literal + +Vec<u8> -> &str str::from_utf8(&v).unwrap() via &[u8] +Vec<u8> -> String String::from_utf8(v) +Vec<u8> -> &[u8] &v +Vec<u8> -> OsString OsString::from_vec(v) use std::os::unix::ffi::OsStringExt; + +&OsStr -> &str ost.to_str().unwrap() +&OsStr -> String ost.to_os_string().into_string() via OsString + .unwrap() +&OsStr -> Cow<str> ost.to_string_lossy() Unicode replacement characters +&OsStr -> OsString ost.to_os_string() +&OsStr -> &[u8] ost.as_bytes() use std::os::unix::ffi::OsStringExt; + +OsString -> String os.into_string().unwrap() returns original OsString on failure +OsString -> &str os.to_str().unwrap() +OsString -> &OsStr os.as_os_str() +OsString -> Vec<u8> os.into_vec() use std::os::unix::ffi::OsStringExt; +``` + + +## Source + +Original source is [this document on Pastebin](https://web.archive.org/web/20190710121935/https://pastebin.com/Mhfc6b9i) diff --git a/users/Profpatsch/blog/posts/2017-05-04-ligature-emulation-in-emacs.md b/users/Profpatsch/blog/posts/2017-05-04-ligature-emulation-in-emacs.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..ba80888badd8 --- /dev/null +++ b/users/Profpatsch/blog/posts/2017-05-04-ligature-emulation-in-emacs.md @@ -0,0 +1,123 @@ +title: Ligature Emulation in Emacs +date: 2017-05-04 + +Monday was (yet another) +[NixOS hackathon][hackathon] at [OpenLab Augsburg][ola]. +[Maximilian][mhuber] was there and to my amazement +he got working ligatures in his Haskell files in Emacs! Ever since Hasklig +updated its format to use ligatures and private Unicode code points a while ago, +the hack I had used in my config stopped working. + +Encouraged by that I decided to take a look on Tuesday. Long story short, I was +able to [get it working in a pretty satisfying way][done]. + +[hackathon]: https://www.meetup.com/Munich-NixOS-Meetup/events/239077247/ +[mhuber]: https://github.com/maximilianhuber +[ola]: https://openlab-augsburg.de +[done]: https://github.com/i-tu/Hasklig/issues/84#issuecomment-298803495 + +What’s left to do is package it into a module and push to melpa. + + +### elisp still sucks, but it’s bearable, sometimes + +I’m the kind of person who, when trying to fix something elisp related, normally +gives up two hours later and three macro calls deep. Yes, homoiconic, +non-lexically-scoped, self-rewriting code is not exactly my fetish. +This time the task and the library (`prettify-symbols-mode`) were simple enough +for that to not happen. + +Some interesting technical trivia: + +- elisp literal character syntax is `?c`. `?\t` is the tab character +- You join characters by `(string c1 c2 c3 ...)` +- [dash.el][dash] is pretty awesome and does what a functional programmer + expects. Also, Rainbow Dash. +- Hasklig and FiraCode multi-column symbols actually [only occupy one column, on + the far right of the glyph][glyph]. `my-correct-symbol-bounds` fixes emacs’ + rendering in that case. + + +[dash]: https://github.com/magnars/dash.el +[glyph]: https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/issues/211#issuecomment-239082368 + + +## Appendix A + +For reference, here’s the complete code as it stands now. Feel free to paste +into your config; let’s make it [MIT][mit]. Maybe link to this site, in case there are +updates. + +[mit]: https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT + +```elisp + (defun my-correct-symbol-bounds (pretty-alist) + "Prepend a TAB character to each symbol in this alist, +this way compose-region called by prettify-symbols-mode +will use the correct width of the symbols +instead of the width measured by char-width." + (mapcar (lambda (el) + (setcdr el (string ?\t (cdr el))) + el) + pretty-alist)) + + (defun my-ligature-list (ligatures codepoint-start) + "Create an alist of strings to replace with +codepoints starting from codepoint-start." + (let ((codepoints (-iterate '1+ codepoint-start (length ligatures)))) + (-zip-pair ligatures codepoints))) + + ; list can be found at https://github.com/i-tu/Hasklig/blob/master/GlyphOrderAndAliasDB#L1588 + (setq my-hasklig-ligatures + (let* ((ligs '("&&" "***" "*>" "\\\\" "||" "|>" "::" + "==" "===" "==>" "=>" "=<<" "!!" ">>" + ">>=" ">>>" ">>-" ">-" "->" "-<" "-<<" + "<*" "<*>" "<|" "<|>" "<$>" "<>" "<-" + "<<" "<<<" "<+>" ".." "..." "++" "+++" + "/=" ":::" ">=>" "->>" "<=>" "<=<" "<->"))) + (my-correct-symbol-bounds (my-ligature-list ligs #Xe100)))) + + ;; nice glyphs for haskell with hasklig + (defun my-set-hasklig-ligatures () + "Add hasklig ligatures for use with prettify-symbols-mode." + (setq prettify-symbols-alist + (append my-hasklig-ligatures prettify-symbols-alist)) + (prettify-symbols-mode)) + + (add-hook 'haskell-mode-hook 'my-set-hasklig-ligatures) +``` + +## Appendix B (Update 1): FiraCode integration + +I also created a mapping for [FiraCode][fira]. You need to grab the [additional +symbol font][symbol] that adds (most) ligatures to the unicode private use area. +Consult your system documentation on how to add it to your font cache. +Next add `"Fira Code"` and `"Fira Code Symbol"` to your font preferences. Symbol +only contains the additional characters, so you need both. + +If you are on NixOS, the font package should be on the main branch shortly, [I +added a package][symbol-pkg]. + +[fira]: https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/ +[symbol]: https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/issues/211#issuecomment-239058632 +[symbol-pkg]: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/25517 + +Here’s the mapping adjusted for FiraCode: + +```elisp + (setq my-fira-code-ligatures + (let* ((ligs '("www" "**" "***" "**/" "*>" "*/" "\\\\" "\\\\\\" + "{-" "[]" "::" ":::" ":=" "!!" "!=" "!==" "-}" + "--" "---" "-->" "->" "->>" "-<" "-<<" "-~" + "#{" "#[" "##" "###" "####" "#(" "#?" "#_" "#_(" + ".-" ".=" ".." "..<" "..." "?=" "??" ";;" "/*" + "/**" "/=" "/==" "/>" "//" "///" "&&" "||" "||=" + "|=" "|>" "^=" "$>" "++" "+++" "+>" "=:=" "==" + "===" "==>" "=>" "=>>" "<=" "=<<" "=/=" ">-" ">=" + ">=>" ">>" ">>-" ">>=" ">>>" "<*" "<*>" "<|" "<|>" + "<$" "<$>" "<!--" "<-" "<--" "<->" "<+" "<+>" "<=" + "<==" "<=>" "<=<" "<>" "<<" "<<-" "<<=" "<<<" "<~" + "<~~" "</" "</>" "~@" "~-" "~=" "~>" "~~" "~~>" "%%" + "x" ":" "+" "+" "*"))) + (my-correct-symbol-bounds (my-ligature-list ligs #Xe100)))) +``` |