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Title: I'm learn-ding
Date: February 23, 2023 

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(Aside: I'm trying 40 cols to see if I
like it more than 80 cols.)

  Illness aside, I've been trying to
keep myself busy over the last month,
mostly in my attempts to continue
learning C. I still have no real desire
to make my own applications, but I want
to maintain and modify applications
that I already use, like adding Atom
support to `snownews`, and fixing some
problems that I found when compiling it
for Snow Leopard. I also kinda want to
toy with other applications, like I did
when learning what I know of Perl.

  Lua will come soon enough, as I use
`wordgrinder` on a daily basis, and I'd
like to be able to eventually fork the
older 7.2 version I modified since it
runs better on my OS of choice than the
current version does.

 Currently, I'm reading through my copy
of "Absolute Beginner's Guide to C"
(ISBN 0-672-30510-0), and I love that
the author puts such emphasis on
commenting and whitespace that it comes
before even talking about variables and
other basics. It's something I learned
with Perl, and it's a concept that I
see too many devs ignore a bit too much
these days. Especially ones that stream
all day.

  Additionally, there's a quote in this
book that matches my humor style well:
"Like most members of Congress,
integers have no point whatsoever."
Referring to integers vs floating point
numbers, of course.

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  I've also been reading through a few
older versions of books, like the first
edition of O'Reilly's "Learning Perl"
(ISBN 1-56592-042-2). Seeing mention of
FTPMAIL, BITFTP, and UUCP made me laugh
at just how much I need to go through
and learn about from the past. It also
mentioned gopher, and that got a smile
out of me.

  Apparently, the book was written on a
Mac Powerbook 140, later a 160. I can
only imagine what that was like.

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  Sadly, I'm going to have to put it
all on hold for a week. My partner has
invited me to join him in visiting his
family, and with how awesome they are,
it means I'll be getting my first
vacation in many years. So I get to be
out of town until March 4th... Right at
the beginning of MARCHintosh[0], of all
things. But oh well, I can catch up
when I get back.

  For now, I need to get myself prepped
on a mental level. I don't like driving
long distances, and I get to be the one
driving several hundred miles.

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[0]: https://www.marchintosh.com/