willghatch blog: willghatch blog

willghatch blog: willghatch blog willghatch blog: willghatch blog http://www.willghatch.net/blog/index.html Tue, 24 Feb 2026 04:00:00 UT Tue, 24 Feb 2026 04:00:00 UT 1800 Inverse Random Test Auditing http://www.willghatch.net/blog/software-verification/inverse-random-test-auditing/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS urn:http-www-willghatch-net:-blog-software-verification-inverse-random-test-auditing Tue, 24 Feb 2026 04:00:00 UT William G Hatch <p>I’ve developed a new random software testing technique that I believe will become a staple of my software testing going forward. It is both helpful for agentic AI (LLM) software development, where robust software verification is more important than ever, and implemented with the help of LLMs.</p><a href="http://www.willghatch.net/blog/software-verification/inverse-random-test-auditing/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS"><em>More…</em></a> Don't Ossify Defaults http://www.willghatch.net/blog/text-editing/dont-ossify-defaults/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS urn:http-www-willghatch-net:-blog-text-editing-dont-ossify-defaults Mon, 17 Feb 2025 20:30:00 UT William G Hatch <p>Have you ever noticed that default key bindings are just bad? Look at Windows and CUA and control-p being print, still, to this day when printers are mostly irrelevant. For the <code>vi</code> text editor, it made sense for Bill Joy to fill out the keyboard with operations that he had written or could easily write in his available time, to put them conveniently in reach. But haven’t we grown beyond that in the time since? Vim’s default key bindings are strained. You have prime real estate with <code>s</code> bound to the useless substitute-character command, then you have all of these wonky ad-hoc key sequences for much more useful things that you probably don’t use because you can’t remember the keys. As soon as these things are published and people start using them, critical configuration like key bindings immediately ossify. Almost all software has its earliest functionality bound to the most convenient and mnemonic keys, not the most useful. Later features are tacked on with increasingly complicated and non-memorable bindings. Now, years later, we are often left with inflexible software that uses key bindings that are hard to remember, hard to put to good use, and frankly even in the way of innovation and utility for holistic computer use.</p><a href="http://www.willghatch.net/blog/text-editing/dont-ossify-defaults/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS"><em>More…</em></a> Key Binding Pattern Story: Window Management http://www.willghatch.net/blog/key-binding-pattern-story_window-management/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS urn:http-www-willghatch-net:-blog-key-binding-pattern-story-window-management Thu, 13 Feb 2025 16:30:00 UT William G Hatch <p>Let me tell you a story about key bindings.</p><a href="http://www.willghatch.net/blog/key-binding-pattern-story_window-management/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS"><em>More…</em></a> Emacs Packages To Use With Composiphrase http://www.willghatch.net/blog/text-editing/emacs-packages-to-use-with-composiphrase/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS urn:http-www-willghatch-net:-blog-text-editing-emacs-packages-to-use-with-composiphrase Wed, 12 Feb 2025 21:00:00 UT William G Hatch <p>Since I published <a href="/blog/text-editing/composiphrase_composable-editing-language-like-vim-but-moreso/">Composiphrase</a>, I thought I would give a list of some other interesting Emacs features or packages that are unrelated to Composiphrase, but that one might want to use with it. The list is not exhaustive, you should also do a web search of favorite Emacs packages. But it’s a good place to start, especially if you like composiphrase and want to try it more seriously.</p><a href="http://www.willghatch.net/blog/text-editing/emacs-packages-to-use-with-composiphrase/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS"><em>More…</em></a> Text Lens UI Paradigm http://www.willghatch.net/blog/text-editing/text-lens-ui-paradigm/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS urn:http-www-willghatch-net:-blog-text-editing-text-lens-ui-paradigm Wed, 12 Feb 2025 18:00:00 UT William G Hatch <p>There is a UI paradigm that I love, and I’ve decided to give it a name: the Text Lens.</p><a href="http://www.willghatch.net/blog/text-editing/text-lens-ui-paradigm/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS"><em>More…</em></a> Composiphrase: Composable editing language like Vim, but moreso http://www.willghatch.net/blog/text-editing/composiphrase_composable-editing-language-like-vim-but-moreso/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS urn:http-www-willghatch-net:-blog-text-editing-composiphrase-composable-editing-language-like-vim-but-moreso Tue, 11 Feb 2025 15:20:00 UT William G Hatch <p>One of the best ideas in Vi and Vim, which I rightfully see praised online frequently, is the idea of a “composable text editing language”. Vi has a bunch of movements, like <code>w</code> for “forward word”, and some operations, like <code>d</code> for “delete”, and you can put them together. <code>dw</code> deletes forward one word. You can also add a number: <code>4dw</code> deletes 4 words. Vim adds “text objects”, which are “selection” instead of movement, eg. select a word, a sentence, etc. You can also compose these with commands, so <code>diw</code> deletes a word, <code>di)</code> deletes inside parentheses, etc. But what if we took the ideas of composability and language more seriously?</p><a href="http://www.willghatch.net/blog/text-editing/composiphrase_composable-editing-language-like-vim-but-moreso/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS"><em>More…</em></a> Dethroning the King of Text Objects: Visual Line Mode http://www.willghatch.net/blog/text-editing/dethroning-the-king-of-text-objects_visual-line-mode/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS urn:http-www-willghatch-net:-blog-text-editing-dethroning-the-king-of-text-objects-visual-line-mode Tue, 04 Feb 2025 23:00:00 UT William G Hatch <p>As mentioned last time, I’ve been reconsidering visual line mode. Don’t get me wrong, I love visual line mode. But vi and its descendants are very line-centric. Lines are first-class, while every other way of looking at or splitting up the text, or “text object”, is sort of second class. There are so many features of vi and vim that operate on lines specifically, that just don’t work with other ways of looking at text. Eg. ex mode operates specifically on lines, or ranges of lines, and specifically not on character regions with partial lines. Visual line mode and paste work together to operate cleanly on lines. The default keymap has keys that work extra conveniently on lines. There is an extra goto-line command, and marks have extra line mode instead of just going to the mark position. Etc.</p><a href="http://www.willghatch.net/blog/text-editing/dethroning-the-king-of-text-objects_visual-line-mode/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS"><em>More…</em></a> A New State Of Affairs: Estate Mode http://www.willghatch.net/blog/text-editing/a-new-state-of-affairs_estate-mode/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS urn:http-www-willghatch-net:-blog-text-editing-a-new-state-of-affairs-estate-mode Tue, 04 Feb 2025 22:28:55 UT William G Hatch <p>While I’ve shed evil-mode, I still want to use modal editing<span style="vertical-align: super; font-size: 80%">🗽</span>, of course. I wanted to shed the on-character cursor positioning as <a href="/blog/text-editing/cursor-positioning/">discussed previously</a>, among other things. I considered several modal editing packages in emacs, and... ok, yeah, I wrote my own. I feel like I need to justify this.</p><a href="http://www.willghatch.net/blog/text-editing/a-new-state-of-affairs_estate-mode/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS"><em>More…</em></a> Editor Cursor Positioning http://www.willghatch.net/blog/text-editing/cursor-positioning/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS urn:http-www-willghatch-net:-blog-text-editing-cursor-positioning Mon, 03 Feb 2025 23:36:55 UT William G Hatch <p>The biggest mistake of vi-style editors is that it positions the cursor on characters instead of between characters.</p><a href="http://www.willghatch.net/blog/text-editing/cursor-positioning/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS"><em>More…</em></a> Rash Talk Recording http://www.willghatch.net/blog/2021/11/22/rash-talk-recording/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS urn:http-www-willghatch-net:-blog-2021-11-22-rash-talk-recording Mon, 22 Nov 2021 20:20:27 UT William G Hatch <p>I’ve given several variations on a talk about Rash, but none have ever previously been put online. Recently I sat down and made a decent quality recording of my Rash talk and made it available <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Acjqx1MPkw4">on Youtube</a>.</p> <p>While I haven’t made much time for Rash lately, I hope to start spending small but regular amounts of time on Rash and related projects. Hopefully I’ll be able to push it (and its documentation!) forward.</p> NixOS: the good, the bad, and the ugly http://www.willghatch.net/blog/2020/06/27/nixos-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS urn:http-www-willghatch-net:-blog-2020-06-27-nixos-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly Sat, 27 Jun 2020 18:52:11 UT William G Hatch <p>I’ve started and thrown out a few drafts of a post about <a href="https://nixos.org/">NixOS</a> over the last of couple years. At this point I see blog posts about NixOS so frequently that perhaps there is little left to say. But I want to say something, so here is an overview of some of my favorite features and most irritating issues.</p><a href="http://www.willghatch.net/blog/2020/06/27/nixos-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS"><em>More…</em></a> NixOS Raspberry Pi 4 Google Fiber Router http://www.willghatch.net/blog/2020/06/22/nixos-raspberry-pi-4-google-fiber-router/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS urn:http-www-willghatch-net:-blog-2020-06-22-nixos-raspberry-pi-4-google-fiber-router Tue, 23 Jun 2020 00:35:45 UT William G Hatch <p>My home network is weird, and it’s taken me, ... uh... way too much work to get it set up how I want it. I’ve decided to post the bulk of my current router configuration as a help to other people who are similarly weird.</p><a href="http://www.willghatch.net/blog/2020/06/22/nixos-raspberry-pi-4-google-fiber-router/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS"><em>More…</em></a> Plan 9 From The 1990s http://www.willghatch.net/blog/2020/01/14/plan-9-from-the-1990s/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS urn:http-www-willghatch-net:-blog-2020-01-14-plan-9-from-the-1990s Tue, 14 Jan 2020 20:03:29 UT William G Hatch <p>Recently I ran into a bunch of talk on the web about Plan 9. It reminded me that I had once learned about Plan 9, but had mostly forgotten what the big ideas were. So of course I decided to explore again, and this time actually take notes. As I’ve already written notes down, I’ve decided I might as well make a blog post about what I view as the big ideas of Plan 9.</p><a href="http://www.willghatch.net/blog/2020/01/14/plan-9-from-the-1990s/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS"><em>More…</em></a> Acm Sustainable Open Access http://www.willghatch.net/blog/2020/01/14/acm-sustainable-open-access/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS urn:http-www-willghatch-net:-blog-2020-01-14-acm-sustainable-open-access Tue, 14 Jan 2020 18:42:48 UT William G Hatch <p>Every so often I see publishers and the ACM complain about open access being expensive and needing difficult planning to create sustainable open access models. And every time I see it, it seems like so much hogwash.</p><a href="http://www.willghatch.net/blog/2020/01/14/acm-sustainable-open-access/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS"><em>More…</em></a> Lamenting poor writing http://www.willghatch.net/blog/2018/08/22/lamenting-poor-writing/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS urn:http-www-willghatch-net:-blog-2018-08-22-lamenting-poor-writing Wed, 22 Aug 2018 16:06:22 UT William G Hatch <p>I have not faithfully written in this blog. A large part of that is that I have struggled to set aside time to write. There are many blog posts that I <em>want</em> to write. But it takes so long to write and edit a good blog post. You may notice that so far I have <em>no</em> good blog posts — they are all poorly written. This happens because I start writing, run out of time for the day, and then have a decision: I can either publish a post as it is, poorly planned, hastily written, and generally rough, or I can wait until I edit it. Every post in my blog so far is the result of a decision to post something rough rather than to wait until I eventually edit it. For every blog post that I have published, there is another that I started but left languishing. For every blog post awaiting edition, there is another that I wanted to write but decided not to even start because I knew I wouldn’t edit it. The key takeaway: I never come back to edit. After one bout of writing, I am out of steam.</p><a href="http://www.willghatch.net/blog/2018/08/22/lamenting-poor-writing/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS"><em>More…</em></a> LLVM IR optimization overview for a toy program http://www.willghatch.net/blog/2016/11/17/llvm-ir-optimization-overview-for-a-toy-program/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS urn:http-www-willghatch-net:-blog-2016-11-17-llvm-ir-optimization-overview-for-a-toy-program Thu, 17 Nov 2016 21:22:45 UT William G Hatch <p>In my compilers class this semester we’ve been talking about static analysis and optimizations. We’ve written a little LLVM frontend compiler for a toy language with s-expression (lisp) syntax. We’ve also added an option to our compiler to add arithmetic overflow and division error checks to the compiler output. We’re going to look at the output of this compiler with arithmetic checks on a toy program, and see what the optimizer does to it.</p><a href="http://www.willghatch.net/blog/2016/11/17/llvm-ir-optimization-overview-for-a-toy-program/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS"><em>More…</em></a> US Politics Needs Ranked Voting http://www.willghatch.net/blog/2016/11/07/us-politics-needs-ranked-voting/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS urn:http-www-willghatch-net:-blog-2016-11-07-us-politics-needs-ranked-voting Mon, 07 Nov 2016 18:07:30 UT William G Hatch <p>In the United States of America, citizens generally get one vote in a race, and whoever gets the most votes wins. It’s straightforward. But it’s one of the reasons we have a two party system with such a huge partisan divide and so much insanity in politics. But there is a better way. Ranked voting means you vote for multiple candidates in order of preference. There are many specific ways to determine the winner of such an election (the most famous of which seems to be Instant Runoff voting, which I don’t like compared to some others), but any of them are better than our simple “first past the post” system.</p><a href="http://www.willghatch.net/blog/2016/11/07/us-politics-needs-ranked-voting/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS"><em>More…</em></a> Botnet or Pulseaudio http://www.willghatch.net/blog/2016/10/27/botnet-or-pulseaudio/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS urn:http-www-willghatch-net:-blog-2016-10-27-botnet-or-pulseaudio Thu, 27 Oct 2016 15:58:26 UT William G Hatch <p>The other day I was sitting at home when I realized that my network switch was going crazy. The switch in question is a gigabit switch that is connected to my home server (which is my home’s gateway device — the one connected to the modem), to a wireless router, and to a desktop machine that acts as a media box (it’s connected to a TV and stereo system). By “going crazy” I mean that all the lights were flashing as fast as they could. There is a light for each connected device, and when it flashes it means that that device is either sending or receiving data — meaning that in this case packets were going to or from my server, my media box, and my wireless router (which by proxy means my laptop, my phone, my wife’s phone, etc) apparently about as fast as possible. Recently there have been some high profile DDOS attacks by botnets of unprecidented size. “Am I part of a botnet?”, I wondered. “Did I make some serious security mistake, despite generally being much more careful than average about security?”.</p><a href="http://www.willghatch.net/blog/2016/10/27/botnet-or-pulseaudio/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS"><em>More…</em></a> IPv6 setup http://www.willghatch.net/blog/2016/07/27/ipv6-setup/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS urn:http-www-willghatch-net:-blog-2016-07-27-ipv6-setup Thu, 28 Jul 2016 03:35:15 UT William G Hatch <p>Some time ago I was finally in a position where my ISP had IPv6 capabilities and I was in full control of my internet setup (IE it wasn’t controlled by landlords or shared with roommates who had stronger opinions than mine). So naturally I decided to join the internet of the future (that should have been the internet of the 90’s) and get IPv6 set up.</p><a href="http://www.willghatch.net/blog/2016/07/27/ipv6-setup/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS"><em>More…</em></a> Why I hate emojis http://www.willghatch.net/blog/2016/03/08/why-i-hate-emojis/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS urn:http-www-willghatch-net:-blog-2016-03-08-why-i-hate-emojis Tue, 08 Mar 2016 22:55:02 UT William G Hatch <p>I have often voiced disdain for emojis, and my unhappiness that they are taking an ever-growing section of the Unicode space. Let me tell you why.</p><a href="http://www.willghatch.net/blog/2016/03/08/why-i-hate-emojis/?utm_source=all&utm_medium=RSS"><em>More…</em></a>