Top all-time · #2495
alvaro
Personal blog · xenodium.comprogrammingproductivity
alvaro's personal blog at xenodium.com covers programming and productivity. Since 2015, 33 different Hacker News readers have linked it 292 times, most often “Emacs on macOS”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-13, and you can follow it by feed.
This is my blog
Most-linked posts?
- Emacs on macOS4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2025-05-27
- chatgpt-shell updates3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-04-25
- Emacs send-to (a.k.a. macOS sharing) merged upstream3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-07-20
- Previewing SwiftUI Layouts in Emacs3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-06-21
- Emacs: smarter search and replace (2021)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-06-27
- Emacs agent-shell (powered by ACP)2 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-09-25
- Blurring the lines between shell and editor2 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-06-19
- Emacs: Context-Aware Yasnippets2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-12-12
- Emacs: Macro me some SF Symbols2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-12-31
- A platform that moulds to your needs2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-01-21
What Hacker News says?
There is a format called todo.txt that works follows very readable syntax (like your own example) and has some minimal bells and whistles if you want it to: http://todotxt.org/ As an alternative: I started using org-mode 5 years ago and have never looked back. This is my workflow ( https://karelvo.com/blog/orgmode ) although I sync it via Git now, and have an iPhone where I use Plain Org ( https://xenodium.com/plain…
Comment linking /plain-org-for-ios
on “I tried every todo app and ended up with a .txt file”Submitted Emacs as your video-trimming tool as a story · 286 points
HN discussionHey congrats, this looks great for macOS! Trying it now! With a similar mindset and an Emacs background, I wanted a scratch -like experience on iOS, so I built one https://xenodium.com/scratch-a-minimal-scratch-area . Seems to work for others too https://irreal.org/blog/?p=11202 While there's a new built-in iOS journaling app, I'm building one to save to plain text (and no lock-in). https://xenodium.com/an-ios-journ…
Comment linking /an-ios-journaling-app-powered-by-org-plain-text
on “Show HN: Heynote – A dedicated scratchpad for developers”Submitted Emacs agent-shell (powered by ACP) as a story · 233 points
HN discussionI've been experimenting with "paged chats" UX and find myself using it fairly fluidly https://xenodium.com/llm-iterate-and-insert Been experimenting with the same approach but for "paged shells" (sorry for the term override) and this seems to be a best of both worlds kinda thing for shells. https://xenodium.com/an-experimental-e-shell-pager That is, the shell is editable when you need it to be (during submission), a…
Comment linking /an-experimental-e-shell-pager
on “Chat is a bad UI pattern for development tools”Submitted Inline previous result in Emacs Lisp as a story · 134 points
HN discussionI still believe in blogging. For anyone keen on getting started or switch providers, I recenly launched a no-nonsense service: https://LMNO.lol . The experience feels more like taking notes than blogging (low friction). My blog is https://lmno.lol/alvaro (also at https://xenodium.com )
Comment linking /
on “Why blog if nobody reads it?”Submitted An accentuated Emacs experiment (à la macOS) as a story · 127 points
HN discussionhttps://xenodium.com All posts are written to a giant org file. https://github.com/xenodium/xenodium.github.io/blob/master/i... This wasn’t by design but more accidental. The file started as my notes, and eventually exported it to html as a single page (using built-in export). That page grew too large over time, so I wrote some custom elisp code to split into multiple html pages served by GitHub pages: https://githu…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Share your personal site”Submitted Show HN: Journelly for iOS: like tweeting but for your eyes only (in plain text) as a story · 81 points
HN discussion> I write the content on this website for people, not robots. I’m sharing my opinions and experiences so that you might identify with them and learn from them. I’m writing about things I care about because I like sharing and I like teaching. Hits home for me. I tried hard to free my blog ( https://xenodium.com ) of any of the yucky things I try avoid in the modern web (tracking, paywalls, ads, bloat, redundant js, e…
Comment linking /
on “This website is for humans”Submitted $ rm Important.txt (uh oh) as a story · 74 points
HN discussion> I use emacs not because I'm a neckbeard, but because I can script it to do whatever the hell I like. This. With some elisp knowledge, you can bend Emacs your way. No need to write full-blown packages. A function here and there can get ya very far. I wrote about this yesterday[1] [1] https://xenodium.com/emacs-dwim-do-what-i-mean
Comment linking /emacs-dwim-do-what-i-mean
on “Helix: a post-modern modal text editor”Submitted Emacs: Quickly Killing Processes as a story · 54 points
HN discussionIf already running your shell from Emacs, some tinkering can give ya some of these completion goodies https://xenodium.com/eshell-pcomplete-company-completion https://xenodium.com/yasnippet-in-emacs-eshell
Comment linking /yasnippet-in-emacs-eshell
on “Fig (YC S20) – Adds IDE-style autocomplete to your existing terminal”Submitted Show HN: Flat Habits – iOS habit-tracking for minimalists and org mode fans as a story · 37 points
HN discussionAnd also in emacs or neovim https://xenodium.com/introducing-acpel
Comment linking /introducing-acpel
on “Claude Code on the web”Submitted Emacs Time-Zones as a story · 34 points
HN discussionNeat! A bit ago, I wanted something similar, so I glued company and pcomplete in an Emacs eshell https://xenodium.com/eshell-pcomplete-company-completion
Comment linking /eshell-pcomplete-company-completion
on “Launch HN: Fig (YC S20) – Autocomplete for the Terminal”Submitted Using WhatsApp from Emacs as a story · 31 points
HN discussionI didn’t use mc much back in the day, but I do use Emacs dired a ton these days. Specially for applying command line utilities to a bunch of files. https://xenodium.com/how-i-batch-apply-and-save-one-liners
Comment linking /how-i-batch-apply-and-save-one-liners
on “GNU Midnight Commander”Submitted Emacs Elevator Pitch as a story · 25 points
HN discussionDired is awesome. It’s replaced a bunch of my terminal usage https://xenodium.com/how-i-batch-apply-and-save-one-liners
Comment linking /how-i-batch-apply-and-save-one-liners
on “GNU Midnight Commander”Submitted Show HN: Frictionless habit-tracking on iOS (pokeable from your text editor too) as a story · 25 points
HN discussionFor quick notes on the go, I also did go my own way and eventually built the app I wished I had. Journelly: kinda like tweeting but for your eyes only (in plain text) https://xenodium.com/journelly-like-tweeting-but-for-your-ey... While you don't need to know anything about its serialized format, it happens to be powered by Org plain text. For Markdown fans, I am recording Markdown interest. Do reach out: journelly…
Comment linking /journelly-like-tweeting-but-for-your-eyes-only
on “Ditching Obsidian and building my own”Submitted Agent Shell 0.5 Improvements as a story · 24 points
HN discussionTry import in-place: https://xenodium.com/flat-habits-v101-org-import-menu
Comment linking /flat-habits-v101-org-import-menu
on “Summary of Atomic Habits”Submitted Emacs on macOS as a story · 22 points
HN discussionhttps://LMNO.lol Drag and drop your markdown to the web and get a blog. Also because the web/blogs lost itself in tracking, bloat, paywalls... and I miss some of the quirkiness. My blog runs on it: https://xenodium.com
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on “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (December 2025)”Submitted A Cloudflare Workers primer: hello world as a story · 18 points
HN discussion
