Biodegradable Geek

Small Vim Shortcut for PHP Tags

The short tags in PHP have been deprecated as of 5.3.0. Short tags provided a shorter alternative to the annoying-to-type <?php and <?php echo. Instead, you could use <? and <?= respectively. This was great but it caused problems when working with XML files, and the short_tags option was disabled in the PHP config by [...]

I Can’t Live Without My vim Config

I have updated the vim page with my vimrc/gvimrc configs. Instead of repeating myself, I will quote some parts of the page .. More details and the vim config itself here I recommend turning backups on if you have them off. I personally hate having the ~ files all over my OS, so I keep them along [...]

Top 10 Firefox Extensions that Enhance Usability

All of these extensions work on Firefox 3.x Firebug What can I say.. Firebug is indispensable. It’s quite possibly the greatest piece of software since Firefox itself. It’s a *must* have if you do any sort of XHTML/CSS/Javascript/AJAX/er.. anything! You can edit code on any site, live. Hate the annoying background on a specific site? Get rid of [...]

Easily Installing Vim 7.2 From Source

Vim 7.2 beta was released last month, and 7.2 is now stable. First check to see if your distro offers a package, and if not, follow these simple instructions on how to install it from source, from the vim7.2 subversion branch. cd /tmp/ svn co https://vim.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/vim/branches/vim7.2 cd vim7.2/ ./configure --with-features=huge --enable-gui=gnome2 --enable-cscope --enable-pythoninterp make Now you can use sudo make install [...]

Has vim/rails.vim been crashing lately? Here’s why.

If you are experiencing segmentation faults with vim and rails.vim, it may be due to this bug, which appeared after 1.7.127, but has been resolved in 1.7.147 (patch log). To check if your installation has this bug, type the following (cred goes to Ralph) in vim: :r ~fo<tab> (’fo’ being the start of a username present [...]

Using Vim as a Complete Ruby on Rails IDE

NOTE: If you are experiencing segmentation faults with vim and rails.vim, see this post. When coding in Ruby on Rails, you’ll usually be switching between files and running scripts a lot. It can be time-consuming and frustrating coding Rails using a traditional text editor designed for working on big files individually. Vim lets you hop around [...]