Joined 17 years ago
The most useful one typesets the labels of equations, sections, figures, and so forth, so I can copy-paste right from the document as I'm editing. That makes it so much easier to insert cross-references while writing, without breaking the flow to search out the definition.
Rather than commenting out packages, I have two top-level input files, which `\input{}` the actual content. Those files differ only where they read the developer-oriented definitions:
\input{latex_input/defn/dev_defns_for_devs.tex}
\input{latex_input/defn/dev_defns_for_release.tex}You know what you like -- which is enough, especially if you are reading for pleasure.
In my experience, discussing a work, or reading about its context or meaning, often deepens my enjoyment of it. So maybe one "trick" is to engage with others. But at some point you can't go throwing your precious spare time into something that doesn't fundamentally engage you.
I no longer let it bother me if I don't "get" something that many others enjoy. Conversely, I have a number of favorite books (and movies and music) that I rarely recommend to others, because I've learned that few people share my personal response to them.
This approach would also give students insight into testing strategies like mocking, plus it would work on more operating systems.
[Edit: Not to disparage this project. It seems like it would have lots of uses, and it was probably a lot of fun to develop.]
When I was a kid, maybe 5th or 6th grade, my family was driving out in the country and came upon a burning farmer's field.
We stopped to help, and my older brother and I were charged with keeping an eye on the smoking remains of a field that had already burned out. The adults, and my younger siblings, went to fight the actual fire.
By the time it was all over, my brother and I were both feeling slighted and sidelined. But as we got back to the car, my mother, may she rest in peace, told us how much responsibility we had been given, to be set such an important job, with no adult supervision, the farmer must have thought we were older than we really are.
Two points, I suppose. First, one doesn't always appreciate one's salient qualities. Second, 45+ years later, that episode still stands out in my memory for how rewarding it felt.
I had a colleague whose surname, Sextro, was part of his email address. He occasionally had messages blocked by blanket filters like that.
Having flashbacks to when a close friend was getting an MS in Political Science, and spent the first semester in a class devoted to whether or not political science is a science.
With the meter stuck on a pole at the parking space, if I pay for an hour but leave after 20 minutes, the meter still shows time. Somebody else can come and park there for 40 minutes, free.
But if I buy a paper receipt and stick on my dashboard, and leave after 20 minutes, the next person still has to rent the same 40 minutes of time.
Nobody I mention this to is upset about it (neither am I, at heart, though I do notice it). That suggests to me that conflicts over tray space on airplanes is driven more by a sense of claustrophobia and powerlessness, than by any particular notion of fairness or ownership.