Monthly Archives: May 2021

Text Editors

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For the last several years, I’ve been using Sublime Text as my main text editor. It’s got a nice UI, it works on all of my platforms, and the license is user-based, meaning that a single license can be shared on any machine I happen to work on, provided the user is me. It didn’t cost an arm and a leg either.

Recently the app asked if I wanted to update. It’s done it every now and then, so I was expecting another bugfix and thought little more of it. I just hit Update. The app was upgraded from version 3 to version 4, however, and an all-caps text on the title bar said “LICENSE UPGRADE REQUIRED”.

Say what?!?

A version upgrade that costs money is fine by me but something I want to know about before I upgrade, not after. There should have been something pointing this out, allowing me to decide if I wanted the hassle now or later. Instead, I now need to downgrade if I want to keep the app.

This is not OK, so I’m now moving to Atom.

More Than A Year, Actually

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I seem to write these once every year or so.

Markup UK 2021 is over and I’m happy to report that it was a complete success. It was all virtual, of course – who does actual physical conferences these days – but it had the feeling of a physical conference. People were there, if you know what I mean. They were more than blips on a screen, they were actual people interacting and talking to each other.

Some of this is due to more clever software. We used Whova, which ties together the boring administrative stuff that you’d otherwise have to do manually using Zoom only, and it brings you all kinds of things that make a virtual conference feel a lot more like a physical one. For organisers, it’s great. Hopefully for attendees, too.

It cannot replace a physical conference, however. If anything I miss the physical ones more, because of the fairly close approximation of one that Whova brings. I’m not a social person but I miss being able to say hi and a few words on a chance encounter at the coffee table, and I miss the dinners after a full day of talks, and I miss addressing a roomful of people ready for the next talk.

I’m sure the presenters felt that way, too.

But the conference was a success, and right now I just wanted to write something about it. Hopefully I’ll feel like writing more within a year, this time.