Many of us encounter small tasks involving some file operations, text processing and running other processes. These are usually solved using either shell or glue languages (often called scripting languages because of this) like Python, Perl or Ruby. Compiled statically typed languages are rarely used in such cases because popular ones usually require too much effort to write and run a simple script. However some static languages can actually be used here easily instead of scripting ones, providing their usual benefits such as checking for types and typos. Here's an example of using D in such scenario.

Earlier this year I discovered a nice tool called TimeSnapper that sits in background and saves everything that happens on your screen by doing screenshots on regular time intervals. It can also collect some stats about apps you run and sites you browse. During first month I used this feature in the demo version and proved my suspicion that I waste way too much time on reddit and LiveJournal. ;) Later I switched to free version of TimeSnapper that doesn't collect and report stats but just makes the screenshots and allows playing them like a video with timeline. This serves me as a precise visual memory so that later I can always see what happened at certain moments. Found a weird unwanted shortcut on my desktop, what app placed it here? Quick look at its creation time, replay what I was doing then, ah, here's the thing I was installing at that moment. Here's a library I built on day X, but in which project was I using it? Replay that hour, see the opened project, ah, now I remember.

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tags: programming

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