Tools for Windows

This is a running collection of tools I use to make Windows good. AutoHotkey + SharpKeys → See Many but finite’s ‘Home Row Computing’ Allows me to type arrow keys, backspace, Delete, Home, End, etc without having to move my hands away from the ‘home row’ of the keyboard (asdf, jkl;) I.e. like vim; but available in any text field in any app. In general, AutoHotkey enables end-user programming of the Windows GUI, through a (slightly quirky) scripting language.

Julia for Scientists

I gave a presentation on the programming language Julia, for my uni’s Psychology department. When should you use it over Python / Matlab / Excel? What are Julia’s strengths? ..and current weaknesses? Plus some practical tips, learned from experience Here are the slides: (The presentation starts at a basic level, but quickly goes into more nerdy terrain; The audience was varied, hence the different registers). There is a discussion of these slides on the Julia Discourse forum, here.

Probabilistic programming in Python: Pyro versus PyMC3

This post was sparked by a question in the lab where I did my master’s thesis. I had sent a link introducing Pyro to the lab chat, and the PI wondered about differences and limitations compared to PyMC3, the ‘classic’ tool for statistical modelling in Python. When should you use Pyro, PyMC3, or something else still?