@cfr I think that modifying line 225 of texdef.pl to Getopt::Long::Configure ("bundling", "no_ignore_case"); will solve the problem.

@PabloGonzálezL indeed, it does! thank you.

--- texdef.pl   2024-09-21 01:28:15.940930455 +0100
+++ texdef.pl   2024-09-21 01:27:47.044086783 +0100
@@ -222,7 +222,7 @@
 }

 ## Define and process options
-Getopt::Long::Configure ("bundling");
+Getopt::Long::Configure ("bundling","no_ignore_case");
 GetOptions (
    'value|v!' => \$SHOWVALUE,
    'Environment|E!' => \$ISENVIRONMENT,

@PabloGonzálezL I'm afraid I know even less about perl than I do about lua :(.

@PabloGonzálezL github.com/MartinScharrer/texdef/issues/4#issue-2539855634 fingers crossed.

(what is crossing them meant to do?)

@PauloCereda we fortran programmers are upset by the revisionist version of history in the first line :(

@DavidCarlisle Fortran is Italian, it's reserved for powerful people. :)

@DavidCarlisle @PauloCereda and which is the position of we COBOL programmers?

@PauloCereda I seldom cry when rendering my audio output in German ...

@JasperHabicht oh no

@DavidCarlisle @JosephWright @barbarabeeton @AlanMunn ^^

I don't have Twitter anymore, I have to wander around in Reddit :)

@PauloCereda you could try talking to real people in real life instead

@DavidCarlisle oh no, people

@DavidCarlisle Hey! Don't just give away that we're all artificial intelligences here!

@JasperHabicht have you been polishing your crystal ball?

@DavidCarlisle =D Yes! Well, the last comment of the OP activated it ...

I'm looking for recommendations for packages that would make it easy to typeset parametrized math problems. Is it possible to have a template like "Solve $2x+a$=0$. The solution is $-a/2$." which produces different output based on what value a has, and is actually able to perform the calculation -a/2? I expect this is better done with the involvement of some non-LaTeX tools that can generate LaTeX sources (e.g. a compute algebra system)?

@Szabolcs well it depends on the math, if it's just simple integer (or even rational) algebra you can do it in latex easily enough or there's luatex or things like sagetex or R/knitr where you have a full computational engine hooked up at the back

Yes, rational math is sufficient.

@CarLaTeX you speak COBOL?

@Skillmon I worked as a COBOL programmer for 20 years

@CarLaTeX ooh wow, I had no idea!

@Skillmon then 12 years of Sas, now I'm learning Python

@CarLaTeX Talk about culture shock!

@AlanMunn No shock, only fun :D

@CarLaTeX why stop working in COBOL? Apart from the language being COBOL I heard that there should be enough jobs in the field.

@Skillmon I changed office, but my ex-colleagues continue to work in COBOL (we work in a bank)

@CarLaTeX guessed as much, (almost) no one outside banks uses COBOL, afaik.

@Skillmon Yes, even if now something is moving in those environments. too (AI)

@CarLaTeX ooh, I hope my bank is not stupid enough to let AI handle their data. Or else I might get additional fingers or something.

@Skillmon Hahaha, I think they'll use AI only for marketing, your checking account calculations will always be done in COBOL

@CarLaTeX that's relieving.

@Skillmon :D

@CarLaTeX I keep learning Python just enough, then don't use it, then forget and have to start again :)

@CarLaTeX and @JosephWright all my quick and dirty programs are either shell scripts or Python.

@Skillmon ooh RabbitAI

@JosephWright oh no

@JosephWright Just as any language. I studied German at school, never used, and now I (almost) forgot everything

@CarLaTeX ooh nein!

@Skillmon My current job is more or less doing shell scripts to load text files into sas datasets :D

@Skillmon It's a pity, indeed!

@CarLaTeX part of my current job is basically data conversion from one non-database-format (Excel mostly, but XML based stuff as well) to the other non-database-format (XML and/or a domain specific language for diagnostics). That's all handled via Python on my end.

@JosephWright The plight of the researcher whose expertise lies somewhere else but still needs to code stuff. You're not alone.

I suspect that if we run eval(...) on a German sentence, it will produce valid code. :)

@Skillmon I find Python very convenient, even if I'm just starting using it

@CarLaTeX yes, it is. It has very nice language features and a great list of standard modules.

@CarLaTeX I rarely write Python code, but one the things that I think will help you tons is to use virtual environments for your projects

(I love the conciseness of list comprehensions for instance)

@Skillmon ooh this is awesome indeed

@PauloCereda I never had the need for them, tbh. But I mostly stick to the standard modules anyway for the things I do in dayjob.

@Skillmon Indeed!

@PauloCereda You're an advanced user!

@CarLaTeX Python? Far from it. :) But virtualenvs really save your life! :)

Yay!

@Rmano yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

Go mr. squirrel! <3

Super-circuitikz-powers!

@Rmano Yay! Congrats!

@DavidCarlisle ^^ why don't you have a circuitikz golden badge? :)

@Rmano now users could think you know something about circuitikz

@Skillmon that's a problem, yes... ;-)

@Rmano is Super-circuitikz a circuit only containing super capacitors?

@CarLaTeX Great to hear you are learning python. Then I will know whom to ask in case there are any problems with merge_videos.py from the xmas extravaganza :)

@samcarter I'm not that expert :D

@Rmano meanwhile I don't even have a silver circuitikz badge.

@CarLaTeX one learns with the challenges.

@Skillmon do you think 350 F is sufficient?

@Rmano ought to be, yes

@Rmano though the maximum voltage rating is a bit lacking.

@Skillmon yeah, you know, compromises...

@Rmano :) Yep, I know.

@Skillmon That‘s true, indeed :D

But it's a fun thing to show to students and make them try to charge it ;-). It's a thing that's really similar to /dev/null 😉

@Rmano there was a test setup for a drive inverter on my university where they accidentally exploded one or two of these (though I don't think those were this big)

This one has been charged (by mistake) up to 3,3 V. Seems still ok, but I won't bet on it ;-). They're quite challenging to characterize ;-)

@DavidCarlisle -- What about programmers who only ever studied PL1, and who used Cobol for an extended period?

@PauloCereda -- Yeah. Right.

@JasperHabicht -- As opposed to natural stupidity?

@Skillmon -- There are more of us who used to.

@barbarabeeton No, as opposed to real people ... even if this is a chat, if you use it, you are talking to real people in real life, aren't you? =)

(At least, I hope so ...)

@barbarabeeton I guess the real question should be what about those who program in Assembly.

@JasperHabicht On the internet, nobody knows you're a duck.

@JasperHabicht I think most would refer to "in real life" meaning face to face.

@AlanMunn The internet. A place were men are men. Women are men. And boys are CIA-agents.

@Skillmon Well, yes, that could be true =D

It is still different as doing things in-game though ...

@JasperHabicht real life is a strange game. Graphics are absolutely life like, but the story is often lacking

@Skillmon Story-wise, it is indeed very ... strage

@JasperHabicht -- Oh, yes, although largely online these days. But I'm getting to know my neighbors better. (I'm surrounded by architects! And one just-past-teenage daughter teaches rock-wall climbing. I've never climbed an artificial rock wall; only the real thing.)

@Skillmon -- I can probably still make sense of an Assembler program, But wrote in it only infrequently, long, long ago.

@barbarabeeton I only ever wrote 5 lines of production Assembler, which was inline-assembler in a C file because I needed to get around a very picky compiler and needed a guaranteed number of instructions. Otherwise it was only a bit of dabbling.

@barbarabeeton Usually called "indoor climbing" I think or if competitive, "comp climbing". It's a great sport to watch.

@AlanMunn -- A few weeks ago, I went with some friends to a performance by Cirque de Soleil. Part of their set was a wall with regularly-placed hand/footholds, and the performers (expert gymnasts) did absolutely amazing things clambering on it. One of the more interesting rock-climbing feats I've witnessed though was my sister, her husband and a friend scaling Devil's Tower. It took 9 hours, up and down. I was stationed at the base, baby-sitting my eldest nephew, 9 months old at the time.

@barbarabeeton If you want to watch some real competition climbing, there's a boulder world cup event taking place in Prague right now. Streaming live on the IFSC YouTube Channel

@Skillmon I first learn to program on this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-65 at my institute, 17 yo. The teacher taught us to assemble by hand -> we wrote the 6502 assembly program, we translated with paper & pencil to hex code, and then programmed in hex the beast (I really do not remember exactly how, unfortunately). I have one in the museum of my uni now, and I'm always tempted to rob it...

\prg_return_true: or \prg_return_false: does not break a loop or a map or the like, or does it?

@JasperHabicht no, you need to make sure that your \prg_return_true: or \prg_return_false: are used in places in which everything can get expanded without side effects.

@JasperHabicht in a loop use \<type>_map_break:n {\prg_return_true: }. And if your function is something like \<type>_map_<map-variant>:<args> { <loop-body> } \prg_return_false: you'd have to use \prg_map_break:n { \use_i:nn \prg_return_true: } to remove the trailing false.

@JasperHabicht they are rather simple minded, they just start a \romannumeral expansion and afterwards use \use_i:nn or \use_ii:nn.

@Skillmon Okay, I'll try this ...

Thanks!

@JasperHabicht also, if you can manage without going too many detours it's best if your conditional code ends in \prg_return_true: \else: \prg_return_false: \fi: (because if it does it triggers some low level optimisations making your functions a bit faster than otherwise)