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Ask HN: How do I code offline for a week?

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Re: Ask HN: How do I code offline for a week?

#31

Post by scrollaway »

mschaef wrote: post #20

I tend to agree with the other commenters suggesting you just step away from the keyboard for a while. I've been programming for 40 years... it can be addictive, fun, and useful... but there are other and more important things in life. Focus on those. If that advice falls on deaf ears, and you really do want to write code on your time off, then here are some suggestions. I was about to say 'welcome to how we used to…

Agreed with the books advice (and the general advice of course.

More to the point though, op says “productive” and there’s more ways to be productive than doing grunt work. Bring books about things you want to learn or improve in your life, not necessarily code. See for example any of the books published by Stripe Press (https://press.stripe.com).

Re: Ask HN: How do I code offline for a week?

#33

Post by bootloop »

da39a3ee wrote: post #25
eszed wrote: post #8

I don't know the circumstance of your tech exile, but I'd encourage you to take advantage of it to do something other than code! If you're going to be in nature, be in nature. If you're going to be with people, be with people. Those are the sorts of experiences you'll treasure, later in life, far more than a few more days of "productivity". If none of that applies, and you still want to learn something to do with tec…

It's really annoying to answer a question by telling the asker that you know better and they should do something else. This person cared enough about this question to ask it to a community on the internet. Have the humility to answer their question instead of telling them that you're wiser than them.

Tell me that in the real world, if you ask a question, you will get only answers and no opinions.

Internet is the same. You ask and someone made the effort to voice their opinion on something and you have to put the effort into figuring out if they would fit your situation. If not, continue on.

Re: Ask HN: How do I code offline for a week?

#34

Post by woofcat »

joshxyz wrote: post #23
choilive wrote: post #10

A colleague of mine had to do this regularly when working on certain projects for the gov. It was an air-gapped environment. So no access to the internet. This basically meant loading up a thumb drive of all the possible documentation he could get. You can use site archive tools to download an entire website's documentation. Depending on the complexity of what you want to build - you would also probably need to mirro…

kinda weird they airgap but allowed thumb drives. that would be very hard for me though, coding without internet. he must be really good at his craft haha.

The one place I know that is this secure, you hand the thumb-drives to security who scan them and verify the contents are of no risk before handing them back. The same on exit.

Re: Ask HN: How do I code offline for a week?

#35

Post by brudgers »

The only way to know what works for you is to try coding without internet, see what problem arises first and solve it as best you can.

Then see what problems arises next and solve that as best you can.

And so on.

Which means it will probably be a bit frustrating, involve a lot of small failures, and maybe even large failures.

But you will learn if you like to code without the internet and will try it again with better preparation or just liked the idea of being a person who codes without the internet but are not (which is ok).

Some people like to camp and some don’t.

Good luck.

Re: Ask HN: How do I code offline for a week?

#36

Post by quickthrower2 »

Time to git clone the docs to all your tools. Mozilla MDN etc would be worth downloading. Make sure you have all your local infra like DBs running on your machine.

I did an hour of coding today disconnected from the internet and it was nice. Some things have to be put off but there is a surprising amount you can do!

Re: Ask HN: How do I code offline for a week?

#37

Post by FlyingAvatar »

Assuming you're fixed on not disconnecting:

I would recommend using ollama (or install llamacpp if you're on Windows) to bring along a modestly capable LLM you can run locally such a CodeLlama or Minstrel. They won't be as capable as ChatGPT, but a lot of knowledge gets compressed into these relatively small models.

Re: Ask HN: How do I code offline for a week?

#39

Post by da39a3ee »

bootloop wrote: post #33
da39a3ee wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really annoying to answer a question by telling the asker that you know better and they should do something else. This person cared enough about this question to ask it to a community on the internet. Have the humility to answer their question instead of telling them that you're wiser than them.

Tell me that in the real world, if you ask a question, you will get only answers and no opinions. Internet is the same. You ask and someone made the effort to voice their opinion on something and you have to put the effort into figuring out if they would fit your situation. If not, continue on.

Yes, but programmers are a special case. We all know that our industry is characterized by a pervasive desire to prove we know more than others. So we should rein it in more than elsewhere.
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