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Ask HN: Does anyone use sound effects in their dev environment?

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Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use sound effects in their dev environment?

#41

Post by fabrik42 »

I use a sound effect to notify me about the exit of long running commands

    alias kk
    kk='say "ok! I am ready"'
Usage

    sleep 10 && kk
Not my idea, I found it years ago in some dotfile. But it is kind of handy if you run a long-running task in a terminal in the background.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use sound effects in their dev environment?

#42

Post by RhysU »

Peep:...

Abstract

Activities in complex networks are often both too important to ignore and too tedious to watch. We created a network monitoring system, Peep, that replaces visual monitoring with a sonic `ecology' of natural sounds, where each kind of sound represents a specific kind of network event....

https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/lisa00/gilfix/gilfix_ht...

(not my work; that of a former co-worker)

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use sound effects in their dev environment?

#43

Post by voytec »

cpach wrote: post #8

Sometimes when I wait for slow tasks to complete I do stuff like: sleep 900; say "Task X is probably done now" On Mac this works out of the box, AFAICT Linux has similar commands. https://ss64.com/mac/say.html https://manpages.debian.org/bookworm/gnustep-gui-common/say....

I use something similar with an added "nagging" functionality. Surprisingly, it's easier for me to obey this thing, than nagging from an actual human being.

    nagme () {
        [ "$#" -ne 2 ] && printf "usage: $0 [in_minutes] [text]\n" && return 1
        printf "sleeping $1 min before telling you to $2\n"
        sleep "$(echo $1\*60|bc)"
        say "$2" > /dev/null 2>&1
        while :
        do
            sleep 30
            echo -n '.'
            say "I'm nagging you to $2" > /dev/null 2>&1
        done
    }

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use sound effects in their dev environment?

#44

Post by slig »

Rygian wrote: post #37
hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #14

It isn't exactly what you have in mind, but I use `play` as well as a terminal theme color change to tell me when I'm using one or another language's keyboard layout. If you put & in front of play, you can make chords. Here's an example: # Define notes for major seventh chord starting on A 440 A=440 C_SHARP=554.37 E=659.25 G_SHARP=830.61 if [[ "$layout" == "Finnish" ]]; then # Play a major seventh chord ascending kit…

I used the same approach when programming my fridge. If the compressor was required because the temperature in the topmost shelf was too high, the tones would play in rising order. If it was due to the bottom shelf, then the tones would play in descending order. I ended up disabling the feature because it was always the bottom shelf.

Is your fridge on GH? Mine is outdated and I'd like to download a newer one.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use sound effects in their dev environment?

#45

Post by rich_sasha »

croo wrote: post #12

One of my friends old office had speakers and every time Jenkins failed with a build it made a short sound. It was different for each project so everyone familiar with the sound would instantly know which project pipeline failed. He liked it and had fun choosing a sound effect fitting for his own project :)

I sat next to someone who had a similar set up, except a robot voice also read out a summary of the failures.

I moved desk within a few hrs.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use sound effects in their dev environment?

#46

Post by Rygian »

slig wrote: post #44
Rygian wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used the same approach when programming my fridge. If the compressor was required because the temperature in the topmost shelf was too high, the tones would play in rising order. If it was due to the bottom shelf, then the tones would play in descending order. I ended up disabling the feature because it was always the bottom shelf.

Is your fridge on GH? Mine is outdated and I'd like to download a newer one.

Short answer: no.

Was forced to move to a new place. Had to buy a secondhand fridge. Thermostat was out of whack. Instead of calling a technician, I decided to have fun, replaced the thermostat by an Arduino with a couple of thermometers (top shelf, bottom shelf), a relay driving a contactor, and a beeper. Firmware stayed in "beta version", never thought about publishing it.

When I moved again to a new place I ditched the frankenfridge.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use sound effects in their dev environment?

#48

Post by pimlottc »

pseudo_meta wrote: post #25

I sometimes use sounds as opposed to print statements when debugging automations or certain UI behavior, e.g. to indicate whether a certain if-condition was triggered or not. The advantage over normal print debugging is that you get immediate feedback, and do not need to switch to a console. This is also useful when it comes to debugging split second timings (custom window movement scripts).

You just gave me the idea for a tool that watches log files and plays sounds when certain patterns occur.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone use sound effects in their dev environment?

#50

Post by darknavi »

Rygian wrote: post #46
slig wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your fridge on GH? Mine is outdated and I'd like to download a newer one.

Short answer: no. Was forced to move to a new place. Had to buy a secondhand fridge. Thermostat was out of whack. Instead of calling a technician, I decided to have fun, replaced the thermostat by an Arduino with a couple of thermometers (top shelf, bottom shelf), a relay driving a contactor, and a beeper. Firmware stayed in "beta version", never thought about publishing it. When I moved again to a new place I ditche…

Projects line Frankenfridge are a blast until you want a product that "just works".
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