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Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

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Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#21

Post by Ascetik »

microcolonel wrote: post #8

I've been running basically the same stuff for the last six years. I have a somewhat modified fork of dwm, a lightly modified version of Termite (simplest working VTE3 terminal I could find), and my emacs (which has had basically the same configuration for the last four years). Most things take up the whole screen or the left or right division of it. I run the same thing on my high memory Xeon workstation that I do o…

Clementine is the simplist Spotify replacement application I could find to avoid using their clunky app.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#22

Post by nextos »

patrickmay wrote: post #20

"There’s a way in which you could say that Emacs is a place whereas vi is a tool." As an Emacs user, I agree with this. The author's preference for more tools and fewer immersive applications still resonates with me because I see Emacs as a place for all the tools I need for development and writing.

That's true. Emacs is a platform, a virtual Lisp machine. The Web is another platform. Plus our OS plumbing, usually Unix.

Understanding my computer this way has brought me a lot of sanity. I only use a tiling window manager (xmonad), Emacs, a browser (firefox) and a Unix terminal (urxvt).

Previously I was trying to move most of my computing into pure Unix CLI. While it was fast and simple, I found most ncurses applications (e.g. mutt, remind, irssi) do not really compose as well as simple Unix programs do (e.g. wc, grep, xargs). Moving everything to elisp packages instead (e.g. org, notmuch, magit), where all elisp nicely blends together has been a great improvement. Plus dealing with configuration in a functional way, by switching to NixOS.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#23

Post by nextos »

microcolonel wrote: post #19
nextos wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you prefer VTE3-based terminals to urxvt?

Yeah, I need iBus support for Japanese and Cyrillic input, and VTE3 interacts very well with input methods. I also find that VTE3 has the most legible (antialiased) text rendering and spacing/geometry of all the terminal emulators I've tried on Linux or OS X, especially when compared at smaller text sizes (7pt, for me). The default keyboard shortcuts are also pretty great in standard VTE3 terminals like Termite and G…

It looks nice, however there's no support for standard readline bindings?

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#26

Post by SanderSantema »

cmiles74 wrote: post #11
sheraz wrote: post #5

I think the author echos some things I've been feeling about my work environment (the desktop). There is a lot of friction that comes when each of my applications wants to be its own immersive experience. My take-away from his post is that he seems to be iterating away from those rich, colorful, and distracting interfaces to something that is kind of interface-less. This, too, is my dream (or sorts). - Spotify withou…

I think I'd go a little further, even: not only is there friction moving from one "immersive" application to another, there seems to be some expenditure of energy necessary to actually make the switch. Each fights in it's own way, not only to deliver on it's function but to somehow tempt you into spending ever more time with that particular application. A console or text-based interface seems like a big equalizer; fo…

This is exactly the reason why I've tried to port as much stuff as I can to my terminal. Productivity in the sense of using a program faster is a nice by-product, but preserving my attention is way more important to me. To me it seems nowadays you don't pay hard cash for things online, you pay in attention. I'm trying to get my digital experience to serve me again instead of me serving to something which I'm using.

On a sidenote: Any tips on making my digital experience less attention focused? For instance I would really like to use surf or uzbl but they don't have support for MacOS and I would still need an adblocker/ reader mode.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#27

Post by dmos62 »

b0rsuk wrote: post #16

I thought I was alone. Every one of us minimalists draws the line somewhere else. I like vim, Python, Rust, RSS, web of documents rather than web of applications, static blog generators, roguelike games, symbols and symbolic graphics in computer games and boardgames. I prefer Ultima IV graphics to Ultima V graphics , because the latter started drawing individual torches, chairs, dishes, bushes, etc. I'm not anti-mode…

It's pleasant to know you're not alone. Same here: cli, tmux, vim, rust, lisps, unix way of system development, webapp allergy, gopher > web, irc, dumb phone, eink reader that lasts months.

I'm not anti-modern either, but it's hard to pinpoint what makes me choose differently than many others. Here's two relevant outlooks I hold, but I'd say that they are insufficient to explain this behaviour. Trend following has no value, unless to fool someone. Solution's popularity does not imply that it is better.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#28

Post by fiddlerwoaroof »

Ascetik wrote: post #21
microcolonel wrote: post #8

I've been running basically the same stuff for the last six years. I have a somewhat modified fork of dwm, a lightly modified version of Termite (simplest working VTE3 terminal I could find), and my emacs (which has had basically the same configuration for the last four years). Most things take up the whole screen or the left or right division of it. I run the same thing on my high memory Xeon workstation that I do o…

Clementine is the simplist Spotify replacement application I could find to avoid using their clunky app.

I wish one of the streaming services would just embrace the mpd model and ship as a music daemon that speaks a well-defined protocol + a reference client. They could brand this as something like “music for IoT”

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#29

Post by foxhop »

> There’s a way in which you could say that Emacs is a place whereas vi is a tool.

This really resonates with me, and I have to say I agree.

I try to treat my browser as a tool, it holds state only for as long as it's open. I pretend that at any time the browser (or computer) could crash and I would loose my place.

I use my web browser (I switched back to Firefox from many years with Chrome) very similar to how I use my email inbox.

For email this is "inbox zero". If I need to reread an email, respond, or do something with a message, I mark it as unread. Unread stuff gets cleared at least once a day (often more now that I have a smart phone). I open my email and work it down to zero (or as close as I can) and then I close it. Email acts as a tool, a communication / todo list, hybrid.

An unread email is the same as an open browser tab, it symbolizes work-in-progress.

With my web broswer, I open it as needed and open as many tabs or even windows as I need. When a tab, window, or page is no longer needed, I close it.

To "save" a page I create a bookmark (but I can't tell you the last time I've actually used bookmarks to find something). Another way I "save" is when I'm tearing down my web browser, I pull a page's tab out into it's own window. This marks it as "unread"; I need to do something with it.

This process doesn't really save the page, it just allows me to clear out the other tabs and context out of my head. It helps me focus, and reminds me to just do that task on the single tab instead of letting it linger.

I close my web browser multiple times a day.

I follow this practice with my terminal windows as well.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#30

Post by overcast »

cellover wrote: post #15

i3wm has been a huge productivity boost for me as a development machine at home for the following reasons: - no distractions - minimalism, most navigation on the keyboard - easy to setup a startup script that preloads your default screens / workspaces / apps setup - easy to map your workspaces in your mind From machine boot to coding: 30 seconds. https://twitter.com/Phonosheet/status/952179820447911936

I've been experimenting with moving my "getting work done" setup over to an old laptop running just Mint Linux for that exact reasoning. I end up getting so distracted on my MacPro desktop, because it's got everything on there. Movies/Games/Messaging/Email etc. I need just a distraction free environment that still allows me to do web development.
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