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Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

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Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#41

Post by 0x445442 »

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…

The problem is applications. Applications, even within an environment of standardized widgets, still present a wildly disjointed experience to users. Now you throw in the infinite number of UI paradigms available with HTML/CSS/JS and you have a modern desktop that requires so much context switching between one use case and another that users who are trying to be more efficient with their computing are slammed in the face.

I believe that's why "power" users gravitate to the command line. With the command line and terminal you have a much more cohesive experience with your computing.

Jeff Raskin with the Canon Cat (http://www.canoncat.org/) and his son Aza with Enso (https://therichwebexperience.com/blog/aza_raskin/2007/01/ens...) and later with Ubiquity (https://venturebeat.com/2008/08/27/mozilla-labs-aza-raskin-t...) attempted to address this problem.

Actually, the first time I started to recognize this issue was back in 1996 when I read about David Galernter's Lifestreams (http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/freeman/lifestreams.html).

The current state of affair;, Emacs goes quite a ways to solving this problem. Where Emacs falls down is the ability render html content and graphical content in general the way a browser does. If Emacs could render graphical content then I think it could be used to implement my ideal UI.

My ideal UI would be this:

1. Command input component similar to browser omni bars or Emacs M-X interface which parses command input and delegates to service.

2. Result of command entry is a list of 0-N items presented in a tree list view with the first item in the list selected by default. Think old Usenet UI.

3. Any item selected in 2 renders its own view. Again think of old Usenet UI. However instead of just text this item renderer can be anything. Text, graphics, embedded video, etc.

4. The resultant list of any command can, in turn, be used as input to a following command. Think Unix pipe.

The result is an interface that's a hybrid of the command line and Emacs M-x but is modern enough to handle more than text rendering. With this interface you don't develop applications but agents/verbs that return items and you provide renderers for each item

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#42

Post by jacquesm »

sleepybrett wrote: post #35
kenbolton wrote: post #34

I've been fantasizing recently about using a Bluetooth keyboard (Twiddler3) connected to an eInk reader to do most of my work both locally and on remote machines/instances. The eInk reader would have just enough power to run spacemacs. I can currently do this on an Android smartphone, but the experience is lacking because of the screen-size.

I already have enough frustration using an eink screen for reading books around the refresh rate of updating that page that I couldn't even imagine the pain of trying to use one interactively.

Imagine then what life was like when an editor meant a line editor and output universally referred to stacks of fan-fold green and white lined paper.

The 'refresh rate' of a line editor would be a couple of seconds at best and to do an edit-compile-test cycle would be on the order of a couple of hours, two per day if you are lucky, but most likely only one per day.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#43

Post by thurt »

overcast wrote: post #30
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.

Instead of mint, if you are doing a new install and looking for a minimalist approach with i3, consider wattOS distro microwatt edition.

I found it on distrowatch; I installed it about 6 months ago on an old laptop and I'm pretty happy with it.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#44

Post by seawlf »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #4
na85 wrote: post #2

Interesting read, but ultimately I was left confused as to the purpose of the article. As far as I can tell it was to express the author's disdain for the modern web stack (an embarrassment for web devs, to be sure) and to advocate using vim (yawn).

I think I mainly understand the point author tries to make: for example, it takes time to learn all of the shirtcuts in any GUI application (let's say, Slack) and become a power-user in it; so why not have a proper console interface if it's the same case for pushing buttons? Nevertheless Slack still manages to do it badly: Cmd+Shift+K takes 3 seconds to load the list of channels for a quick jump. How's that considere…

For what it's worth, you can just to Ctrl+K (and I assume Cmd+K) in Slack to quickly jump to a channel, no need for shift.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#45

Post by walshemj »

walshemj wrote: post #40
sk1pper wrote: post #32

To me, true minimalism on my desktop came from stopping messing around with different window managers, IDEs, whatever to try to maximize my experience. Specifically, command line interfaces to Slack and GPM just add more headache and frustration. My setup: a terminal with tmux; Firefox; Spotify. (Recently switched from GPM, would recommend). Stock everything except dark themes on some stuff and caps lock->ctrl. I don…

Which is it CLI or GUI is better for you its not clear and for an experienced developer often CLI is better than GUI a shell to MySQL is better that the abomination that is PHPMYSQL.

Really saying that a CLI to a RDBMS is better than a GUI (PHPMYADMIN) there must be more script kiddies on hn than I thought

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#46

Post by ssivark »

> Every change I’ve made in my working environment over the past year or so has also been a lessening of immersiveness. My interfaces have become less rich, less colorful, less dynamic.

I really like the author's place -vs- tool metaphor to contrast wannabe immersive experiences with tools that stay out of your way. I don't think it makes sense to avoid having places you go to (where you feel "at home") -- I mean that very generally, but even in the specific case of computing, your goto places might be your favorite browser, the command line, the unix system, Emacs, your IDE etc. A place where you feel at home, at control, with a sense of the multitude of possibilities lying ahead, and still in the driver's seat.

The important requirement then is that the environment shouldn't try to nudge you around (especially towards misaligned goals). This is where most web/software platforms of today come up short, IMHO.

This metaphor is also the best elucidation of Alan Kay's pithy quote (reproduced approximately): To me, a computer is worth more than my car, because of all the things it enables me to do. Most people, however, pay about as much for a computer, as they pay for a TV, and use it in roughly the same way.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#47

Post by overcast »

thurt wrote: post #43
overcast wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Instead of mint, if you are doing a new install and looking for a minimalist approach with i3, consider wattOS distro microwatt edition. I found it on distrowatch; I installed it about 6 months ago on an old laptop and I'm pretty happy with it.

Thanks for the response, is that based on debian/ubuntu? I need to have that environment to mirror production environments.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#48

Post by KG_5 »

kenbolton wrote: post #34

I've been fantasizing recently about using a Bluetooth keyboard (Twiddler3) connected to an eInk reader to do most of my work both locally and on remote machines/instances. The eInk reader would have just enough power to run spacemacs. I can currently do this on an Android smartphone, but the experience is lacking because of the screen-size.

Well look at this: https://hackaday.com/2018/01/15/this-portable-pi-may-not-be-...

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#50

Post by cjf4 »

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…

Parklife!
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