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Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

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Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#61

Post by b0rsuk »

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…

Actually I noticed something related with websites. It's not that they want to be "an immersive experience", they want to be the immersive experience. In the world of free, apps and websites compete for our attention. This is what "please register" is about. Every website wants to be your home of sorts, track you, give you badges for activity, wish you happy birthday or new year. Few of them recognize that you just want them to be useful. Just use them and get the job done.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#62

Post by b0rsuk »

foxhop wrote: post #29

> 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…

To easily emulate this sort of browser behavior, just use it in Porn Mode (Privacy Mode).

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#63

Post by fao_ »

0x445442 wrote: post #41
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…

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

You might find what you're looking for in dmenu: https://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#64

Post by b0rsuk »

munificent wrote: post #39

Does anyone else remember the WinAmp era of music software? There was a time when basically every app for playing music on your computer lived inside a little floating window that you carried with you to all of the other apps you were using at the time. That really did help me think of my music player as a tool and not a place. Though the little scrolling text could be distracting sometimes, I do occasionally find my…

Hahaha I was going to post that one, I just wanted to read other replies first.

My WinAmp substitute is Audacious. It plays music, has repeat, shuffle, playlists, and little more.

I tried to use Amarok to see what the fuss is about and was repulsed. It's not an audio player, it's an unfocused sound-related system thingy.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#65

Post by b0rsuk »

I like various discussion forums and talking to people online (often on IRC - when I'm programming). I like exchange of ideas, even arguing - as long as it remains respectful.

I consider message boards / forums bloated and clunky. I miss usenet and threaded discussion. Disqus technically does that, but it takes what, 20 seconds to load ? And after recent acquisition it's only going to get worse.

I think threaded discussion is much more like natural human conversation than "topics" on message boards. That's shoe-horning discussion. They invariably get off topic sooner or later, and moderators pride themselves on deleting posts that stray too far.

It boggles my mind why topic-based message boards remain popular.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#66

Post by bitwize »

Emacs is sort of a weird beast -- simultaneously tool and workbench. It can be infinitely shaped to fit the task at hand -- while it is in use -- but it integrates relatively smoothly with all the other tools available in a modern Unix environment, allowing those tools to extend the reach of Emacs without becoming part of it.

But really, I -- and everybody else -- should really just use an IDE. For OO languages you need to have intelligent refactoring (and IntelliSense) and so you need to have an IDE. Refactoring tools are to programming what nondestructive editing is to image editing: a total paradigm shift in workflow that no one these days can live without. It takes a lot of effort to extend Emacs to understand the target language well enough to support these features (and it won't be done in elisp).

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#67

Post by nwah1 »

There's a lot of arguments that various people make regarding the supposed superiority of different setups.

1) It is claimed that using keyboard-only controls reduces "context switching."

2) It is claimed that tiling window managers are simpler and more logical, because you use more of the screen real estate and keep everything open all the time.

3) It is claimed that vim and emacs are better because the brief keyboard commands allow for amazing power with few keystrokes.

Alas, these are almost all arguments voiced by people who grew up with technologies built around severely limited hardware constraints. GUIs were terrible for the longest time, and ten or twenty years ago you certainly couldn't get acceptable performance on them when working remotely.

There are very good reasons why people would avoid all of these tools. Hardware is much better. Compositing window managers are much better.

It is particularly understandable that people avoid vim and emacs. And there's really no empirical evidence at all that they save time, improve accuracy, or anything else.

And any empirical studies on this question would have difficulty isolating the variables. People who do understand systems at the low level, and with all the historical context, could very well be better programmers in some ways... but not because of their environment.

Thinking you could become like Richard Stallman by using emacs is cargo cult reasoning.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#68

Post by auggierose »

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…

iPad Pro is the best e-reader I ever had.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#69

Post by 0x445442 »

fao_ wrote: post #63
0x445442 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 1. Command input component similar to browser omni bars or Emacs M-X interface which parses command input and delegates to service. You might find what you're looking for in dmenu: https://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/

Yeah, so dmenu might potentially cover the command input bit but AFAIK it's really just like Enso, QuickSilver, Launchy etc. What I'm thinking of doesn't really index executables per say but allows for the registration of commands.

What I'm thinking of is limited in scope to "commands" that are registered with the component. Maybe dmenu can be bent to this use case; thanks for the link.

Re: Digital Minimalism for the Working Hacker

#70

Post by YuukiRey »

Funny because I just went the other way. I was running Arch/i3 on a Lenovo W530 I had for work. At some point I couldn't take it anymore. I wanted to use my headsets over bluetooth. I wanted to have no issues with monitor DPI and scaling and the dreaded optimus Nvidia technology. I don't want to have to think about which port I use to connect to an external monitor. I want Wifi to be a solved problem. Boot the laptop, choose the network, enter password, done. I want good battery life and the most basic compositing features enabled.

In hindsight it's crazy that I'd fiddle with WM_STATE_SOMETHING in compton so that X has shadow but Y doesn't if they overlap with transparency (or something like that). My dunst notifications looked very aesthetically pleasing but... so do countless default notifications on mainstream distros.

Yes, the whole mopidy/mcp/whatever looks really rad, especially if a program uses vi(m) keyboard shortcuts, but my music player really isn't something I want to think about and learn. Playing music isn't such an integral part of my work day that I need to make it more efficient.

I am now using a MacBook Pro at work and on my desktop at home I use Antergos with Gnome. The latter is perfect as it gives me up-to-date packages and easy access to the AUR, while still coming with the bells and whistles of Gnome.

I am also not sure if tiling windows really improve your productivity. I would say that most people would be better of having their apps on full-screen, to minimize distractions, instead of having all sorts of windows side-by-side.

Ultimately I nowadays resonate more with what some other posts have mentioned: pick a platform and programs with sane defaults and only deviate from them if it's really worth it. If your job requires you to look at several terminals at the same time constantly and things like terminator/tmux/gnome-terminal don't do it, then sure, look into i3 (herbstluftwm/[insert flavor of the month]). Anything else I would now consider premature optimization.

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