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A terminal-based workflow for research, writing, and programming

jacobzelko.com

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Re: A terminal-based workflow for research, writing, and programming

#101
post #93
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're probably right, but my experience (Sway on Arch) has been nothing other than pretty excellent. It supports fractional scaling and different scales for different attached screens.. You have to tell the system you want it (`swaymsg 'output scale 1.5'`) but it works.

Just checked out Sway's intro video, this looks promising! Would you mind to elaborate if Sway is ready for being a daily driver + how is multi-monitor support (all monitors same dpi and also with different dpi levels).

I’ve been using it as a daily driver for 2-ish years professionally. I have crashed it but those were super rare.

You still need Xwayland installed for some stuff though. Most tools have adequate wayland replacements.

Re: A terminal-based workflow for research, writing, and programming

#103
post #68
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking about this today - that is: a terminal (“minimal”) setup may well have prepared those of us who practice it - for remote work (great news if a pandemic strikes!) I wondered though, if there’s no way to objectively “score” the advantage of, say, terminal-minimalism vs. GUI-maximalism, what might some discussions of t-min vs GUI-max be? What, if anything, does t-min really cut us out of while we’re prepa…

Pros of t-min: - overall greater speed using a computer, you become what people call a "power user". - some sysadmin knowledge. Adopting a terminal based workflow requires to tinker with your system (systemd, sh scripts, building certain repo for a tool you want etc.). Pros of GUI-max: - You don't have to spend hours learning and configuring things. - Certain tools are just better when they are built out in a GUI for…

> You don't have to spend hours learning and configuring things

After spending hours, sometimes days, trying to learn GUI stand-ins and trying to configure them (turns out you usually can't unless the GUI designer though it was a good idea), I usually give up and go back to being productive instead by using the CLI.

Re: A terminal-based workflow for research, writing, and programming

#104
post #28
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, on the other hand, feel sad that we don't have better terminals, but still rely on ancient teletype protocols, escape codes, and arcana. I'd very much like an advanced, still cli/terminal, interface option.

https://jexer.sourceforge.io/screenshots/jexer_sixel_in_sixe...

https://media.tenor.com/images/f64390f36df99bc8d1891833c658e...

Re: A terminal-based workflow for research, writing, and programming

#105
I'm not sure I see any advantages of having a window with multiple panes and tabs instead of a separate window for what would be in each pane or tab? I can easily alt-tab between windows on a workspace (and ctrl-alt-arrow between workspaces) and I can cut and paste between windows. I only need to use a mouse when I am forced by necessity to interact with the cartoons in a browser window or to play the red 10 on a black jack.

Can anyone elaborate on the advantages to using a single mother application to house all my command-line interactions instead of separate application windows for each?

Re: A terminal-based workflow for research, writing, and programming

#106

At risk of being /that guy/, I find that emacs gives me a nice & consistent "one-stop-shop" for text-based apps instead of having to kludge together a bunch disparate terminal programs. Also, +1 for Julia.

I think author (and other folks who have this vim+tmux+other tools type of workflow) would really like Emacs, especially Org mode. I have a very similar set of tools for a pure-Emacs workflow to this: - org-roam - org-noter - persp mode with persistent sessions - vterm + eshell - various plugins for org bibtex / latex All of this in Doom Emacs gives me the same functionality. I do admit that it took a large amount of…

Org-mode is amazing. If you're on iOS I highly recommend beorg https://beorgapp.com/. In my opinion it's the best app for org on the go (including android).

Re: A terminal-based workflow for research, writing, and programming

#107
post #44

At risk of being /that guy/, I find that emacs gives me a nice & consistent "one-stop-shop" for text-based apps instead of having to kludge together a bunch disparate terminal programs. Also, +1 for Julia.

Just the combination of tmux and nvim with shared ctrl-hjkl between both nvim and tmux panes is so buttersmooth and no other setup has given me such an seamless interoperability between an editor and an OS. What this means: you can switch between tmux panes or nvim panes or from tmux to nvim and back always with the same shortcut. This is the most underrated killer feature.

> is so buttersmooth and no other setup has given me such an seamless interoperability between an editor and an OS . . . This is the most underrated killer feature.

You've just described what it feels like to be an emacs user. It's all just text[0].

[0] - https://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/3996068979/the-levels-of-e...

Re: A terminal-based workflow for research, writing, and programming

#108

At risk of being /that guy/, I find that emacs gives me a nice & consistent "one-stop-shop" for text-based apps instead of having to kludge together a bunch disparate terminal programs. Also, +1 for Julia.

To "kludge together a bunch of disparate terminal programs" is not conceptually different than "kludge together a bunch of disparate elisp functions". Some of us live inside the command line, some of us live inside emacs, most of us live inside a web browser.

There may be a difference in how uniform & integrated the final result is likely to be.

Re: A terminal-based workflow for research, writing, and programming

#109
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It just takes time but it's worth it in my humble opinion. But why? Because I have a better scripting language? Are there more benefits beyond having lisp?

That's really gonna come down to your workflow and use cases. For me, the Lisp is a bit more welcoming than VimScript for me. It's much easier to test out a small snippet of something in-buffer which might grow into something else. But, putting Lisp aside, going through the growing pains was worth it for me because of org-mode. I'm certain Vim might have something similar but the proper `org` package is definitely on…

> It's much easier to test out a small snippet of something in-buffer which might grow into something else.

Ok, here you got me and I'm about to try it another time. But then again I remember the slow loading times, the weaker ecosystem (is the lsp implementation as good and fast as coc-vim?) but whatever, maybe I should give it a try with evil mode. But there are so many other cool things waiting to be learned...

Re: A terminal-based workflow for research, writing, and programming

#110

Title, especially with the inclusion of 'research,' is overly broad, and gimmicky. A (quantitative) researcher, involved in serious plotting, illustrations, and diagrammatic analysis, wouldn't last half-a-day in this workflow.

You seem to be using a rather specific meaning of the word "research". If, for example, I pause coding and spent a few hours comparing and reading about various libraries to aid in a certain task, wouldn't this task be best described as "research" as well?

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