On Configuration
sstephenson.us
On Configuration
1–10 of 55 posts
Re: On Configuration
#2I've been sticking with the defaults pretty much since I started programming (around 1984) and always came across people doing a LOT of tweaking.
I can't help but wonder if that's a bit like guitar players that spend more time tuning their instrument than playing :)
Re: On Configuration
#3This is one of the reasons I stopped messing around trying to find the perfect text editor. I focused on getting better with a stock VIM install.
I think the spirit of this post is that you should at least give the defaults a chance before you go crazy trying to make everything "better". However, I would add that you shouldn't totally ignore that voice that says "is this setting getting in my way?".
Re: On Configuration
#4This is why choosing good default settings matter
Re: On Configuration
#5This echoes what I've come to believe over time. I used to spend a LOT of time tweaking my environment, and searching for that magic productivity-enhancing utility that was going to make me super-productive and optimize my time.
I've gradually come to realize that most of that time was just a way of procrastinating, and that I was better off just taking what's there and getting on with it already. I'm amazingly more productive now that I've freed up all that extra time to actually work :)
Re: On Configuration
#6Agreed. The trick is to be away from your comfort zone periodically, so you can retain the mnemonics of vanilla bash/vim but take advantage of zsh's nice features as well. I typically don't have ZSH running on any remote server I work on (except my personal VPS) for precisely this reason, it helps me keep the vanilla shortcuts in memory.
But realistically, most my custom configuration is suited to working with large projects that have lots of files. I never open the whole project up in shell vim on the remote server, if I'm gonna be doing that I might as well just open it locally and push to Git. I feel that configuration should build on top of the editor/shell you're already using, not modify it so heavily that it renders the vanilla shell unrecognizable.
Re: On Configuration
#7What I discovered is that in many cases, my ability to adapt to a foreign environment without frustration is more important than the benefits of configuring a local environment to suit my whims.
YES. That is exactly why endlessly messing around with text-editor configuration frippery is a waste of time.
Re: On Configuration
#8What I discovered is that in many cases, my ability to adapt to a foreign environment without frustration is more important than the benefits of configuring a local environment to suit my whims. YES. That is exactly why endlessly messing around with text-editor configuration frippery is a waste of time.
I use a relatively vanilla bash shell, but I actually think the text editor is an exception here as long as you don't spend a lot of time yak-shaving.
It's pretty likely you'll be in a foreign bash environment on a semi-regular basis, it's pretty unlikely you'll sit down to code in a foreign environment.
My emacs env is trivially importable to any machine I happen to be on anyway.
Re: On Configuration
#9I no longer fall into deep pits of yak shaving, but I'm not sure I agree with the opposite extreme either ("use the absolute vanilla defaults").
But I would expect that there's a natural progression (sort of like the many "evolution of a programmer" posts[1]). You start using these programmer's tools, and at first you struggle to do basic things with default settings. Then, later, you learn that everything can be configured. You spend days (weeks? months?) getting very little real work done, but configuring everything. Then, later again, you calm down, find a set of reasonable and productive configurations, automate getting them onto new machines when necessary and go back to work.
[1]: Example for Python: https://gist.github.com/289467.
Re: On Configuration
#10I think this is kind of an interesting phenomenon that extends to other areas as well. It's easy to become reliant on intellisense to the point of not being able to remember simple API functions, object names, etc, and it's tough when you find yourself in a situation where you have to work without it (say, for example, a job interview).
And programming isn't the only area that's being affected by advances in technology. Does anyone remember the study linking GPS to atrophy of the hippocampus? (http://articles.courant.com/2010-11-22/features/hc-weir-gps-...).
Yes, these things make our lives easier, but at the same time we become completely and totally dependent on them to function.