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Joey Hess' minimal approach

joey.hess.usesthis.com

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Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#101

Post by jarek »

w1ntermute wrote: post #64
jakobe wrote: post #48

It's great to be reminded that productivity doesn't really depend as much on the tools you use as some might have you believe. I keep thinking about buying a faster laptop, or I'm complaining that getting fiber is way to expensive where I live, and then I read about someone on an ancient tiny netbook on dialup who is probably way more productive than I am.

> I read about someone on an ancient tiny netbook on dialup who is probably way more productive than I am. And you're not him. It doesn't matter how productive he is on "an ancient tiny netbook on dialup", it matters how productive you would be on it. Getting a faster laptop or fiber is a simple matter of weighing the costs against the benefits for you . If it increases your productivity enough to outweigh the costs,…

I read that as more of a reflection on the necessity of things. It's possible fiber would be an improvement for jakobe, of course, but perhaps only a local maximum. "This guy does without it - maybe the lack of fiber isn't the biggest thing holding me back."

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#102

Post by hollerith »

icebraining wrote: post #98
hollerith wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. A person who knows how to program and who are easily annoyed by things like inconsistent computer behavior or lack of design aesthetics should probably avoid Linux if their interest in an OS is to help them be productive.

I find Linux to be extremely consistent; almost all programs I use read data from stdin, process it according to some arguments and output the result to stdout ;)

In all seriousness, the non-GUI parts of Linux are more consistent than the GUI parts IMHO.

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#103

Post by jarek »

fafner wrote: post #37
elliott99 wrote: post #28

I've never been to usesthis.com before. What a wonderful website! I would love to see more interviews like this.

I like the idea of usesthis. But I'm a bit disappointed that most setups are boring and not really individualized. This makes a lot of the interviews uninteresting if you don't know (care for) the developer. "Spoiler:" 2/3 seem to be using a Mac Book and a fairly common configuration. Please don't misunderstand me. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that configuration. But it's not very interesting to read about.…

I rather liked http://amber.case.usesthis.com/ and http://andrew.huang.usesthis.com/, though theirs are not quite in the same vein as Joey's.

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#104

Post by jiggy2011 »

hollerith wrote: post #96
mahyarm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped using linux and started using osx because linux always involved way too much dicking around by it's nature.

Same here. A person who knows how to program and who are easily annoyed by things like inconsistent computer behavior or lack of design aesthetics should probably avoid Linux if their interest in an OS is to help them be productive.

A lot of Linux based devs prefer "classic" development tools like emacs or vi and operate primarily from the terminal.

These things tend to stay very consistent over time, if I was using Windows I would have had to learn powershell over the last few years. My BASH knowledge is still as applicable as it was 10 years ago.

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#105

Post by mindslight »

eric-hu wrote: post #100
icebraining wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't fit everything in my head and need the screen real estate. For those of us who use virtual desktops, the physical resolution of the screen is just a small fraction of the total. I code in a 12" laptop with just 1280x800 pixels, but my effective resolution is 20 times that.

Do you really use 20 desktops? If so, I'm curious what you use all of them for. I try to limit myself to 3 but you have me wondering what else I could separate out.

At least for me, it's a completely different interaction pattern - basically switching between individual windows using desktop hotkeys.

I've got 24 desktops set up, but mostly use just 12. F1-F3 are generally code or whatever main technical task I am doing. F4 is compile+run, reload configuration and test, etc. F5 is Chromium for html documentation of whatever I'm working on (currently the Honda Civic service manual, sigh). F6 is evince with pdf documentation, and/or a second firefox window when I want some tabs that won't end up getting lost amongst others. F7 is Firefox for general web browsing, plus any pdfs opened directly from the web. F8 is generally email. F9 is music. F10/F11 is a wasteland of quasi-temporary shells. F12 is IM. Alt+F1-F4 generally get used when I'm in the middle of programming and want a clean slate to do some multiple machine sysadmin task. The rest only get used when I have a very seldom need for more desktops, but why wouldn't I fill out the hotkeys?

Shift+key changes to the associated desktop, bringing the active window along for the ride. Changing tasks (how I think people normally view virtual desktops) happens by letting the old task's windows fall by the wayside on their respective desktops. And yes, clearly this setup predates tiling window managers by quite some time.

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#106

Post by cdibona »

joeyh wrote: post #62
pwang wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And when you are a creator rather than a consumer (especially of the written word, be it code, essays or books), screen size rarely matters. I don't necessarily agree with the parent post's sentiments, but I also disagree with this very broad blanket statement of yours. I am reasonably happy most of the time on my Macbook Air screen, but I definitely prefer to be coding on a larger screen when I can. I knew Joey ba…

You sure you knew the same guy? My working memory is crap, and, presumably, getting worse. ;) I find that functional programming really cuts down on the amount of mental state I need to maintain. So while I'll have some API docs and another module or two open for reference, I don't need to worry about what that variable gets set to two pages above. Maybe avoiding that kind of unnecessary detail makes one's unconsciou…

I'm pretty sure he knew you, I remember when we worked at the same company, we held you in similar high regard :-)

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#107

Post by danneu »

jlgreco wrote: post #76
bmelton wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally develop in terminal windows, doing console-only stuff, and I still feel stifled if I don't have at least two displays. I know that all the cool kids are using split terminals and the like, but I like to keep log output visible, a browser in a separate space and a console debugger up without having to toggle between them. That anybody can get anything done with such constraints is amazing to me, but he's o…

I use to feel this way as well, until, nearing the end of university (read: I was rather broke), I had the perfect storm of computer hardware disaster. I was forced to use for about a year just a single netbook with less than impressive resolution. Tmux and tiling window managers became my friends out of necessity. Cut to a few years later and now I have 3 high resolution screens in front of me, pretty much all the t…

Haha. Same progression for me, too. Towards the end of uni, my Windows rig completely broke down.

Being broke, I ended up with a Toshiba netbook that couldn't handle more than a few browser tabs at once. Installed Debian to squeeze out some performance over Windows XP (first foray into Linux). Best thing that ever happened to me.

Soon I learned vim, tmux, and had my entire dev environment in a Guake terminal overlay that I could quickly toggle in and out of view. It was like having two full screens in one.

My work just bought us monitors and everyone is dual/tri-screening it. I just dock my laptop and use the single monitor, still using the same guake/tmux/vim setup.

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#108

Post by pmarin »

fafner wrote: post #37
elliott99 wrote: post #28

I've never been to usesthis.com before. What a wonderful website! I would love to see more interviews like this.

I like the idea of usesthis. But I'm a bit disappointed that most setups are boring and not really individualized. This makes a lot of the interviews uninteresting if you don't know (care for) the developer. "Spoiler:" 2/3 seem to be using a Mac Book and a fairly common configuration. Please don't misunderstand me. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that configuration. But it's not very interesting to read about.…

Jason Rohrer has also an interesting configuration.

http://jason.rohrer.usesthis.com/

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#109

Post by bravura »

I love his minimalism. He loves hacking but he hates devices. He lives in the most natural milieu he can construct.

"I mean the guy no harm, but so much of what he says strikes me as incredibly back-worldly."

No. He approach is incredible modern.

There's some Jobs-ian about it. Steve Jobs ultimately hated devices, because a device embodies the barrier between you and the effect you need. That is why Jobs strove to make devices as small, unobtrusive, and natural as possible.

(I just started purchasing Apple, and have thus only recently began mulling about Steve Jobs's vision.)

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#110

Post by cageface »

fmstephe wrote: post #85
brandall10 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5 months ago I transitioned from being a desktop C# app developer for medical devices to a Rails remote contractor. This meant going from a dual quad core 3.33 extreme desktop machine with 3 displays (2 x 24 and 1 21) to an 11" Macbook Air with a 1.7 dual i5. I'm much faster on the air. I have a tiling setup that I can quickly switch/move windows around, it keeps my vision and neck focused and reduces strain to both.…

I have had a similar experience. I am a professional Java developer, which means 1G Eclipse + 1mm LOC projects. And started hacking on Go in my spare time. The difference is phenomenal. I can use a full screen terminal with vim + another screen with a browser. This is paradise. All my tools respond instantly (with a big enough project eclipse stutters on every interaction, even with an i7 + 16G of ram). And I can cod…

I lived in Emacs + Ruby/Python/Perl for most of 1998-2008 and I've recently been forced into IDEs to do mobile development in Obj-C and Java.

And I'm loving it. I never had this much visibility into my code or anything close to the refactoring power (especially in Java). Maybe things go south with 1mm LOC projects but those are no picnic in Emacs either. I've gotten so addicted to the benefits of a good IDE that I think I'll take a serious look at Rubymine if I ever go back to doing Rails again.

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