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Ask HN: Is it still possible to live in a terminal?

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Re: Ask HN: Is it still possible to live in a terminal?

#181

Post by tonto »

ablob wrote: post #112
greymalik wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What setup/plugins do you recommend for using Neovim as an IDE replacement? I use vi for minor text editing but have never used it for development.

Depending on what you deem to be a suitable replacement i'd recommend: nvim-telescope/telescope.nvim // integrates well with code actions and searching (very extensible in general, similar to ctrl-p) hrsh7th/nvim-cmp hrsh7th/cmp-nvim-lsp // for language server completion neovim/nvim-lspconfig // a bunch of language server specific stuff note, that you'll probably need a bit of time to configure it to your liking and…

lsp-zero is a good way to get a completion running without configuring many plugins...it installs several of the above.

Re: Ask HN: Is it still possible to live in a terminal?

#182

Post by alwillis »

pram wrote: post #168
gregjor wrote: post #10

I do almost everything in terminal windows, but for emails, Slack, video calls, and other support-related things I use native MacOS/iPadOS apps. It doesn't make sense to do everything in a terminal because not every useful service works in a terminal. Choose your environment and tools based on utility.

I agree. I don’t really understand the point in being a terminal maximalist. Yes, I do 90% of my work in vi or ssh and that’s what I prefer. Checking my email or chatting though, why bother? The company pays for outlook and slack, I’d just be making my life pointlessly difficult.

The overhead of context switching is a thing.

Running a bunch of Electron apps to handle basic things slows you down and takes an unnecessary amount of system resources.

Most users can’t automate GUIs to create workflows, assuming the apps and the platform being used even support that.

Scripting CLI tools has existed since the dawn of Unix.

Re: Ask HN: Is it still possible to live in a terminal?

#183

Post by giobox »

farias0 wrote: post #139
giobox wrote: post #135

I couldn't disagree more with the premise of this post. I've never been more productive at the terminal in 30 years. The thrust of your complaints appear to be you can't do company IM easily at terminal, but given most employees will want strong audio/video conferencing features too this is perhaps not all that surprising. We have whole classes of new CLI tools that didn't even exist 20 years ago today, allowing us t…

I disagree with the premise of your answer. The statements "there are new, interesting CLI apps" and "there are more critical GUI apps nowadays" aren't mutually exclusive, actually they both make sense if you consider the number of apps out there is always increasing.

Great! Maybe next time you can address the premises of my answer too, instead of inventing some new ones.

Re: Ask HN: Is it still possible to live in a terminal?

#184

Post by ryandrake »

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote: post #162
29athrowaway wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the time you are half-way configuring that I am already done with my tasks. By the end of the first sprint you'll have carpal tunnel syndrome.

Why do you care so much what workflow some rando on the internet uses?

Not OP, but to me, software that requires installing multiple plugins and extensions on top of it and requires much configuration in order to be useable is basically "unfinished software". It's 2022. Software not just has to work out of the box (or out of the download), it has to be packaged with everything needed to actually use it. It has to come fully configured for the most common use cases, or be able to fully configure/adapt itself at runtime. The days of sitting there installing plugins and tweaking settings and looking up how to configure it to do Common Use Case Xyz should be long behind us.

For example browsers. Whenever there is a Must Have extension that basically everyone downloads and installs, we should not be saying "See! It's great that software has plugins and extensions!" We should be saying "The development team totally missed this."

Re: Ask HN: Is it still possible to live in a terminal?

#185

Post by 29athrowaway »

ilovecaching wrote: post #172
29athrowaway wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I've been using Vim since college and nothing else and I could retire at 33 from my FAANG RSUs so it worked for me. Have fun "getting shit done" in VSCode or whatever. Honestly if someone told me they hated memorizing commands or configuring their environment in an interview I would see that as a big red flag, but you do you.

Most of it unvested stock and not enough to retire at 33.

Thanks to the great people running the economy, if you get to survive all layoffs taking place and vest that money, you'll be able to buy an avocado toast made of soylent green in the metaverse of the future. You will own nothing and be happy.

Re: Ask HN: Is it still possible to live in a terminal?

#186

Post by rockwotj »

thomasahle wrote: post #158
lizardking wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a lot of them, many specific to my work, but here are some of the ones that I think will most improve the quality of life for most developers. - For a plug-in manager I user packer - For file/text search I recommend telescope ( https://github.com/nvim-telescope/telescope.nvim ) - Copilot ( https://github.com/github/copilot.vim ) - Nerd tree for file browsing ( https://github.com/preservim/nerdtree ) - commentar…

Is there an LSP that allows refactoring Python code like PyCharm? I haven't found any other tools that does simple things like extracting a function, renaming or inlining variables. For example, vscode's Python support is terrible.

Jetbrains IDEs have refactorings that are light-years ahead of any LSP functionality. I can use nvim for simple or small code bases, but for any real work project I've had to use IntelliJ.

For example, I had a VSCode coworker who was asking to switch all typescript string union types to enums so they could be refactored, but IntelliJ is able to refactor (in this case rename) the string union types

Re: Ask HN: Is it still possible to live in a terminal?

#187

Post by 29athrowaway »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #174
29athrowaway wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Yes there's a learning curve but once you've learned that it can be more efficient. For some people key bindings are easy to remember. For others a menu is better even though it's slower to navigate. But clearly it isn't for you. It isn't for me either, though I did try. I just don't really have a reproducible workflow (I'm not a dev). In that case the setup overhead does indeed not pay off. If you spend every day in…

Not because something has a learning curve, it means it is better.

You could memorize the entire Sacred Scrolls from Planet of the Apes, that doesn't make it practical.

Re: Ask HN: Is it still possible to live in a terminal?

#188

Post by hannasm »

I think the error is in your thinking of where the problem is. If you use screen or tmux inside a terminal what you are doing is relying on a window manager. If you are not using a terminal multiplexer and living in a single terminal you are just unproductive. Look for a window manager that fits your needs and graphical/ textual web browsers are no longer a defining limitation.

That said, there are a lot of people who have gotten off track on this including both the teams developing web browsers and those developing terminals.

Re: Ask HN: Is it still possible to live in a terminal?

#189

Post by j45 »

It’s more possible today than ever.

There’s more commitment to it today than ever.

There’s more command line mtools than ever.

It’s not about one solution of CLI only or some east front end. Both have their place as beginners become experts, and beyond.

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