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150 days of living and coding in a van

ruby-on-wheels.github.io

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Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#191

Post by matwood »

coldtea wrote: post #103
mmahemoff wrote: post #94

I'm curious - don't people miss big monitors when coding on a laptop? I've done a fair amount of coding on laptops while travelling and it's okay, but I feel like a big monitor is optimal for most work and wouldn't want a permanent situation with just laptop. I like to have logs, command line, and editor all visible, and ideally a browser too. The editor alone is much more useful in a big window where you can see a f…

> I'm curious - don't people miss big monitors when coding on a laptop? No. Some of us work even more focused on a single smaller screen even than having 10 BS windows asking for our attention (and I include debuggers in those, the ultimate hop-around time sink for some developers). Besides, people managed to write software for several decades before larger than 14" screens became the norm. Heck, until the late seven…

Probably getting downvotes because of your tone, but I agree with the focus. I find I work much better on tasks requiring deep focus when I’m just on my laptop.

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#192

Post by mokkol »

classisch wrote: post #68
k4ch0w wrote: post #8

Nice man that looks awesome, pretty jelly. I can work remote and have been thinking about leaving for a while. How much was the initial cost of the van? How did you maintain your internet connection? What would you say is the biggest struggle?

Hey! > How much was the initial cost of the van? I bought the van for 7.000 Euro. > How did you maintain your internet connection? I'm working with 4G. Works perfect all most everywhere in Europe! I use a pre-paid Italian SIM-Card that I can use all over Europe. It costs me 9 Euros for 20 GB. I usually need around 30 to 50 GB a month. So it's roughly 20 Euros per month. You can read more about the technical setup her…

Hi man! I'm in Madrid as well. Wanna go for a coffee sometime? My email: hello at michaelkoper dot com

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#193

Post by aidos »

coldtea wrote: post #188
aidos wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to have attracted a lot of downvotes, I guess because it's overtly antagonistic. But I too prefer to work on a smaller screen (and I have tried much larger monitors). I switch context and then just work in that context. I don't feel the need to be able to see a load of different things at the same time. Really though, it's subjective and everyone should just do what works best for them. It's the same discu…

> This seems to have attracted a lot of downvotes, I guess because it's overtly antagonistic Not exactly antagonistic -- meant to give some historical context to answer the parent's question which made it seem like big monitors are some physical necessity that people just can't do without. It's not like big monitors where any kind of norm before at least 2000. I know tons of people happily coding away on a laptop wit…

Well, the only part of your comment I was referring to was the "having 10 BS windows asking for our attention", because really I agree with you (and I upvoted you to try to help normalise the discussion).

It's a very strange thread to read. Judging by the downvotes, it seems as though there's a really negative reaction to people who code on small screens. Whatever people want to do is fine, but it's pretty weird to almost shout down anyone who does it a different way.

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#194

Post by jvzr »

dx034 wrote: post #119
classisch wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey! I'm the author of that article. I respect your opinion and I totally agree that van life is not for everyone. However it's seems funny that I've never experienced one of your concerns: > I would totally hate the lack of space and comfort. I have 12 square meters and my bed is super comfortable. Most of the time I'm outside. Works perfect for me. > I'd sleep really poorly at night when it's super hot in summer an…

> In Europe the 4G network coverage is amazing. Within the last five months I had less issues with my connectivity than some of my co-workers using a cable internet. Do you get enough data volume? Most sim cards for use with computer are quite restricted. Or can you live off 10GB/month?

50 GB for 24€ per month here in France, and I imagine that you can get better deals (I paid 19 for the same offer for a year)

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#195

Post by danielbarla »

Freeboots wrote: post #93
danielbarla wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting idea. Does sailing a boat typically allow for one to be immersed in coding for longer periods at a time (a few hours)? Or would you just park it while you work?

I suspect you would get the most done while in port. Like, this guy isn't working while he drives. Would pretty amazing way to see the caribean or med!

That makes sense - though with a boat, it might be reasonable to work while sailing, making it even more attractive. But I doubt that would be particularly realistic, w.r.t. internet connectivity, being able to pay attention to hazards, etc.

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#196

Post by jvzr »

cfn wrote: post #185
toomanybeersies wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've got a good sleeping bag, -2 C isn't that bad. I've spent the night with those temperatures in the high country of New Zealand. I know people that have spent the night in -15 C temperatures.

That may be OK for sleeping but it is very hard to work. I spent a couple of Winters coding without heating with indoor temperatures around 12 Celsius and it was very hard. I wore mittens, bubble hat, a blanket and even an electric foot warmer and still had to stop working and walk a bit every now and then to warm up.

What's a bubble hat, if I may ask?

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#197

Post by solatic »

majewsky wrote: post #190

> The amount of water that I used in Berlin to brush my teeth is probably enough for a whole day in my van. Maybe 80% of the water just flowed from the tap right into the drain without even touching my body. I hear things like that time and time again, and I can literally not understand it. Why would any sane person leave the water running while brushing their teeth? When I brush my teeth, the water runs for one seco…

> Why would any sane person leave the water running while brushing their teeth?

a) the price of tap water being cheap enough that the difference in consumption between efficient and wasteful behavior not causing a meaningful enough difference in the bottom-line cost of the monthly water bill to affect a change in behavior

b) sanity not being the same thing as morality, with the sane person not considering the waste of fresh water to be a moral or ethical violation.

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#198

Post by jlebrech »

john61 wrote: post #180
mmahemoff wrote: post #94

I'm curious - don't people miss big monitors when coding on a laptop? I've done a fair amount of coding on laptops while travelling and it's okay, but I feel like a big monitor is optimal for most work and wouldn't want a permanent situation with just laptop. I like to have logs, command line, and editor all visible, and ideally a browser too. The editor alone is much more useful in a big window where you can see a f…

In Emacs switching between all needed buffers and tiling them around is very fast, once you learned the keystrokes. Emacs can display almost every information in its buffers. No big screen needed to have all the information immediately available. Emacs was designed on and for small screens.

s/emacs/vim

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#199

Post by bogle »

robotmay wrote: post #31

I've met a few people living in vans/converted trucks when I've been in France. There's quite a few countries around with great regulations that let you park up in lots of places, e.g. in France there are regular places you can stay along the major roads for free, usually with decent facilities. I met a girl there this year who had converted a truck into a mobile home. It even had window boxes for her plants! Unfortu…

> it's much more awkward in the UK

Except Scotland. There's no law of trespass in Scotland. Also, a lot of it is pretty empty!

Re: 150 days of living and coding in a van

#200

Post by classisch »

majewsky wrote: post #190

> The amount of water that I used in Berlin to brush my teeth is probably enough for a whole day in my van. Maybe 80% of the water just flowed from the tap right into the drain without even touching my body. I hear things like that time and time again, and I can literally not understand it. Why would any sane person leave the water running while brushing their teeth? When I brush my teeth, the water runs for one seco…

I closed the tap while I was brushing my teeth, too. But sometimes I'd open the tap to spit out the tooth paste. Don't ask me why, but quite often I just continued brushing my teeth for a few more seconds before I finally spat out the tooth paste. During these seconds I probably wasted a lot of water.

Of course this is just an example. Maybe there are even better examples like flushing your pee away or ignoring a leaking tap...

At the end I just wanted to make a point. I'm definitely not a perfect roll model for a sustainable life. But the van life made me more aware of how we take things for granted although they are limited.

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