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Dotfiles feel too personal to share

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Re: Dotfiles feel too personal to share

#51

Post by justonceokay »

Installing a (read: many) custom vim plugins and color scheme and screen version and etc… stops being fun about the third time you have to log into a nameless server. That being said, there are some settings that I absolutely cannot live without; `j=gj` being a good example in vim.

IMO your dot files are only useful to share if they are usable with the default software of the place you’ve shared them to. Otherwise they become a prison that forces you to install all your special versions and plugins and scripts and etc. on the other hand, I felt like making my dotfiles easy to share forced me to use as many default settings as possible, which in the long run saves me a lot of time and energy.

“The only zen you’ll find on a mountain top is the zen you brought with you” is one of my favorite sayings, and in a weird way I find it fitting here. If you learn to love the default settings then every server feels like home.

Re: Dotfiles feel too personal to share

#52

Post by stopcoffee77 »

kernc wrote: post #29

Too personal to share, but maybe too personal and important to share even with the members of the cloudy cartel, i.e. the Providers. Is exactly why I wrote myba that does full contents and paths encryption before syncing with the lapsable remotes ... https://kernc.github.io/myba/ Some things are better public. Some are not ...

[dead]

Re: Dotfiles feel too personal to share

#53

Post by alkh »

That's something I was a little bit conflicted about for some time. After using a few open source tools(shoutout to syncthing and linkding :)) and I realised that if you want to use something for free, sharing is the least you can do.

My dotfiles are private for now cause I need to clean some commits(I think I might have added some private info before) but I intend to publish them eventually

Re: Dotfiles feel too personal to share

#54

Post by superzamp »

I think it's even realistic to say that dotfiles are vulnerable to being used as a fingerprint mechanism by nefarious packages. One could easily create an inventory of github profiles dotfiles; then read local dotfiles when their package gets installed on a developer laptop.

Re: Dotfiles feel too personal to share

#55

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #49
alisonatwork wrote: post #31

The first UNIX account I ever got was on a BSD, and the first thing I saw in the first file I learned how to open was: # A righteous umask umask 22 I'll never forget those lines because they seemed so mysterious and cool. And they informed my philosophy on how the internet should be. People should be able to see other people's stuff by default. It's nice for us to be able to learn from one another. It's harder to rel…

Not just the internet but communities too. High trust societies are great to live in, digitally and physically. Leave the doors unlocked, leave keys in the ignition, leave valuables on the table when you walk away. But high trust societies only work when the price of ongoing admission is not violating that trust. When you accept/tolerate/expect the violation of trust the doors lock.

> leave valuables on the table when you walk away

I actually do this somewhat frequently at my local game shop. Thousands of dollars' worth of Magic: The Gathering cards (because I bring multiple decks instead of just the one I'm playing) in my backpack left behind as I go to get some water or something.

> high trust societies only work when the price of ongoing admission is not violating that trust

Indeed, the reason I feel comfortable doing that is I know that nobody wants to be banned from going to that store (and they would be). In this context, the community is small enough that rumors would likely circulate at other local shops and they might also become a bit of a pariah at those other places they could play.

Re: Dotfiles feel too personal to share

#56

Post by tasuki »

athorax wrote: post #4

I feel similarly. For me I know it is because of my rejection sensitive dysphoria. The fear of someone seeing and judging something personal of mine is quite uncomfortable. I don't have the same issue with code I write professionally.

> I don't have the same issue with code I write professionally.

Why not?

Re: Dotfiles feel too personal to share

#57

Post by mh- »

alisonatwork wrote: post #31

The first UNIX account I ever got was on a BSD, and the first thing I saw in the first file I learned how to open was: # A righteous umask umask 22 I'll never forget those lines because they seemed so mysterious and cool. And they informed my philosophy on how the internet should be. People should be able to see other people's stuff by default. It's nice for us to be able to learn from one another. It's harder to rel…

> unsure how best to overlap aliases and configs that are sensitive to my workplace

I have a .zshrc that sources .zshrc_mh, .zshrc_$employer, etc. That way my .zshrc is always a shareable config of sane defaults, and weird/opinionated aliases can go in my _mh, stuff particular to my employer goes in the other one, so forth.

In the past I had a more complex loading system I used (and made) that worked out of ~/.zsh.d/, but I no longer bother with all of that.

Re: Dotfiles feel too personal to share

#58

Post by paffdragon »

I once set out to share dotfiles as I set up a new workstation, but later removed the public repo. I realized I am often careless with that stuff, since it only lives on my machine and I am not managing them as public content, nor I want that extra overhead.

Re: Dotfiles feel too personal to share

#59

Post by Ezhik »

justonceokay wrote: post #51

Installing a (read: many) custom vim plugins and color scheme and screen version and etc… stops being fun about the third time you have to log into a nameless server. That being said, there are some settings that I absolutely cannot live without; `j=gj` being a good example in vim. IMO your dot files are only useful to share if they are usable with the default software of the place you’ve shared them to. Otherwise th…

I honestly just can't vibe with the "don't customize because you'll log into other servers" thing.

To me it feels like getting told to not put nice shelves in my home because other buildings don't have them.

Re: Dotfiles feel too personal to share

#60

Post by LordDragonfang »

justonceokay wrote: post #51

Installing a (read: many) custom vim plugins and color scheme and screen version and etc… stops being fun about the third time you have to log into a nameless server. That being said, there are some settings that I absolutely cannot live without; `j=gj` being a good example in vim. IMO your dot files are only useful to share if they are usable with the default software of the place you’ve shared them to. Otherwise th…

This is the main reason that, even though I know I'd enjoy zsh, I stubbornly stick with bash. It's because I know that I will be extra frustrated when I have to log into any of the number of machines that I have to do real work on that don't have it already set up.
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