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We need more zero config tools

arne.me

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Re: We need more zero config tools

#61

Post by benterix »

Parae wrote: post #59
nitinreddy88 wrote: post #34

I try to use most of the tools (linux) as standard as possible without customisation including shortcut keys. The problem is, once you are in remote sever/dev ops boxes, you can't have fancy tools or fancy shortcuts. It's better to train your mind to standard tools as much as possible.

Just because we don't have access to great tools when working in remote server doesn't mean we shouldn't use them locally. I use Vim with lots of plugins on my personal projects, I use IntelliJ at work. But if I need to ssh and vi, it's ok, I know how to it efficiently. With Fleet or VSCode you can easily use your dev environment with your tools, plugins, shortcode to work on remote codebase via SSH.

I agree, and fzf is a good example - on my local box it speeds up my reverse search, whereas when I'm on a remote server I use the same Ctrl+R I used for decades, and the final result is similar so no additional cognitive load.

Re: We need more zero config tools

#62

Post by exe34 »

nitinreddy88 wrote: post #34

I try to use most of the tools (linux) as standard as possible without customisation including shortcut keys. The problem is, once you are in remote sever/dev ops boxes, you can't have fancy tools or fancy shortcuts. It's better to train your mind to standard tools as much as possible.

or bring your tools with you. or use them remotely - for example tramp mode in emacs.

there's no need to walk barefoot your entire life just in case some day your shoes break and you have to hobble to the store.

Re: We need more zero config tools

#63

Post by ericvsmith »

mway wrote: post #8
ericvsmith wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For managing config files I use yadm https://yadm.io/ , which I learned of on HN. Among other great features, it lets me tailor settings per OS (Windows, Mac, Linux) and per client. And my settings are all in git, so they’re easy to save and copy around, and they’re all in one place, not dependent on each tool to know how to save their settings on some server.

Have you used Chezmoi ( https://chezmoi.io ) before? I've been using that for a few years now; I'd be curious to understand how YADM compares.

I have not used chezmoi, thanks for the pointer. From the comparison chart it looks similar to yadm. It looks like go vs. bash is the biggest difference. It’s occasionally handy to debug yadm’s bash script, although it’s been years since I had to do so. I’ll take a deeper look.

Re: We need more zero config tools

#64

Post by habitue »

I believe these config heavy tools happen because they are very old, and changing the default behavior breaks things and makes people mad. So they just add a new config option to enable some convenience feature, and then another and another... Soon new people come and want to use the tool and they're told they have to add a config file turning on a half century of features that seem obvious (cough font-lock-mode)

In web development and app development, user interfaces change constantly, so why don't they fall prey to this as much? I think one thing is many of the tools we're talking about like shells and command line tools are actually APIs as well. Scripts break if you change the interface. If a web interface changes, maybe a scraping script fails, but otherwise nbd.

This is probably the biggest failing of the model of your shell being both a user interface and a programming language you write long-lived and critical scripts in. As a user of the shell you want syntax highlighting and nice features like paging etc, but as a script writer you want the behavior to never change.

In hindsight, maybe the way to do it is similar to apt-get vs apt get, where the former is for scripts and the latter is intended to be a ui that makes no backwards compatibility guarantees.

Re: We need more zero config tools

#65

Post by Asraelite »

exe34 wrote: post #62
nitinreddy88 wrote: post #34

I try to use most of the tools (linux) as standard as possible without customisation including shortcut keys. The problem is, once you are in remote sever/dev ops boxes, you can't have fancy tools or fancy shortcuts. It's better to train your mind to standard tools as much as possible.

or bring your tools with you. or use them remotely - for example tramp mode in emacs. there's no need to walk barefoot your entire life just in case some day your shoes break and you have to hobble to the store.

Agreed. With how easy it is to copy over a standalone binary for things like rg and fd, I find it hard to justify taking the time to learn the much more clunky standard tools.

I don't need to access servers often though. I'm sure for others the situation is different.

Re: We need more zero config tools

#66

Post by senkora »

habitue wrote: post #64

I believe these config heavy tools happen because they are very old, and changing the default behavior breaks things and makes people mad. So they just add a new config option to enable some convenience feature, and then another and another... Soon new people come and want to use the tool and they're told they have to add a config file turning on a half century of features that seem obvious ( cough font-lock-mode) In…

> where the former is for scripts and the latter is intended to be a ui that makes no backwards compatibility guarantees.

Also known as plumbing vs porcelain commands.

Re: We need more zero config tools

#67

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

habitue wrote: post #64

I believe these config heavy tools happen because they are very old, and changing the default behavior breaks things and makes people mad. So they just add a new config option to enable some convenience feature, and then another and another... Soon new people come and want to use the tool and they're told they have to add a config file turning on a half century of features that seem obvious ( cough font-lock-mode) In…

> In web development and app development, user interfaces change constantly, so why don't they fall prey to this as much?

Because they're happy to just break things and let the user deal with it. Which is (one of the reasons) why I prefer the CLI tools:)

Though I also agree that there's an element of mixing UI/API.

Re: We need more zero config tools

#68

Post by viraptor »

nitinreddy88 wrote: post #34

I try to use most of the tools (linux) as standard as possible without customisation including shortcut keys. The problem is, once you are in remote sever/dev ops boxes, you can't have fancy tools or fancy shortcuts. It's better to train your mind to standard tools as much as possible.

That only really applies at a small scale. At some point you either stop logging into them, or do it just to run some automation. I can't remember the last time I did something non trivial in a remote terminal now. (Apart from my home server which has everything I want)

Re: We need more zero config tools

#69

Post by RadiozRadioz »

viraptor wrote: post #68
nitinreddy88 wrote: post #34

I try to use most of the tools (linux) as standard as possible without customisation including shortcut keys. The problem is, once you are in remote sever/dev ops boxes, you can't have fancy tools or fancy shortcuts. It's better to train your mind to standard tools as much as possible.

That only really applies at a small scale. At some point you either stop logging into them, or do it just to run some automation. I can't remember the last time I did something non trivial in a remote terminal now. (Apart from my home server which has everything I want)

This completely depends on the system architecture of your company and your job role, scale has nothing to do with it. There are so many giant Unix shops out there with people herding them day in, day out.

Re: We need more zero config tools

#70

Post by II2II »

In some cases, the question is: what are sane defaults?

Take emacs or vim. I know a lot of people use them as code editors, and think of them as code editors, but they are really general purpose text editors. It is going to be next to impossible to create a set of defaults that everyone, or even a majority of people, will agree are sane. (That said, they could be easier to configure.)

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