I'd give anything to see their 2025 desktops.
Screenshots from developers: 2002 vs. 2015 (2015)
61–70 of 259 posts
Re: Screenshots from developers: 2002 vs. 2015 (2015)
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it's ever been KDE.
Indeed. In fact, only recently the Fedora KDE version was elevated to "Edition" status and is now on the same tier as the Gnome version. Most newer popular distros (Bazzite, CachyOS, Zorin, Asahi, etc.) default to KDE now, and it's very nice that Fedora's not only keeping up, but also providing the basis for some of them.
I've been very pleased with KDE on Fedora for the past ~five years.
Re: Screenshots from developers: 2002 vs. 2015 (2015)
#63This is really fascinating, I would love to see a 2025 version from those willing to respond.
All of the screenshots strike me as "get things done". Little flourish, just windows and text mode apps where needed to finish the day's task. To me, an ideal to aspire to.
Re: Screenshots from developers: 2002 vs. 2015 (2015)
#64I echo this. My desktop has stayed virtually unchanged for decades, and in retrospect, it explains why I use the Sway tiling window manager today.
Mine is unchanged since I switched from DOS (Borland) to Windows (Visual C++/Visual Studio) development in 1995. If I sat 1995 me down in front of my PC it wouldn't take more than a couple of mins to figure everything out. He'd be confused about all the AI panes on the dev apps, though, I suspect.
(I've also never had a window tiled in my life; every window maximized at all times to avoid noise)
Re: Screenshots from developers: 2002 vs. 2015 (2015)
#65RMS to me is really a curious case. He doesn't know how to install GNU+Linux and relies on others to do it. He doesn't know how to take a screenshot, and I remember reading other snippets from him about not knowing how to perform other basic tasks.
I once asked a YC alum, "Got any good Paul Graham stories?" And he had a couple; apparently the dude would often ask for help with basic tech things like setting up his wireless. Same kind of thing, I guess.
Re: Screenshots from developers: 2002 vs. 2015 (2015)
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
See also: Knuth. Literally wrote the book on algorithms, but barely is able to do more than open a window in FVWM.
Can you cite this in some way? Given he's shown the competence to write and typeset an impressive series of books, I find this claim pretty hard to believe.
https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/programs/.fvwm2rc
Here is his fvwm rc. Given that it's fully documented, I will walk back my assumption that he can barely open a terminal. I researched it a bit and recalled an interview where he said something like "all I use X windows for is is to open a terminal in FVWM", so he clearly can customize it, but he prefers a minimalist setup.
Re: Screenshots from developers: 2002 vs. 2015 (2015)
#67Re: Screenshots from developers: 2002 vs. 2015 (2015)
#68the last one with XMonad is the only one that looks even remotely good to me in compared to what we have today
Re: Screenshots from developers: 2002 vs. 2015 (2015)
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think I see only one truly tiled layout. But yes, "terminals and editors" as the core developer workflow is extremely conserved over time. It dates from the mid 80's on Sun 2's and really hasn't changed much in four decades. It's probably not worth arguing whether this is the "best" when compared with vscode+LSP+Claude or whatever happens to be en vogue in the moment. But terminals and editors is sticky in a way th…
> But terminals and editors is sticky in a way that tells me it's probably close to optimal. Optimal for those users, at any rate. IMO using a terminal editor is so painful compared to a decent GUI (Sublime or even VSCode) that I have a difficult time understanding why anyone would choose such a tool. I just try to repeat the mantra of "everyone likes different things" and stop trying to understand something where I…
Take about anything from a standard GUI editor. In a terminal editor, they are also easily accessible. And more easily accessible (if not discoverable). But one of the major gain is how close your shell is. A lot of editors allows to start a cli tool and optionally send a portion of the current buffer as input to it. You may also be able to include the output in some buffer too. Some GUI editors allows that, but it's almost always a config maze and you're never sure of the environment in which it does run the commands.
Also in a terminal environment, all you enter are keyboard keys. If you know how to touch-type, your cognitive load can be greatly reduced (personal feeling). You can also navigate something like sublime with keyboard only. But it's way more tiresome.
Re: Screenshots from developers: 2002 vs. 2015 (2015)
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
He said also because fedora seemed the most amenable to running custom kernels which is basically what he does all day.
Which is weird, I've compiled and ran custom kernels and modules on debian before fedora 1.0 iso was announced on freenode/#fedora and it wasn't even good.
Ok have you considered things may have changed in the 40+ releases since then?