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Joey Hess' minimal approach

joey.hess.usesthis.com

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Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#71

Post by smikhanov »

jsn wrote: post #66
w1ntermute wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is such a liberating setup. Yeah, it's "liberating" until you develop chronic back and shoulder pain later in life.

To each his own, I suppose. I've been deskless for 4 years, mostly on a couch in a relaxed position with laptop on my, hmm, laps. It's much more comfortable for me than chairs and desks. I sometimes spend 16 hours per day pressing those keys; I don't think I could've survived that in a chair behind a desk.

You still need to be careful: 4 years is not that long. Middle Ages people were exposed to very harsh environments and still lived to 30.

I started getting neck pains after 11 years into my programming career. I attribute it mostly to programming on a sofa with a laptop -- in this position you constantly look a bit down (if a laptop is on your lap) and your neck will not like it.

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#72

Post by mahyarm »

to3m wrote: post #33
adv0r wrote: post #5

"I've used nothing else since 1996." Wow, that's impressive but I'm not sure I'd be proud of not "using" any other Operating System than my favourite for 16 years.

It's a handy way of ensuring that your time spent dicking about is minimized. I used nothing but Windows from 1999 until mid-2010 (and I used MS-DOS as well between 1993 and 1999). Windows 3.x was horrid, Windows '9x was horrid, and Windows 2000 and following have their disadvantages, but there's a lot to be said for never having to relearn any of the basics. I used only Windows XP from 2002 (or 2003?) until 2010, wh…

I stopped using linux and started using osx because linux always involved way too much dicking around by it's nature.

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#73

Post by bicknergseng »

npsimons wrote: post #35
kami8845 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Says the guy doing all his work on a 1024 x 600 display. I mean the guy no harm, but so much of what he says strikes me as incredibly back-worldly. Like using dial-up and limiting yourself to fan-less laptops. I mean I get the "thin terminal" philosophy where you have a shit laptop that connects to something much more potent. But where's the point if the connection sucks as well. I guess in the end we have vast…

I hate to pull this card on you, but what have you done? We're talking about a Debian developer who has also developed (and continues to develop) basically an open-source replacement for Dropbox ( http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joeyh/git-annex-assistan... ), by himself on an incredible budget. He actually Gets Shit Done, and does it relatively efficiently. I would not be surprised at all if a factor towards bein…

> I hate to pull this card on you, but what have you done?

Solid ad hominem.

On a related note, Hess has also taken himself almost totally out of society. Even UPS can't find his place. While it has a very Walden Pond quality to it, I personally include my social life in my "what have you done" list. Modern day Thoreau he might be, but remember that a lengthy git history doesn't make any person objectively "better" or more "successful" than other people. We're all just folk.

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#74

Post by agumonkey »

pyre wrote: post #70
agumonkey wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I understand, ghc/platform is hundreds of MB iirc, remotely built or not. Or maybe you meant a tailored ghc distro without all the statically compiled libs and such ?

I assumed that you were referring to compilation time on his netbook, but I guess you were referring to download time over dial-up?

Exactly, now we're both in sync.

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#75

Post by ktf »

> When power is low, I often hack in the evenings by lantern light.

The combination of forward-thinking hi-tech and rustic low-tech makes this feel like something out of science fiction. I picture him as a character in a Stephenson novel: a hermit hacker, off the grid, queuing up data and pulsing it out only when the cells are charged and the skies are clear.

Pretty awesome :)

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#76

Post by jlgreco »

bmelton wrote: post #47
kayoone wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well not everyone is coding in terminal windows and doing console-only stuff... for me doing interactive 3D development, a high res screen (or a couple of them) and a powerful machine is of equal if not higher importance than my keyboard.

I generally develop in terminal windows, doing console-only stuff, and I still feel stifled if I don't have at least two displays. I know that all the cool kids are using split terminals and the like, but I like to keep log output visible, a browser in a separate space and a console debugger up without having to toggle between them. That anybody can get anything done with such constraints is amazing to me, but he's o…

I use to feel this way as well, until, nearing the end of university (read: I was rather broke), I had the perfect storm of computer hardware disaster. I was forced to use for about a year just a single netbook with less than impressive resolution. Tmux and tiling window managers became my friends out of necessity.

Cut to a few years later and now I have 3 high resolution screens in front of me, pretty much all the time. I still tend to use just my laptop screen with tmux though, with the rare exception (during deployments, mostly).

I won't say that a single small screen is better, but I do think from personal experience that, after some time and initial effort, it really is not the handicap people think it would be. It certainly won't slow you down like a thumb keyboard will.

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#77

Post by jlgreco »

bicknergseng wrote: post #73
npsimons wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to pull this card on you, but what have you done? We're talking about a Debian developer who has also developed (and continues to develop) basically an open-source replacement for Dropbox ( http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joeyh/git-annex-assistan... ), by himself on an incredible budget. He actually Gets Shit Done, and does it relatively efficiently. I would not be surprised at all if a factor towards bein…

> I hate to pull this card on you, but what have you done? Solid ad hominem. On a related note, Hess has also taken himself almost totally out of society. Even UPS can't find his place. While it has a very Walden Pond quality to it, I personally include my social life in my "what have you done" list. Modern day Thoreau he might be, but remember that a lengthy git history doesn't make any person objectively "better" o…

When the discussion is individual productivity, I don't think that questioning a critics ability to produce by drawing comparisons to another is, in the strict sense, an ad hominem. Probably not the most civil thing to do, but I don't think it is an ad hominem.

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#78

Post by gasull »

zalew wrote: post #7

> I use the XFCE desktop environment, with the Xmonad window manager. I was just going to try that in my xfce, what a coincidence. In case anyone is interested, here's the instruction http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Xmonad/Using_xmonad_in_XF...

You can accomplish tiling installing x-tile in Xfce.

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#79

Post by icebraining »

pwang wrote: post #55
npsimons wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to pull this card on you, but what have you done? We're talking about a Debian developer who has also developed (and continues to develop) basically an open-source replacement for Dropbox ( http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joeyh/git-annex-assistan... ), by himself on an incredible budget. He actually Gets Shit Done, and does it relatively efficiently. I would not be surprised at all if a factor towards bein…

> And when you are a creator rather than a consumer (especially of the written word, be it code, essays or books), screen size rarely matters. I don't necessarily agree with the parent post's sentiments, but I also disagree with this very broad blanket statement of yours. I am reasonably happy most of the time on my Macbook Air screen, but I definitely prefer to be coding on a larger screen when I can. I knew Joey ba…

I can't fit everything in my head and need the screen real estate.

For those of us who use virtual desktops, the physical resolution of the screen is just a small fraction of the total. I code in a 12" laptop with just 1280x800 pixels, but my effective resolution is 20 times that.

Re: Joey Hess' minimal approach

#80

Post by zalew »

gasull wrote: post #78
zalew wrote: post #7

> I use the XFCE desktop environment, with the Xmonad window manager. I was just going to try that in my xfce, what a coincidence. In case anyone is interested, here's the instruction http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Xmonad/Using_xmonad_in_XF...

You can accomplish tiling installing x-tile in Xfce.

didn't know about that, looks like a much simpler solution. do you use it? will try out, thanks.
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