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I don't like tuning my tools. You spend a few hours tinkering with settings, then two years pass like a breeze, you have reinstalled your system / on another e

I don't like tuning my tools. You spend a few hours tinkering with settings, then two years pass like a breeze, you have reinstalled your system / on another employer's laptop, and you have to re-configure everything. From memory. That's frustrating. Yes, I carry around a .zshrc from the times when I still made the effort. Otherwise I would prefer convention over configuration. Just provide sane defaults. Please. Moreover, when you're an infrequent programmer, you would want to invest the least into tuning tools. E.g. I won't waste time setting up configs on a zillion servers that I visit. I'll use bash. It's better today than it was 15 years ago.

mcjiggerlog 9y ago
Try setting up a dotfiles git repo. Here's mine - https://github.com/tom-james-watson/dotfiles https://github.com/tom-james-watson/dotfiles - it contains everything I need to get productive and, apart from installing a few dependencies, it's a one line install.
majewsky 9y ago
> You spend a few hours tinkering with settings, then two years pass like a breeze, you have reinstalled your system / on another employer's laptop, and you have to re-configure everything. From memory. That's frustrating. That's why we treat configuration as code these days. Put all configuration files that matter in a repo. And if a tool does not take a plain-text config file, or at least allow you to export settings to a plain-text file for later re-import, it's frankly not worth your time.
- thriftwy 9y ago
  I am not a DevOps so I won't be able to deploy that repo contents for the fear of my life.
  - majewsky 9y ago
    What's particularly hard (or particularly DevOps) about a simple shell script that creates a bunch of symlinks? This is what I use: https://github.com/majewsky/devenv/blob/master/install.sh https://github.com/majewsky/devenv/blob/master/install.sh
sevagh 9y ago
When I was younger, I was into "minimalism" - I would spend hours writing up i3/vim/emacs configs to make things look minimalistic and strip out dependencies e.g. getting things to work without using a DM or DE with some fancy bashrcs, writing my own programs for volume/brightness controls. Now I minimize my time wasted tweaking things that don't matter. I just use Fedora (stock with Gnome 3) with about 20 combined LOC for vimrc, emacs configs, and bashrcs. I embrace the defaults.
TeMPOraL 9y ago
Just copy configs over. Best, keep a repo with all of them. Few hours spent on setting up your environment at a new job is still a great bargain if it makes you more productive (and/or makes you enjoy the work more).

mcjiggerlog 9y ago

Try setting up a dotfiles git repo. Here's mine - https://github.com/tom-james-watson/dotfiles https://github.com/tom-james-watson/dotfiles - it contains everything I need to get productive and, apart from installing a few dependencies, it's a one line install.

majewsky 9y ago

> You spend a few hours tinkering with settings, then two years pass like a breeze, you have reinstalled your system / on another employer's laptop, and you have to re-configure everything. From memory. That's frustrating. That's why we treat configuration as code these days. Put all configuration files that matter in a repo. And if a tool does not take a plain-text config file, or at least allow you to export settings to a plain-text file for later re-import, it's frankly not worth your time.

thriftwy 9y ago
I am not a DevOps so I won't be able to deploy that repo contents for the fear of my life.
- majewsky 9y ago
  What's particularly hard (or particularly DevOps) about a simple shell script that creates a bunch of symlinks? This is what I use: https://github.com/majewsky/devenv/blob/master/install.sh https://github.com/majewsky/devenv/blob/master/install.sh

sevagh 9y ago

When I was younger, I was into "minimalism" - I would spend hours writing up i3/vim/emacs configs to make things look minimalistic and strip out dependencies e.g. getting things to work without using a DM or DE with some fancy bashrcs, writing my own programs for volume/brightness controls. Now I minimize my time wasted tweaking things that don't matter. I just use Fedora (stock with Gnome 3) with about 20 combined LOC for vimrc, emacs configs, and bashrcs. I embrace the defaults.

TeMPOraL 9y ago

Just copy configs over. Best, keep a repo with all of them. Few hours spent on setting up your environment at a new job is still a great bargain if it makes you more productive (and/or makes you enjoy the work more).