6 ms·

When I was first getting into programming and computer science as a student, I was so into these kinds of super-customizable rabbit holes. My whole life pretty

When I was first getting into programming and computer science as a student, I was so into these kinds of super-customizable rabbit holes. My whole life pretty much centered around the keyboard and terminal. I was all in on knowing everything about the entire stack and making it do whatever it was I wanted. I'd spend hours to save a few keystrokes. That wasn't so much about the productivity trade-off as it was about an almost ideological drive I had to make the machine do exactly whatever it was I wanted. Nothing commercial off the shelf, only things I could customize down to the source code. A couple decades later, I just find it all so exhausting.

ernst_klim 6y ago
> I just find it all so exhausting. So do I, and yet I use Emacs. I think there is a middle-ground. There are things worth customizing and improving, in particular the tools I work with, and there are things that I expect to "Just work"™. Hence I use Gnome and Emacs for important workflow, such as programming, TeX, email, git, shell etc. It's and IDE, if you wish, but with more stuff since email is also part of the workflow.
brundolf 6y ago
I've gone through a similar transition with technology. I think the key is to separate the yak-shaving you do for fun, from the yak-shaving you actually need to do for productivity. Minimize the latter, and admit that the former really is just for fun, and don't do any more of it than you actually feel like doing (which can be zero).
Zelphyr 6y ago
This describes why I have had a Mac for the last 20 years. I used to build my own machines (before laptops really became commonplace, of course) and then install Linux. I loved the learning experience and the almost total control over my system that such an exercise provided. After awhile I realized I just wanted to write code and not have maintaining my system take time away from that. The fact that the Mac provided easy access to Unix was a major plus. Also, at the time, none of the Linux desktop environments could match the polish that the OS X GUI provided. I've been saddened and frustrated by the state of macOS of late (hopefully Big Sur is better) but I'm still not ready to go back to the old days. As you say; it just sounds exhausting.
- dleslie 6y ago
  FWIW, System 76 devices are fantastic out-of-the-box. I'm typing this on a Pinebook Pro which, at least in my experience, has basically been zero-configuration with the default Manjaro release. Ok, I lie, I added an m.2 ssd to it. But that's about it!
maria_weber23 6y ago
Yup, seconded 100%. I started programming on my own when I was 7 years old with a learning computer for children that supported BASIC. Until I reached work-life, everything centered around exploring everything and digging deep into whatever was interesting... Then work happened. Right now I just can't stand it anymore. My brain is rebelling against even coding. I am still really good at it and enjoy it, but I realize that I just lack the drive I had. Some people might say that's bad. IT IS NOT. I spent almost 25 years of my life filled with coding. I am done. I want to have other people code things for me and focus on building awesome products instead. This is what drives me now. I don't care about low-level anymore. I don't care about bugs or why this stupid dependency won't work in a deployed environment. I want to ship awesome things to customers and I keep realizing that this is at the core what always drove me. I never coded for the sake of coding. It was always to build something cool, except there was no one else around to do it for me. This is a very familiar story for many engineering managers I know.
saurik 6y ago
I customized the hell out of my terminal and text editor setup... and two decades later I still use it? I certainly occasionally spend time tweaking it, but I go years without changing a single thing. The time spent vs. reward from being able to spend decades--and I am nowhere near done: I expect to be programming for another couple decades--using exactly the best setup I could imagine using is a super power, not a curse. I honestly just don't understand the mindset of just deciding "engh, I don't care anymore".
spiralx 6y ago
This is exactly my journey with tooling. I still customise my environment more than the vast majority of people - and write user scripts and styles for websites I use heavily - but I don't need or want to have every single thing exactly how I envision it. It made more sense to customise when you had a limited environment you used and never much changed, but what's really changed is I'm twice as old now :)
stirner 6y ago
I had the exact same experience, but I feel grateful since it’s what got me into programming. I first learned C in order to customize the dwm tiling window manager on Linux. Over time, my priority became simplicity and overall cohesive design over customization, though still in an entirely impractical way (I moved to BSD and briefly Plan 9/9front). Now I’ve settled on a dead-stock macOS setup and spend zero mental bandwidth on customization, but I think going down the customization rabbit hole taught me a lot about software design, UI/UX, and even philosophy in a weird way.
bjeds 6y ago
In no way do I want to come off as rude with this comment, but to me what you are saying is not at all different from "when I was young I used to work out and eat healthy... a couple of decades later, I just fund it all so exhausting". Customizing your computer environment is good. Eating healthy is good. None of those need to end up in a "rabbit hole". Everyone can be tired of life and give up due to exhaustion, but greatness requires discipline. This is also true with the craft and art of programming.
- nn3 6y ago
  A super customized system is more like a pet. A mostly standard system with very limited tweaks is more cattle. Like the OP I used to be in the having "pets" category (including gigantic ~/.emacs), but these days I prefer cattle (defaults as much as possible)
  - tom_ 6y ago
    Put your Emacs config in a git repo, and this problem goes away. You don’t even have to stop there. I have a repo for my Emacs config, a repo for my Windows bin folder, a repo for my Unix shell stuff, and a repo for a bunch of cross-platform Python scripts I’ve written. Every computer I use regularly is super customised in exactly the same way as all the others. Takes about 10 minutes to get up and running.
- brandonmenc 6y ago
  I'm not going to die younger if I don't waste a bunch of time customizing my computer.
  - mtrower 6y ago
    Objectives to customizing your computer: + Increase productivity (e.g. if value = work x time, and you can't increase available time, then reduce time consumption per unit of work to increase value) + Increase comfort during this process - cost: available time is reduced, which you could have spent working. Objectives to exercising: + Increase lifespan + Increase comfort(health) during this lifespan - cost: available time is reduced, which could have been spent living Tbh, these look pretty similar to me. In both cases, you're trading off an existing resource gambling that you'll get back more than you put in. --- As an addendum, there's a right and a wrong way to achieve tradeoff-based objectives. With exercise/diet, you can certainly do it wrong: latest fad diet that's placebo or maybe even actively harmful to you, latest fad routine that isn't very efficient, overwork and hurt yourself, etc. If you're "wasting a bunch of time" customizing your computer, I guess you're doing it wrong. Certainly, don't do that.
entropie 6y ago
I absolutely know what you mean. > I was so into these kinds of super-customizable rabbit holes I did this too. I spend days customizing my xmonad (I dont speak haskell), but thats nothing in comparison to the time I spend tuning my emacs. On the other hand, i pretty much use the same environment like a decade ago. My same .emacs, my same xmonad.hs. I was looking at my WM and if there is a way to get rid of ghc on my machines (I use gentoo, updating ghc is an expensive task, especially on older machines) but every other WM felt like a downgrade so I went back to xmonad, to my old config. I feel home everytime I open my notebook or booting linux on my desktop.
agumonkey 6y ago
As you grow your brain optimizes off fruitless ideas. You think total control of one part will be the ultimate because younger your perspective is narrow and you focus all on it. When I was in college I thought being a flawless typist would make me a better programmer.. (mind you I had trouble mastering dynamic programming, advanced abstractions or semantic subtleties). I find these exhausting too now, and actually that's why I'm jaded by tech. The vast majority of things in the late 10 years felt like a planet scale tweak (phone has tilting backgrounds, css animations, ..). Deep inside I knew it was just marketing and nothing substantial.
- erikbye 6y ago
  > The vast majority of things in the late 10 years felt like a planet scale tweak (phone has tilting backgrounds, css animations, ..) Sounds like you are in a very small bubble if that is your take on the last decade's tech inventions/evolution. What about autonomous vehicles/dock yards/warehouses and reusable rockets?
  - agumonkey 6y ago
    SDV are not there yet, reusable rockets are not mainstream. Yeah my bubble was mostly about consumer computing and network. CRISPR wasn't included in my rant.

ernst_klim 6y ago

> I just find it all so exhausting. So do I, and yet I use Emacs. I think there is a middle-ground. There are things worth customizing and improving, in particular the tools I work with, and there are things that I expect to "Just work"™. Hence I use Gnome and Emacs for important workflow, such as programming, TeX, email, git, shell etc. It's and IDE, if you wish, but with more stuff since email is also part of the workflow.

brundolf 6y ago

I've gone through a similar transition with technology. I think the key is to separate the yak-shaving you do for fun, from the yak-shaving you actually need to do for productivity. Minimize the latter, and admit that the former really is just for fun, and don't do any more of it than you actually feel like doing (which can be zero).

Zelphyr 6y ago

This describes why I have had a Mac for the last 20 years. I used to build my own machines (before laptops really became commonplace, of course) and then install Linux. I loved the learning experience and the almost total control over my system that such an exercise provided. After awhile I realized I just wanted to write code and not have maintaining my system take time away from that. The fact that the Mac provided easy access to Unix was a major plus. Also, at the time, none of the Linux desktop environments could match the polish that the OS X GUI provided. I've been saddened and frustrated by the state of macOS of late (hopefully Big Sur is better) but I'm still not ready to go back to the old days. As you say; it just sounds exhausting.

dleslie 6y ago
FWIW, System 76 devices are fantastic out-of-the-box. I'm typing this on a Pinebook Pro which, at least in my experience, has basically been zero-configuration with the default Manjaro release. Ok, I lie, I added an m.2 ssd to it. But that's about it!

maria_weber23 6y ago

Yup, seconded 100%. I started programming on my own when I was 7 years old with a learning computer for children that supported BASIC. Until I reached work-life, everything centered around exploring everything and digging deep into whatever was interesting... Then work happened. Right now I just can't stand it anymore. My brain is rebelling against even coding. I am still really good at it and enjoy it, but I realize that I just lack the drive I had. Some people might say that's bad. IT IS NOT. I spent almost 25 years of my life filled with coding. I am done. I want to have other people code things for me and focus on building awesome products instead. This is what drives me now. I don't care about low-level anymore. I don't care about bugs or why this stupid dependency won't work in a deployed environment. I want to ship awesome things to customers and I keep realizing that this is at the core what always drove me. I never coded for the sake of coding. It was always to build something cool, except there was no one else around to do it for me. This is a very familiar story for many engineering managers I know.

saurik 6y ago

I customized the hell out of my terminal and text editor setup... and two decades later I still use it? I certainly occasionally spend time tweaking it, but I go years without changing a single thing. The time spent vs. reward from being able to spend decades--and I am nowhere near done: I expect to be programming for another couple decades--using exactly the best setup I could imagine using is a super power, not a curse. I honestly just don't understand the mindset of just deciding "engh, I don't care anymore".

spiralx 6y ago

This is exactly my journey with tooling. I still customise my environment more than the vast majority of people - and write user scripts and styles for websites I use heavily - but I don't need or want to have every single thing exactly how I envision it. It made more sense to customise when you had a limited environment you used and never much changed, but what's really changed is I'm twice as old now :)

stirner 6y ago

I had the exact same experience, but I feel grateful since it’s what got me into programming. I first learned C in order to customize the dwm tiling window manager on Linux. Over time, my priority became simplicity and overall cohesive design over customization, though still in an entirely impractical way (I moved to BSD and briefly Plan 9/9front). Now I’ve settled on a dead-stock macOS setup and spend zero mental bandwidth on customization, but I think going down the customization rabbit hole taught me a lot about software design, UI/UX, and even philosophy in a weird way.

bjeds 6y ago

In no way do I want to come off as rude with this comment, but to me what you are saying is not at all different from "when I was young I used to work out and eat healthy... a couple of decades later, I just fund it all so exhausting". Customizing your computer environment is good. Eating healthy is good. None of those need to end up in a "rabbit hole". Everyone can be tired of life and give up due to exhaustion, but greatness requires discipline. This is also true with the craft and art of programming.

nn3 6y ago
A super customized system is more like a pet. A mostly standard system with very limited tweaks is more cattle. Like the OP I used to be in the having "pets" category (including gigantic ~/.emacs), but these days I prefer cattle (defaults as much as possible)
- tom_ 6y ago
  Put your Emacs config in a git repo, and this problem goes away. You don’t even have to stop there. I have a repo for my Emacs config, a repo for my Windows bin folder, a repo for my Unix shell stuff, and a repo for a bunch of cross-platform Python scripts I’ve written. Every computer I use regularly is super customised in exactly the same way as all the others. Takes about 10 minutes to get up and running.
brandonmenc 6y ago
I'm not going to die younger if I don't waste a bunch of time customizing my computer.
- mtrower 6y ago
  Objectives to customizing your computer: + Increase productivity (e.g. if value = work x time, and you can't increase available time, then reduce time consumption per unit of work to increase value) + Increase comfort during this process - cost: available time is reduced, which you could have spent working. Objectives to exercising: + Increase lifespan + Increase comfort(health) during this lifespan - cost: available time is reduced, which could have been spent living Tbh, these look pretty similar to me. In both cases, you're trading off an existing resource gambling that you'll get back more than you put in. --- As an addendum, there's a right and a wrong way to achieve tradeoff-based objectives. With exercise/diet, you can certainly do it wrong: latest fad diet that's placebo or maybe even actively harmful to you, latest fad routine that isn't very efficient, overwork and hurt yourself, etc. If you're "wasting a bunch of time" customizing your computer, I guess you're doing it wrong. Certainly, don't do that.

entropie 6y ago

I absolutely know what you mean. > I was so into these kinds of super-customizable rabbit holes I did this too. I spend days customizing my xmonad (I dont speak haskell), but thats nothing in comparison to the time I spend tuning my emacs. On the other hand, i pretty much use the same environment like a decade ago. My same .emacs, my same xmonad.hs. I was looking at my WM and if there is a way to get rid of ghc on my machines (I use gentoo, updating ghc is an expensive task, especially on older machines) but every other WM felt like a downgrade so I went back to xmonad, to my old config. I feel home everytime I open my notebook or booting linux on my desktop.

agumonkey 6y ago

As you grow your brain optimizes off fruitless ideas. You think total control of one part will be the ultimate because younger your perspective is narrow and you focus all on it. When I was in college I thought being a flawless typist would make me a better programmer.. (mind you I had trouble mastering dynamic programming, advanced abstractions or semantic subtleties). I find these exhausting too now, and actually that's why I'm jaded by tech. The vast majority of things in the late 10 years felt like a planet scale tweak (phone has tilting backgrounds, css animations, ..). Deep inside I knew it was just marketing and nothing substantial.

erikbye 6y ago
> The vast majority of things in the late 10 years felt like a planet scale tweak (phone has tilting backgrounds, css animations, ..) Sounds like you are in a very small bubble if that is your take on the last decade's tech inventions/evolution. What about autonomous vehicles/dock yards/warehouses and reusable rockets?
- agumonkey 6y ago
  SDV are not there yet, reusable rockets are not mainstream. Yeah my bubble was mostly about consumer computing and network. CRISPR wasn't included in my rant.