

The Setup - Aaron Boodman (Greasemonkey, Chrome) - Adrock
http://aaron.boodman.usesthis.com/

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w1ntermute
Finally someone with a setup similar to mine (though I use Vim instead of
Emacs, WeeChat instead of irssi, and am planning to move from Screen to tmux).

Using a terminal multiplexer like Screen or tmux as your "IDE" is one of the
most amazing things I've discovered. It's completely changed how I work - I
can start/stop working at any time from any machine that has an SSH client.
Apparently with tmux, it'll even preserve your tiling layout.

~~~
uggedal
My main development "box" is a 512MB Linode running tmux, weechat, vim, and
some zsh consoles. Efficient, consistent and reachable from all kind of
machines and places.

~~~
w1ntermute
How much does that cost you? I was thinking of doing something similar, except
through Amazon EC2. It could be quite a bit cheaper than having a home server,
and definitely wouldn't be so loud.

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yurifury
An alternative to irssi + screen is ZNC: <http://en.znc.in/wiki/ZNC>

After installing ZNC on a server, you can use a native IRC client and keep the
connectivity usefulness of screen.

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wyclif
This is my fave The Setup so far. Finally, someone who doesn't report the
typical (and boring) Mac Pro/MacBook Pro hardware combo.

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MatthewRayfield
_"Linux: HP Z600 running Lucid Lynx. 2x Quad-core Xeon @ 2.27 GHz, 12 Gb RAM.

Windows: HP Z600 running Vista. 2x Quad-core Xeon @ 2.27 GHz, 12 Gb RAM.

OS X: Mac Pro running Snow Leopard. 2x Quad-core Xeon @2.26 GHz, 12 Gb RAM."_

Anybody know what Google standard issue? It's hard to imagine that they equip
all there people THIS well. Then again, they are Google.

~~~
yuvadam
AFAIK, each developer is allowed to specify their setup the way they see fit -
up to some $$$ limit.

~~~
w1ntermute
It may not be the same limit for each developer. For example, this guy has a
valid reason to have physical access to a Linux, Windows, and OS X machine.

~~~
aboodman
The 'standard' engineer configuration is a linux or mac workstation, a linux
or mac laptop, and a 30" flatscreen. You can get additional hardware with
manager approval, which, in my experience is typically a quick rubber stamp
when within reason.

Chrome engineers have a more extravagant setup by default due to the cross-
platform nature of our work and the redonkulous size of the Chrome debug
binary.

~~~
w1ntermute
> The 'standard' engineer configuration is a linux or mac workstation, a linux
> or mac laptop

Are there any restrictions on how much these devices can cost, or what
models/brands are permitted?

> Chrome engineers have a more extravagant setup by default due to the cross-
> platform nature of our work and the redonkulous size of the Chrome debug
> binary.

I used to compile my own Chromium binaries when I was running Gentoo, though
now I just use chromium-browser-bin from the AUR. When I did compile them, it
took ~45 minutes each time - how long does it take on your workstation? I'm
guessing it's at least 10 minutes - if so, how does that affect your workflow?

~~~
aboodman
Engineers don't typically design and configure their own systems. There's a
hardware group that does that, and engineers are just presented with a menu of
choices.

Off the top of my head, I'd say that clean Chromium builds take my linux
machine about 10 minutes. Null builds take a bit less than 1, and typical
builds with a few files changed take between 1 and 2.

Most of the time is split between make stat'ing bazillions of files before the
"build" even starts, and the linker thinking very hard right before it is
done.

A coworker is working on a replacement for make that can somehow get away with
touching far fewer files by caching dependency information. That should halve
the time for typical builds I suspect.

As for my workflow, I don't find iteration time to be a limiting factor on my
productivity. Iterations aren't as fast as something like ruby or python, but
on the other hand, the compiler gives you a lot more information before you
even run the code. So by the time the compiler's happy, you're a lot closer to
something that works correctly.

~~~
w1ntermute
> Off the top of my head, I'd say that clean Chromium builds take my linux
> machine about 10 minutes. Null builds take a bit less than 1, and typical
> builds with a few files changed take between 1 and 2.

Huh, I'm not familiar with this terminology (being an Autotools user), but it
appears to be specific to SCons, a build system used by Chrome. I'll
definitely have to take a look at it, as Autotools is an absolute nightmare,
even once you understand how to use it.

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liuliu
Shame on me, I didn't know what KVM cable is until this post. Now I know how
to switch between my PC and Mac seamlessly. Thanks!

~~~
chime
If you have separate monitors for your PC/Mac, check out: <http://synergy-
foss.org/> \- it's a software keyboard/mouse switcher. I have my PC and Mac
Mini hooked up such that I can just copy something on my PC, move my mouse
over to OSX and paste it. It's really awesome though the software took a LOT
of configuring (on the OSX-side) to get everything right.

