
Small stupid things that make up my dev environment - blfr
http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2018/12/21/env/
======
julianlam
It's these small, stupid things that actually were the reason why I couldn't
hack it on a Macbook.

You just get stuck in your ways when everything is set up _just right_, and
the little things that Macs do that Linux didn't, and vice versa, just drove
me up the wall, even though it was small and stupid.

~~~
pdkl95
> when everything is set up _just right_

That's why I'm still using Enlightenment DR16 as my window manager, with the
same theme/config I've been slowly customizing for ~20 years. Every time I try
a different windows manager (including any enlightenment >= E17) it feels like
an incomplete toy, not the feature-rich tool I'm familiar with.

~~~
zepearl
I did try to switch from e16 to e17 multiple times (on Gentoo), but I always
had to rollback; I never found a bugfree version of e17.

(sometimes in 2018 I had to switch away from e16 (got taken out from Gentoo's
main package repo) and I ended up using XFCE. It's a pity that e17 never
really worked, at least for me => I wonder if they'll ever publish a really
stable version)

------
jniedrauer
The idea of programming in green text on a black background with no syntax
highlighting makes me shudder.

~~~
reaperducer
I did it back in the olden days, on everything from Wyse and Wang terminals to
a Commodore 64 and an IBM XT with MDA display.

I haven’t done it that way in years, but this article makes me want to try it
again. I wonder if all that highlighting is actually making me less focused. I
guess I’ll find out later this week.

~~~
XorNot
I can't see how you can get more productive by removing a channel of
information from yourself though.

~~~
wutbrodo
Using this kind of rational-choice-based theory assumes complete control of
the way your brain processes information and the channels it chooses to focus
on, which simply isn't accurate.

For a reductio ad absurdum, if you had a book in which each word was in bold
purple iff its Scrabble score was divisible by 5, I don't think it would be
controversial that removing that channel of information would make you more
productive.

~~~
JetSpiegel
It would if it was a Scrabble dictionary.

~~~
wutbrodo
Very true, and completely irrelevant. We're talking about a counterexample to
a universal claim, not a universal claim that runs counter to the original
claim. The comment I responded to said (paraphrased) "I don't see how you
could be more efficient by removing a channel of information", and this is
what I disputed, providing a theoretical explanation and a simple example. The
fact that examples in the contrary direction exist (as you point out) is not
disputed by anyone.

FWIW, as far as the specific upthread topic goes: despite generally preferring
a pretty barebones development environment, I prefer syntax highlighting.

------
snowwindwaves
I am 5'6 and I have found I like a desk about 24-26" off the ground so I can
sit with my feet flat on the floor and hands in my lap at the keyboard without
shoulders hunched. Hard to find!

I have my old Aeron which I don't really love vertical adjustment nearly as
low as it can go.

~~~
cimmanom
I have the exact same issue. A sit-stand desk with a wide height range has
saved my back. The biggest challenge left is finding a chair that’s shallow
enough to sit at the back of (for proper lumbar support) and still be able to
bend your knees.

Try adding a nice extra-tall laptop riser too. Typical ones tend to be 6-12”
too low once the desk is no longer too high for typing.

~~~
wahnfrieden
Have a riser to recommend?

~~~
cimmanom
I use one of these ones that are intended as standing desk converters:

[https://www.uncagedergonomics.com/standing-
desks/](https://www.uncagedergonomics.com/standing-desks/)

------
mr_toad
Anyone not coding on a 4K or higher monitor should complain.

They’re not that expensive now, and the text is so much sharper. You might not
notice the difference with a 4k TV on the other side of a room, but you will
with a 28 inch screen a couple of feet in front of you.

~~~
arvinsim
I don't like native 4k. Text rendering is too small for me.

If I have to go native, 1440p or QHD ultrawides would be the best.

But 4k scaled down in MacOS is great too!

~~~
kdmytro
You have to set DPI that is appropriate for your screen size. If you keep
using the default 90 DPI with a 15" 4K screen, the text will for sure be small
because it is rendered as if the screen is about 49".

~~~
tasuki
DPI means dots per inch. It's a physical property of an LCD screen (well,
technically, that would be called PPI - pixels per inch, but it's the same
concept). I'm not sure how one would be able to set the DPI. At least not
without really bad shenanigans blurring everything in the process.

Isn't the solution for "small letters on high pixel density screen" scaling as
mentioned by arvinism or simply increasing the font size?

~~~
kdmytro
Like you said, DPI (or PPI) is a physical property of a screen. You don't set
it for the screen, you just let your text rendering software know the DPI so
that it could get the absolute text size (in mm) correctly. Let's consider two
15.6" screens: 1\. 1366x768, ~100 DPI 2\. 1920x1080, ~141 DPI

When rendering a piece of text in a certain font size on both screens without
specifying correct DPI (e.g., leaving the default DPI value of 90), the text
on both screens will take up the same amount of pixels, but the absolute size
in mm will be different (text on screen 2 will be smaller because pixels are
denser there). If you, however, let your OS know the DPIs of the screens,
rendering the same piece of text in the same font size on both screens should
lead to the text physically taking up roughly the same area of the screen (as
much same as it could be, taking into account the fact that pixels are
discrete). This is true because point[1] is an absolute unit of measurement.

To give you an example, when I switched from 1366x768 15.6" laptop to
1920x1080 15.6" laptop I specified the new screen DPI in my desktop
environment font appearance settings. This made all the text be roughly same
size as on the old laptop, only smoother due to greater pixel density.

> Isn't the solution for "small letters on high pixel density screen" scaling
> as mentioned by arvinism or simply increasing the font size?

This way you must render a picture as if the screen has higher DPI, then scale
it down to match the desired DPI, you still have DPI in play here, and
absolute text size implications described above apply here as well. You can
use scaling for antialiasing, though.

\---

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_(typography)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_\(typography\))

~~~
tasuki
Thanks for the explanation!

------
thibran
For the typematic delay, I have no clue why it is so slow on Linux by default.
Probably somebody has set those values 30 years ago and then nobody cared to
update them. I use 'xset r rate 200 40' and when I use another Linux computer,
typing feels just broken, super slow (Windows has better defaults than Linux
in this regard). The weird part, there is no reason why keystrokes should have
such a huge delay. Changing the xset values improves the user experience in a
quite dramatic way.

~~~
tasuki
Where do you put this magical "xset r rate 200 40" on a modern Linux desktop?

~/.bashrc is the wrong place for sure (I might not even be running X!)

~/.Xresources seems like it would be the right place but it's a command so
that won't work...

~~~
thibran
I have it in my i3 config: exec --no-startup-id sleep 2 && /usr/bin/xset r
rate 200 40

~~~
tasuki
While my ~/.xinitrc and ~/.xsession have been ignored for some time, Debian-
based distros seem to use ~/.xsessionrc these days.

------
tetha
My own small thing is my personal keyboard. I have both a mechanical and non-
mechanical personal keyboard, mind you. They cost me a pretty penny ($100+ for
each), and I wouldn't expect an employer to spend that easily. So I can just
provide my own.

I have really long arms overall and normal keyboards force me to both put my
wrists at really weird angles and turn and twist my elbows to get my hands to
fit there. Something like the Microsoft Natural was a decent-ish width, but
the Kinesis advantage or the Ergodox are just amazing. It's funny to watch too
- people are kinda scared to touch a Kinesis advantage "because it's split and
weird", but they start touch-typing quickly and start arranging the keyboard
parts as it is comfortable in small steps as well. You just nudge the keyboard
part instinctively with your thumb or your pinky to make it more comfortable.

------
rcarmo
When setting up a Linux VM to work from, I usually go with OpenBox, LXterminal
and FBPanel and call it a day:

[https://github.com/rcarmo/docker-
templates/tree/master/deskt...](https://github.com/rcarmo/docker-
templates/tree/master/desktop-chrome/home/user/.config)

Building a portable setup is a lot easier these days with Docker, but over the
years I started paring down stuff to vim+tmux (which work fine inside WSL) and
sharing my dotfiles across the Mac, Linux and Windows.

The one thing that gets me every time, though, is having a working SSH
keychain. I want to log in _once_ and have ssh-agent just work, and it seems
like every year I have to re-learn another way to do it (which is fine, but
annoying).

------
ggm
Desks without modesty panels are a feature of offices without due
consideration for personal privacy.

------
arvinsim
I was able to get by with white on black terminal before.

But nowadays, I can't stand coding if the editor doesn't have syntax
highlighting.

~~~
juangacovas
Same with being able to put the cursor over a variable name and automatically
highlight all of them used in the same scope. Can't live without that

