

Alex Payne - Rules for Computing Happiness (2008) - franze
http://al3x.net/2008/09/08/al3xs-rules-for-computing-happiness.html

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mhd
Never got the emphasis on laptops, unless you travel (a lot) and/or tend to
spend a lot of time in coffee shops/college lectures/meetings. You'd want a
good, large display (or two/three) anyway, and you usually have less troubles
and more options with desktops. And for those times when you need to move
around, a small auxiliary device will do, too (ipad, tablet, netbook,
old/cheap laptop maybe even a smartphone).

Less true for the current crop of Macs, of course, where decent expandable
desktop systems are way too expensive and laptops have a high entry cost. It
would probably still be worth looking into getting a ipad/imac combo over a
MBP.

~~~
bergie
That depends a lot on your working setup. If you do most of your work at the
same desk, then iMac is probably better.

I do most of my hacking on the road, visiting other companies etc. This is why
I go with MacBook Air as my only computer. I want to keep my working
environment consistent so I don't even use external displays in my own office

~~~
noelwelsh
One thing I don't like about the iMac is that you can't use them as an
external display. Displays last much longer than computers IME. My friend
reluctantly junked a 20" iMac w/ a PowerPC processor. The computer was useless
but the screen was still great.

~~~
lloeki
My 27" iMac has a DisplayPort _input_ to use it as a "passive" screen.

Maybe something on the software side like AirDisplay
(<http://avatron.com/apps/air-display/>) could be of some use to extend an old
iMac lifetime as a screen.

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agentultra
Laptops have a complete disregard for ergonomics. If you spend any significant
amount of time infront of a computer, a laptop is disastrous for your health.
At the very least, invest in an extra monitor and proper keyboard.

By proper keyboard, I mean one that is full-sized, has mechanical switches,
and is appropriately laid out so that you don't strain your wrist and tendons.

~~~
mjhoy
I wouldn't say that all laptops have a 'complete' disregard: some are better
than others. The MacBook Air keyboard is surprisingly comfortable.

~~~
joebadmo
Ergonomics is about a lot more than the keyboard, though. A laptop forces your
arms/wrists and/or head/neck into ergonomically unsound positions, so unless
there are laptops out there that transform into ergo hardware, I agree with
the gp that laptops completely disregard ergonomics.

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noelwelsh

      Do not use your text editor for tasks other than editing text.
    

To Emacs, everything is text. At least that's how I square the Church of Emacs
with the Church of Alex ;-)

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drtse4
As a developer i don't see any particular reason for using exclusively macs
for personal computing, a linux box/laptop should be good enough (never owned
a mac). But if someone really care about mobility, buying a mac (air?) could
be a good idea (personally, i'm waiting for the next generation air, hoping
for faster processors).

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maayank
_sigh_ couldn't come at a more appropriate time for me. Alas, isn't these
three contradictory:

* Use as little software as possible.

* Use software that does one thing well.

* Do not use software that does many things poorly.

I have a "good enough" workstation with 4GB of memory. No matter how much
tweaking I do to eclipse.ini, Eclipse still crawls to an halt when I work on
our large Java project... Alas, I can't just change it to VIM + command line
svn. It would be a mess.

~~~
stayjin
There is a way to use ramdisk as your workspace which makes eclipse quite
fast. Check a post at the Scala forum ( I am sorry, do not have the link handy
right now )

~~~
maayank
what a brilliant idea. I'll try it first thing Wednesday (it's holiday here in
Israel).

For future reference, while I didn't find a Scala forum post, I found the
following (perhaps you referred to the first item):

[http://blog.normation.com/2010/07/27/set-up-eclipse-
workspac...](http://blog.normation.com/2010/07/27/set-up-eclipse-workspace-in-
ram/)

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/501718/can-i-use-a-ram-
di...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/501718/can-i-use-a-ram-disk-to-
speed-up-my-ide)

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1838018/optimize-use-
of-r...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1838018/optimize-use-of-ramdisk-
for-eclipse-development)

~~~
stayjin
Yes, that was the one I was referring to. Thanks for citing the links.

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ulvund
I don't get the 'happiness' aspect of this.

It just looks like a list of personal preferences. I would like to think that
ideas for cultivating happiness goes a little deeper.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Its more like "for minimum stress". Arguably not for maximum productivity - I
violate a good dozen of the rules because of the job I do. And yes it causes
stress, but that's life.

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Derbasti
well spoken!

But most importantly, always remember that the three most important components
of your computer really are:

* your chair

* your input devices (mouse/keyboard/…)

* your monitor

Also, if you feel that your computer is getting a bit slow, consider updating
your hard drive (possibly to an SSD) before shelling out a far greater amount
of money for a new computer.

~~~
jorangreef
Or lack of a chair.

Putting a 60 x 60 x 42cm box on top of your desk, and putting your Mac on
that, so you can stand leads to:

1\. More regular breaks away from standing at your computer (and more
perspective on and thought towards your work).

2\. Significantly better health and posture.

3\. Increased metabolism and improved concentration.

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mmavnn
Might be worth a (2008) flag, especially if any of Alex's opinions have
changed inbetween.

~~~
ern
Where would tablets and netbooks fit in? 2008 was a long time ago, in some
ways.

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mapleoin
_Thoroughly delete all traces of software that you no longer use._

This is just a waste of time. Do you really care about 70KB that some lib that
some other lib that was used by a program that you only used for a week used
used?

~~~
wladimir
It's not the size on disk that is the problem, I guess. Some software leaves
other kinds of stuff behind such as links to it in the registry, license
services and startup/taskbar apps which can drag the speed of everything down.

~~~
bigiain
That may be true for Windows, bur he's also advocating using only MacOS and
Linux/BSD. I think those issues are significantly less common, if not non-
existent on those platforms...

~~~
wladimir
That's true. As long as you use packages in your distrib format you don't have
the problem on Linux. If you manually 'make install' from source it's harder
to cleanly get rid of everything. But that's not recommended anyway.

Edit: there is some commercial software for Linux has custom installers which
can result in windows-ish problems.

~~~
bigiain
Have you ever/often bumped into problems with 'make install' leaving behind
system crashing buts of code as time bombs when you've deleted the original
app?

My personal experience is that if that sort of cruft accumulates in Linux, it
happens at a slow enough rate that system upgrades fix the problem before it
manifests.

~~~
wladimir
Well a lot of mechanisms in Linux work by dropping files in a certain path
(SysV init scripts, udev files, plugins). So leaving files around could have a
little impact, such as runaway error messages, or a slight slowdown at bootup.

Then again, it's still much less than in Windows. And it's more transparent,
resolving the problem is generally a matter of removing the file, instead of
going into the registry jungle "trying random stuff from the internet until it
works".

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msquared
Combining "Buy a portable computer instead" and "The only peripheral you
absolutely need is a hard disk or network drive to put backups on" doesn't
make sense. I don't know about you, but my productivity tanks the second I
don't have a mouse.

~~~
technomancy
That's weird--I'm way more productive when I'm not using a mouse.

~~~
jff
You just think you're more productive because you get to slam
"jjjjjjjjjjjjlllllllllll" to position your cursor.

Use the mouse for what it's good at: pointing at things and selecting text.
Use the keyboard for what it's good at: entering text, such as regular
expressions to transform the code you just highlighted.

~~~
technomancy
> you get to slam "jjjjjjjjjjjjlllllllllll" to position your cursor.

Incremental search, dude.

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hopeless
The title is open to misinterpretation! I thought it was about how to
_compute_ happiness (which sounds ridiculous but piqued my curiosity!)

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boscomutunga
I think it all comes down to the saying that "a tool is as good as it's
user",you can have the latest hardware,software but it makes no sense if they
don't add to your productivity or they slow you down instead of helping
achieve your goal.

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dsantos
marco also posted about that recently

<http://www.marco.org/2011/05/08/laptop-size>

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Goladus
I'd add: put all your text files under revision control.

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ignifero
If i may,

* Use a powerful thinkpad with linux - or windows everywhere

* Never switch machines - buy a dock station for convenience at home

* Use vi - or gvim and stick to it

* Use Dropbox or sth

* Buy an ipad for the mac eyecandy, browse the web walking around (just be careful near walls)

* Rent a VPS and use it as your personal playground server

* Write programs - it's the best way to enjoy computing

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ChrisBeach
Good points, particularly the strong support of Macs.

I have doubts about any technologist that would choose to use Windows in their
personal life.

~~~
nickolai
Disagree, in part.

Personally, I use Linux for everything, when given the choice - except the
occasional game or two for which I use Windows. Couldn't ever get used to Mac.
It feels a bit like linux (being BSD based and all that), but gets touchy when
you actually try to do something with it. Though this may simply come from my
lack of experience with the platform. And im not convinced that the
productivity increase from switching from linux to mac is worth the
investment(in short i can do the same thing on a system that is twice as cheap
,and without any extra learning).

However I do agree that Windows is very often disastrous in terms of
productivity.

