
Hackers' Screenshots - mqt
We had a good screenshot thread over 9 months ago. It's always interesting to see how wizards perfect their craft.<p>Show us how you hack!
======
mqt
[http://monaco.nirv.net/~tran/screenshots/20080807/montage.pn...](http://monaco.nirv.net/~tran/screenshots/20080807/montage.png)

Those are my six workspaces merged into one image. I use Linux+ion3 and emacs.

~~~
darragjm
Girl Talk! Wow, I never thought I'd see him appear in the context of Hacker
News...

~~~
spencerfry
Girl Talk is the best music to work to. Well, that and Ratatat.

~~~
markbao
You sirs have excellent taste.

------
mqt
Previous screenshot thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=74605>

------
jli_
Check it:
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0d/Stumpwm-5head....](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0d/Stumpwm-5head.jpg)

And for an actual screenshot:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Stumpwm-2008-08.png>

The first is a 5.2 megapixel quin-head, the second is a plain ol' 1024x768
mono-head.

~~~
spydez
5? How are your running 5 monitors off a laptop?

Wait, there's two laptops... How's that work?

~~~
nailer
X2X.

If you've never heard of it, you're missing out.

Two or more machines, each with their own desktops, but one keyboard and one
mouse.

When you move the cursor out the right of your first desktop, it appears at
the left hand side of your next desktop - and so on and so on.

It turns as many desktops as you want into one virtual one.

Did I mention it rocks?

If you've got a Windows machine, there's also X2VNC.

~~~
there
and if you're using unix+mac, there's also synergy.

~~~
jodrellblank
If you're on Windows there's also MaxiVista

------
noonespecial
My workstation. My wife calls it "the bridge".

<http://www.jonandkarrie.com/images/P8087198.JPG>

~~~
hapless
Holy guacomole. What is that desk, and where can I get one?

~~~
noonespecial
I made it from a sheet of 4x8 melamine and some cleverness with a jigsaw and
router.

~~~
duane
A true hacker

------
jrockway
Here are some screenshots of what my emacs typically looks like:

Reading e-mail, hanging out on IRC, fixing some cut-n-pasted elisp:

<http://disk.jrock.us/bingo/public/random/irc-color.png>

Working on Perl stuff, reading e-mail:

[http://disk.jrock.us/bingo/public/random/8-aug-2008-screensh...](http://disk.jrock.us/bingo/public/random/8-aug-2008-screenshot.png)

(Shameless plug for Stylish-REPL: <http://git.jrock.us/?p=Server-
Stylish.git;a=summary>)

A desktop without distractions:

[http://disk.jrock.us/bingo/public/random/8-aug-2008-screensh...](http://disk.jrock.us/bingo/public/random/8-aug-2008-screenshot2.png)

Here is my Firefox desktop:

[http://disk.jrock.us/bingo/public/random/firefox-
screenshot....](http://disk.jrock.us/bingo/public/random/firefox-
screenshot.png)

Then I have another desktop where Amarok lives, although I mostly control it
from emacs.

------
tptacek
Hey, I've never done one of these before.

<http://www.matasano.com/ba02a15a70759d0389a6fa3f4c1.png>

Mac, Emacs, Ruby, Hex Fiend, Terminal. On a product day, instead of a research
day, you'd sub CSSEdit in for Hex Fiend. On a blog day, maybe Illustrator too.

~~~
yan
I was half way done with writing a data analyzer plugin for hex fiend once
(with a bit of help from ridiculous_fish) but abandoned the project about half
way (had a parser for a data description dialect, some code that interfaced
with hex fiend and built a basic tree based on the description) and realized
it wouldn't be useful, so abandoned it.

~~~
boucher
Hex Fiend is incredibly well done. And, although I've never met
ridiculous_fish, and he writes way too infrequently, I think his blog is
great.

~~~
comatose_kid
I'll second that - definitely quality over quantity.

------
DarkShikari
My usual desktop; a Cygwin development environment, Notepad++ for editing,
PuTTY connected to a remote shell for my IRC, and Elecard Streameye for video
stream analysis.

<http://img381.imageshack.us/img381/5126/hackerdesktopyu3.png>

~~~
joshwa
gahhh comic sans comments!

~~~
tptacek
OW MY BRAIN. He also line wraps source code.

~~~
DarkShikari
I'm too lazy to change the defaults on the fonts. Blame the Notepad++ guys.
And I rarely notice the comment issue that you pointed out... as sadly most of
the code I work on is sorely lacking in comments.

The line wrapping isn't an issue because I usually make it much wider, and if
when its wider there's still line wrapping, the person who wrote such code
should probably be forced to endure great pain. Most programs I work on have a
"please don't make 250-character-lines" policy, for good reason.

~~~
tptacek
What do you like about Notepad++?

~~~
DarkShikari
Split-screen editing (of the same file even; most editors don't let me split-
screen edit the same file in two different windows), automatic syntax
highlighting, bracket-matching (the standard stuff), tabbed editing, and the
various built-in tools.

I do sometimes use vim, but I find that a simple tabbed GUI text editor gives
me the most productivity. I've never liked IDEs, especially since I would
rather just type "make" than try to use an internal build system. Add to this
the fact that both my company and all my personal projects are based on the
GNU toolset in some form or another.

~~~
tmallen
Split screen with same file

:vsp

Syntax highlighting

:syntax on

Tabs

:tabnew

Bracket matching

:inoremap ( ()

:inoremap [ []

:inoremap { {}

And so many built-in tools...you really should take another look. I use
TextMate on my Mac to churn out massive amounts of HTML, but any other editing
happens in (G)Vim.

~~~
avinashv
Before you go overwriting pretty useful default functionality, check Vim's
manual for what those do to see if it isn't more useful (I prefer the
defaults).

~~~
thomasmallen
What part of the help docs is about brace/parentheses matching? Everything
I've seen online uses a simple key mapping like the ones I posted.

~~~
coliveira
use :set showmatch

~~~
thomasmallen
Showmatch is there to highlight matching braces, not to insert them. The
mappings actually match your braces by writing the close brace/parens/bracket.
Here are the coding aids from my vimrc. They're pretty simple, as I don't like
to change how Vim works too much:

    
    
      " Coding aids
      set undolevels=5000
      set backspace=indent,eol,start
      vnoremap < <gv
      vnoremap > >gv
      " Braces, etc.
      inoremap ( ()<LEFT>
      inoremap (<CR> (<CR>)<ESC>O
      inoremap () ()
      inoremap { {}<LEFT>
      inoremap {<CR> {<CR>}<Esc>O
      inoremap {{ {
      inoremap [ []<LEFT>
      inoremap [<CR> [<CR>]<Esc>O
      inoremap [] []
      " Wrap in braces, etc.
      vnoremap -( <ESC>`>a)<ESC>`<i(<ESC>
      vnoremap -[ <ESC>`>a]<ESC>`<i[<ESC>
      vnoremap -{ <ESC>`>a}<ESC>`<i{<ESC>
      vnoremap -" <ESC>`>a"<ESC>`<i"<ESC>
      vnoremap -' <ESC>`>a'<ESC>`<i'<ESC>
      " End the line, adding a semicolon
      inoremap <S-CR> <ESC>A;<ESC>o
      noremap <S-CR> A;<ESC>j
    
    

I also use NERDCommenter for quick commenting, an XML tag wrapper script, and
a tag closer script. As you can see above, typing the open/close pair doesn't
result in "())", and typing an open brace plus a carriage return automatically
adds the close brace to the line below, in the format:

    
    
      function hello($name) {
          // Insertion point
      }
    

Edit: Of course, that isn't my entire .vimrc

------
marijn
<http://marijn.haverbeke.nl/upload/screen.png>

(XMonad, so all you see is emacs. Big font because my laptop has small pixels
and I have bad eyes. If anyone can recommend a better program font than Luxi
Mono (O and 0 indistinguishable, bold letters are wider than regular, but I
like the way it looks at this size), do tell.

~~~
silentbicycle
Terminus! (<http://www.is-vn.bg/hamster/>)

I find ProFont and its relatives (<http://www.tobias-
jung.de/seekingprofont/index.html>) quite readable as _tiny_ programming
fonts, but Terminus is my favorite medium/small programming font. It's the
font in Emacs and the bottom statusbar in my screenshot
(<http://shenani.gen.nz/~scott/screenshot.png>).

------
ihartley
<http://megadeth.myrok.com/screen.jpg>

Obviously rearranged little. Firefox tends to be on the smaller screen opened
up to whatever documentation I might need. Terminal lives over there, too.
Textmate is fullscreen on the big screen most of the time with various other
utilities (CocoaMySQL, Transmit, iTunes) living somewhere behind it.

------
pavelludiq
[http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2014/2742115501_c46810cdb6_o....](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2014/2742115501_c46810cdb6_o.png)

Nothing special, Vim and a python interpreter.

~~~
ph0rque
...in Russian :~)

~~~
pavelludiq
Bulgarian :D

~~~
ph0rque
You're right, didn't look closely enough.

------
kobs
<http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1551/screenshot-07312008.png>

My primary editor is Emacs. I don't usually use 3 different editors
simultaneously.

------
Hates_
Here's mine right now:

<http://www.ur-ban.com/galleryv2/d/15417-1/hn_001.jpg>

Using: Flexbuilder, Textmate, Photoshop, VMFusion (Vista)

~~~
st3fan
Tool on iTunes - Good stuff :-)

------
jey
I use StumpWM, bash, vimperator, and vim. Vimperator is an extension to add
vim-like keyboard shortcuts to Firefox, and StumpWM is a keyboard based tiling
window manager for X that is extensible in Common Lisp (like screen for X).

While I'm at it, I'll also plug the Kinesis Advantage keyboard and Cirque *Cat
trackpads.

<http://jey.kottalam.net/tmp/screenshot.jpg>

------
rob
<http://i37.tinypic.com/2cgimuc.png>

I usually have Terminal open as well.

~~~
quickpost
That's a really cool desktop background image. Where did you get it? Know
where I could download it? I like it. :)

~~~
rob
I like it, too -- it's easy on the eyes when working.

I got it from Smashing Magazine; they release a bunch of awesome wallpaper at
the beginning of every month and offer them with or without a calendar. You
can find it here (August 2008):

[http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/07/30/desktop-
wallpaper...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/07/30/desktop-wallpaper-
calendar-august-2008/)

------
iigs
<http://ii.gs/combss.jpg> (4800x1200, large-ish jpg file)

FreeBSD + WindowMaker + Synergy Server on the left (IBM P3 from 2002 w/ 4g RAM
and SCSI)

Windows XP on center and right screens (ThinkPad T60p), Synergy Client

I tend toward maximized windows in window managers that make it easy to do so
(such as XP) but things get pretty messy when I can't.

Other aspects of this environment that you can't see from looking at it:

\- Synergy is running on a crossover cable from the laptop docking station
wired port to a dedicated ethernet port on the desktop. This makes synergy do
the right thing whether the laptop is docked (do) or not (don't).

\- I have focus follows mouse but no autoraise on both the XP and WMaker
environments. Being able to have a PuTTY window on top of a browser window
you're scrolling / typing on is nice.

\- I tend toward smaller fonts whenever possible.

------
tortilla
<http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/8366/desktopiu3.png>

Dock (usually hidden): Minefield, Camino, Safari, Google Reader (fluid), Mail,
TextMate, Terminal, Localhost (fluid), RailsDoc (fluid), Coda, Color Schemer
Pro, CSSEdit, Transmit, OnTheJob, Photoshop, Yojimbo, iTunes, Fusion, System
Preferences, Github (fluid)...

Menubar: Quicksilver, DropBox, Skitch, Mailplane, Monocle, Coversutra,
TextExpander, SlimBatteryMonitor, Mozy, Little Snitch, Spaces, iStat Menu...

Wallpaper:
[http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper_beta/details/1596/big_cit...](http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper_beta/details/1596/big_city_life.html)

------
scott_s
<http://people.cs.vt.edu/~scschnei/work.png>

Instead of using virtual desktops, I have one work area and alt+tab between
Firefox and Gnome's Terminal app. My IM buddy list and IM window (also with
tabs) always stays in the same place. If I'm reading a paper, it takes up the
space used by Firefox and Terminal. Having tabs in Terminal means I don't have
shells spread out all over place.

It's a brittle setup, in that it all depends on getting window sizes to match
and then not changing them, but I've found it works very well for me.

------
manny
I've documented mine on Gentoo forums:
[http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-692590-highlight-
dwm.ht...](http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-692590-highlight-dwm.html)

------
maxklein
My screenshot looks like the default windows interface, but with eclipse,
VS2005, VS6 and an ftp client. I don't customize it so that I see exactly the
same stuff my users see.

------
jamongkad
My workspace <http://www.flickr.com/photos/8541974@N08/2743799927/>

Vim + Ubuntu.

------
sharjeel
[http://i529.photobucket.com/albums/dd332/sharjeelq/myscreen1...](http://i529.photobucket.com/albums/dd332/sharjeelq/myscreen1.png)

Thats screenshot of one of my two screens. I place my laptop on the right and
use synergy to connect. Do all my dev on 19" desktop and use laptop mainly for
browsing, reading.

My dev env: WinXP, Python2.5, IPython, PyScripter, Aptana, Firefox + Firebug

------
silentbicycle
<http://shenani.gen.nz/~scott/screenshot.png>

Pretty basic. Emacs (in tuareg mode for OCaml), gnu screen with ncmpc & mpd
(music), dwm window manager.

I merged workspaces 1 and 8 onto 4, otherwise it'd just be full-screen Emacs.
(Which is how I hack, but makes for boring screenshots.)

~~~
capablanca
Share emacs colortheme?

~~~
silentbicycle
I'm still working on extracting it into a useful form at the moment, but it's
pretty closely based on one of the themes from ColorTheme
(<http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/ColorTheme>). I think it was either
Charcoal Black or Linh Dang Dark, though if you took Lawrence and turned every
green to blue you would probably be close.

There's a pretty good gallery here, incidentally:
[http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~maverick/GNUEmacsColorThemeTest/index...](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~maverick/GNUEmacsColorThemeTest/index-
el.html) You can probably find at least a couple you like enough to start
from.

------
berlinbrown
Actual Physical Picture:

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/berlinbrown/2423596879/>

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/berlinbrown/2360945449/>

I use Eclipse for project management and Emacs for actual coding.

Standard Ubuntu interface.

~~~
nailer
I can't see the language there, but if it's Python, how's the Eclipse editor?

~~~
abhin4v
I can't see the language too. But I use Pydev
(<http://pydev.sourceforge.net/>) to code in python on Eclipse. And it's
pretty good.

------
william42
<http://www.unc.edu/~wschliep/screenshot.png>

This is the only thing that's really unique about my desktop--it's the Factor
IRC client, which I wrote(well, the UI part, at least, the IRC stuff is
actually done by the person on the channel named "tizoc".)

------
elq
<https://dl.getdropbox.com/u/52575/desktop.jpg>

beware, it's big - one 30" and one 24" monitor.

Emacs, preview for a couple of documents, a few shells so I can monitor
progress of a training run, and some music.

------
davidw
Same as last time. Open emacs buffers are Hecl and LangPop.com:

<http://www.dedasys.com/Screenshot.png>

I don't see how people can live without virtual desktops.

~~~
b3n
Have you tried a tiling window manager? Looks like you'd like it.

------
bkudria
Reading News.YC instead of hacking code:
<http://ben.kudria.net/pub/screen.png>

Code/Terminal font is Consolas, editor is Kate

------
arthurk
Nothing special here:
<http://img115.imageshack.us/img115/9397/8augdesklu5.png>

~~~
DougBTX
What's the IRC client?

~~~
crux
limechat. ruby, gratis. not bad.

------
brooksbp
bliss: <http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/1683/picture1te5.png>

~~~
graywh
Sorry, but Terminal.app (only 8 colors) != bliss.

------
there
my 4 virtual desktops under xfce on my openbsd laptop

<http://jcs.org/tmp/shot-20080808.png>

~~~
nailer
Could you please tell me where you got your wallpaper?

------
btw0
here is mine
[http://img112.imageshack.us/img112/2851/200808081323181024x1...](http://img112.imageshack.us/img112/2851/200808081323181024x1280ki1.png)

awesome window manager, hacker news in firefox

------
lst
And what is this to be expected, given a real hacker?

As less as possible at all, since the most important part is always deep down
in your head (and subconscious, and never ever would be able to have some
'screen representation'...)

(Let's be sincere: all other super-cool stuff is only vanity...)

