
Tom Preston-Werner Uses This - icey
http://tom.preston-werner.usesthis.com/
======
naner
This is not particularly interesting. He uses typical software and hardware.
Nothing esoteric, interesting, or insightful here. Just a guy using a Mac
getting some work done.

~~~
daliusd
It is interesting but there is very simple lesson to learn: terminal and
decent editor is all you need. I know a lot of people who are still afraid of
terminal (they can't live without TortoiseWhatever and are not familiar with
basic terminal commands) and can't live without fancy development environments
(like Visual Studio) after years of development. Even more - terminal + editor
allows developer to switch between platforms almost without problem (e.g. my
usual week consists of developing completely different projects for Windows,
Mac OS X and Linux).

After all David killed Goliath with sling. What's wrong with the fact that
magic things happens with dumb tools?

~~~
edanm
"[A] [T]erminal and decent editor is all you need."

Just to give the other side of the "argument": "all you need" isn't something
to strive for. An environment which makes you the most productive is what most
people strive for, not the minimum environment to be somewhat productive. IDEs
make a lot of people a _whole lot_ faster, and for good reason - smart people
have worked really hard to make it that way.

(I mostly use editors and not IDEs these days, but the allure of good IDEs is
strong.)

~~~
sjs
Yup. After writing Java for Android in IDEA 10 CE for a few months I die a
little inside every time I want to rename a function in C or JavaScript in
TextMate. I should check if anyone has used js2-mode to write some refactoring
functions for JavaScript in Emacs.

What good cross-platform IDEs do people use for C and JavaScript?

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stiff
The only really interesting article on this page so far was the Andrew Huang's
one:

<http://andrew.huang.usesthis.com/>

90% of the articles are almost the same - some kind of Macbook, software
everyone knows about, "I wish it was lighter and had more battery life" etc. I
think it's the format that makes this uninteresting. Probably a lot of those
people do in fact use interesting little hacks, configure their software in an
unusual way or have a nice looking workspace. But there isn't even a photo of
the workspace attached to the article or a bunch of screenshots while people
are doing some work. A vidcast or screencast would perhaps be a better medium
than an article for doing this, like in the recent "play by play" peepcode
screencasts (not an advertisement, they're better, but I didn't found them
worth the price so far).

~~~
shadowsun7
The two that I've found to be most interesting is rms's:

<http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com/> (think: _everything_ \- including his
laptop - he uses is open source)

and _why's: <http://why.usesthis.com/>

~~~
gnufs
I found Russ Cox's interview and setup also pretty original and informative:
<http://russ.cox.usesthis.com/>

------
dandelany

      At one focus is suspended a huge, omnidirectional, ten thousand Watt speaker 
      system. At the other focus lies an elaborate, 21 screen wrap-around display 
      connected to a Mac Pro cluster. In this dream, I am seated in a comfortable 
      recline at the computer station while thundering trance emanates from the
      sound system and is parabolically focused upon my exact location.
    

Ah, so basically the traditional "Grandma's Boy" setup[0]. Yes, I think a lot
of us share that dream. The more monitors, the better.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHLR3faI7lU&t=00m06s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHLR3faI7lU&t=00m06s)

~~~
mojombo
You know, I've never seen that movie. I suppose the techno-blasting isolation
room with tons of monitors is some kind of archetype, to be stumbled upon time
and time again by coders throughout the ages.

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DTrejo
He should try <http://www.iterm2.com/> instead of Terminal.

~~~
mikey_p
iTerm2 has some truly amazing features that blow most other terminals out of
the water: Full screen hotkey, global hide and show hotkey, better search,
better history, and multiple sessions in horizontal and vertical splits is
amazing.

Even the little feature like being able to hide the scroll bars for an extra
few columns, or having growl notification of output when the app is in the
background have made a huge difference in my productivity.

~~~
zaius
How do you find it speed wise? Last time I used it, it was struggling with
full screen ncurses apps, but that was probably two years ago now.

~~~
ryan-allen
If you haven't seen it in 2 years you'd be very surprised. Another developer
took over it's development and has done a great job whacking it into shape. I
use it instead of Terminal.app now and don't find it lacking.

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robyates
A more interesting article by Tom Preston-Werner: [http://tom.preston-
werner.com/2008/10/18/how-i-turned-down-3...](http://tom.preston-
werner.com/2008/10/18/how-i-turned-down-300k.html)

~~~
sayemm
That was a great post. Also love this clip of him on "The Road from Ruby
Hacker to Entrepreneur" - [http://confreaks.net/videos/432-rubyconf2010-the-
road-from-r...](http://confreaks.net/videos/432-rubyconf2010-the-road-from-
ruby-hacker-to-entrepreneur)

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SwaroopH
His dream setup reminds me of Grandma's boy & Swordfish.

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hartror

      I use TextMate for writing code, and it does most of what I need, 
      but the allure of emacs is strong and I think that one day I will
      take the time to learn it and harness its power, but for now, I’m
      a TextMate man, and it treats me pretty well.
    

Oh how I love my father for teaching me the dark arts of emacs when I was 12.

~~~
mojombo
I've actually started using Vim since I wrote this post, and it's treating me
nicely. I still use TextMate for a lot of things, but as I become more
familiar with Vim, I find myself there more and more. It feels much more
natural to me than Emacs.

~~~
edanm
I'm sure a lot of people here would love a follow-up post about your Vim
setup.

~~~
heresy
Check out some of Gary Bernhardt's videos (also a play by play on Peepcode).

I stole a whole lot of things from his VIM setup (red/green bar for test runs
in VIM just rocks).

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kayoone
whats with all the guys going laptop only these days ? thats an ergonomic
nightmare and i am so much more productive with 2 screens.

~~~
Klonoar
Two screens anchors you in one place. Some of us value the flexibility of
being able to go work out of a coffee shop whenever we damn well please.

To add to that, I personally get no benefit from extra screens; maybe it takes
a certain type of brain, but I'm able to visualize everything in my head very
easily to the point where I can not be looking at a screen of text but still
recall it all just fine. Having windows crammed onto a screen just isn't an
issue for some of us. :)

~~~
nikcub
The link between screen resolution and productivity is well established:

[http://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2008/03/screen-s...](http://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2008/03/screen-
size-matters.html)

I have two screens sitting on my desk at home with bluetooth keyboard. Plug it
in when I am at home with bluetooth keyboard, and laptop when I am away
(although I usually always take my external mouse with me)

~~~
Klonoar
Perhaps that works for some people, but others (like myself) still differ. To
each their own. :)

~~~
nikcub
I can see what you mean. I do ok on the laptop alone, since you only need 80
columns of width. You end up just paging up and down a bit more

And Spaces and/or virtualterminals are a dream

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prpon
I envy that macbook pro configuration :) Do you guys know of any MailPlane
alternatives to manage multiple gmail accounts?

~~~
mikey_p
I'm a pretty huge fan of Postbox. It eats RAM, but once you get to 8GB that's
less of an issue.

