I too am retired. I use "rsync" instead of "tar" because I prefer the ease of browsing and restoring from a non-compressed filesystem. To save space on the backup medium and get a faster backups I use the "--link-dest" option of "rsync" to hard-link unchanged files in the destination backup to a previous backup.
Since I have external drives that also need to be backed up I put a ".diskid" file containing a unique identifier in the root of each external drive and duplicate the identifier in the disk name. My backup software has multiple targets and sources configured, so all I have to do is execute "backup" and all possible backups are performed depending on whatever external drives I have mounted.
I can't speak for others as I'm probably an outlier, but anything that requires a login causes me to seriously consider my need to use the site: yet another password, security, etc. I understand that a login would be required for your site's purpose, but there it is.
YES! I've been programming for 55 years, so far, and have never used an IDE except for one year playing with Turbo Pascal and Turbo C. I've always answered questions over on /r/learnpython like this:
Q: I want to learn python, what IDE should I install?
A: Why learn both python _and_ an IDE? Just learn python on the commandline.
Though I'm happy in my curmudgeonly rut, it's nice to meet a fellow minimalist aesthete.
Since I have external drives that also need to be backed up I put a ".diskid" file containing a unique identifier in the root of each external drive and duplicate the identifier in the disk name. My backup software has multiple targets and sources configured, so all I have to do is execute "backup" and all possible backups are performed depending on whatever external drives I have mounted.