Dev Environment Customization

I'm the same way, and I don't think it's ideal. I tend to do my work with the minimal set of tools that I usually expect to be available, and I'm extremely biased towards using the default settings and configurations of those tools. I do have settings that I really prefer so I have to use, but I naturally keep them to a short list that I can set up within a minute or five. I can tear them down in a minute or five also - I may not be using my account; I often find myself on Co

I used to be like this... crazy about dotfiles, backgrounds, shortcuts, apps, etc. Eventually, I learned that I'm better off with the standard setup and little customization. No fancy aliases, no recorded dotfiles, no crazy editor configuration, nothing. If I get a new computer or am using someone else's even, it's easy for me to install what I need as I need it and get going out of the box.

I've been programming 30 years and I really don't find it a hassle:- if you commit them to git, they last your entire career- improving your setup is basically compound interest- with a new laptop, my setup script might cause me 15 minutes of fixing a few things- the more you do it, the less any individual hassle becomes, and the easier it looks to make changes – no more "i don't have time" mindset

At some point I realized that I wasted months in those rabbit holes customizing and tweaking shell configs, window managers and Emacs. Any gain in productivity (which may not even be there as it is rather subjective) was not able to offset it. So I stopped it. These days I just use Gnome Shell with a single extension to fix something that I cannot get used at all, simple bash config to setup environment for development with no customization on shell behavior, and a programming editor that mostly

For me it's a matter of mental overhead. When I used to tweak every little setting and install a plugin for everything, it was so much work, for, and let us be realistic, very little gain in the long run. Now I usually run defaults with some bare essential tweaks that is obvious improvement on my "quality of life" - and if I cannot automate the setup it needs to be required or I'm not doing it - that is it.

I had this revelation around 15 years ago. I was fiddling with custom i3wm setups and complex hotkey setups and my .emacs was longer than some short stories. I even had Windows with a custom explorer replacement that re-did the whole UI.At some point I figured out that I spent so much time configuring everything at home, but I couldn't do the same for the other multiple computers I used at work (work machine + remoting to client's computers) and that started to grate on me.I just

Find anybody who has used Windows on a regular basis and you'll find they do the same thing. I expect to have to reformat Windows multiple times a year. I've carried this mentality everywhere. I've used Arch Linux and configured every little bit of my OS and found that having a portable config and being used to system defaults is much more valuable than finding an obscure way to make yourself more productive. I can basically pick up any unix-like OS, clone my dotfiles, and I'm good to go.

I've "riced" Linux machines, Windows machines, different editors, terminals, file browsers, shells, web browsers, even commandline tools, to fully customize my own work machine.I used to install cool tools, new non-standard programs and made edits to config files.Now I basically just install Arch (personal machines) or Debian (servers), and leave almost everything at default. I have a handful of necessary tweaks for i3, mostly keybinds (Meta+O for emoji keyboard, a different

I don't like tuning my tools.You spend a few hours tinkering with settings, then two years pass like a breeze, you have reinstalled your system / on another employer's laptop, and you have to re-configure everything. From memory. That's frustrating.Yes, I carry around a .zshrc from the times when I still made the effort.Otherwise I would prefer convention over configuration. Just provide sane defaults. Please.Moreover, when you're an infrequent programmer, yo

yup, i dread setting up a new computer. had to do that just this month. it was a relief to finally get on with work and be done with setup and configuration.for the same reason i like to use programs at their defaults and not spend hours tweaking them.instead i'll do that very slowly over time whenever something bugs me enough that i feel the need to change it.