From cdcb7a5a55a120ca8d2388b56276d92ed8d0ae6d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Yann Esposito (Yogsototh)" Date: Sat, 9 May 2020 12:15:46 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] Renamed --- .../index.org | 166 ++++++++++++------ 1 file changed, 112 insertions(+), 54 deletions(-) rename src/drafts/{XXXX-who-control => XXXX-how-to-choose-your-tools}/index.org (58%) diff --git a/src/drafts/XXXX-who-control/index.org b/src/drafts/XXXX-how-to-choose-your-tools/index.org similarity index 58% rename from src/drafts/XXXX-who-control/index.org rename to src/drafts/XXXX-how-to-choose-your-tools/index.org index 2a4dd10..ef634be 100644 --- a/src/drafts/XXXX-who-control/index.org +++ b/src/drafts/XXXX-how-to-choose-your-tools/index.org @@ -1,39 +1,37 @@ -#+Title: Who is in Control -#+Subtitle: How I started to take care of the tools I use. +#+Title: How to choose your tools #+Author: Yann Esposito #+Email: yann@esposito.host #+Date: [2019-08-17 Sat 20:00] #+KEYWORDS: opinion -#+DESCRIPTION: Modern tools disapears. -#+DESCRIPTION: Some tools are worth a big time investment. +#+DESCRIPTION: Modern tools tend to disapears. +#+DESCRIPTION: An app on the web will change, and could break for the worst. +#+DESCRIPTION: Quite often investing in long living tools which are harder start +#+DESCRIPTION: with will be worth the investment. #+LANGUAGE: en #+LANG: en #+OPTIONS: H:5 auto-id:t #+STARTUP: showeverything -This week I worked a lot more than usual. -So much I didnt take the time to take a look at HN. -So during my morning in the week-end, I started to read what I missed. -And here are a few articles I read along their comments: +This week I didn't take a look at HN to grab some news. +And this week-end, in the morning I read those: - [[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23102430][Zoom acquires keybase]] - [[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23107123][Making Emacs popular again]] - [[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23092904][Github Codespace]] -Such article have existed for years on different products. +Similar articles have existed for years on different products. What is their common point? /Software tooling and their potential change and disparition/. -Accross the years, to many times I saw tools I used disapearing from my -environment. -By tool it could be: applications, web applications, web sites, I think we -can also include programming languages, control versionning tools, building -tools, package manager, etc... +Accross the years, too many times I saw tools disapear. +By tools I mean applications, web applications, web sites. +I think we can also include programming languages, control versionning +tools, building tools, package manager, etc... The story can be quite different. Sometimes the disparition of a tool is positive, because I found a better -one (for me at least). -But too often the tool simply disapears or worse downgrade its quality. +one (from cvs to svn to git). +But, too often, the tool simply disapears or worse downgrade its quality. I think we can find different names for those softwares: - /bloatware/: remember digg, stumbleupon, windows? @@ -43,8 +41,11 @@ I think we can find different names for those softwares: - /dieware/: Remember Friendfeed, Google Reader™, etc... - etc... -So regarding Github Codespace; the integration of VSCode™ inside GitHub™ I -think this could be worse than a disapearing tool. +This is often quite frustrating because you lose a lot of your investment +with that tool. + +Regarding Github Codespace; the integration of VSCode™ inside GitHub™ can +be even worse. This is what I would call a /trapware/. #+begin_notes @@ -54,12 +55,12 @@ By slowly but surely add features that while looking great for the user at first sight will ensure to entrave other tools to interoperate. #+end_notes -Furthermore, the fact that Microsoft is involved has a taste of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish][Embrace, Extend and Extinguish]]. +Furthermore, the fact that Microsoft is involved give this story a taste of +[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish][Embrace, Extend and Extinguish]]. -I think the real concern is that it could become a /work framework/. -So if sufficiently businesses start to use this. -This could impose the full tooling on a lot of developers without giving them -the freedom of choice. +My real concern is that it could become a /work framework/. +This could impose the full tooling on a lot of developers without giving +them the freedom of choice. For a startup CTO/CEO this GitHub™ Codespace™ could offer the following advantages: @@ -115,10 +116,6 @@ Yes great. But I really doubt a company like Microsoft™ offer anything without a plan to make it worth it. -Until here I mostly talked about the Github Codespace article and HN thread -reaction. -Where I saw a lot too much enthusiasm about this news for my taste. - The [[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23102430][Zoom acquires keybase]] is just another story of a dying product. Apparently the keybase team will probably stop maintaining keybase. The idea behind keybase was pretty nice. @@ -148,16 +145,17 @@ But you have a lot more work to do yourself. The common pattern I see during choice decision is often reducible to: -1. Easy now, but less extensible and more difficult later -2. Harder now but more extensible and less potential blocker in the future. +1. Easy now, but less extensible and harder in the long run. +2. Harder now, but more extensible and easier in the long run. -And mostly the answer is not hard to infer. -If you are going to use a tool a lot, the difficulty to start learning it -is not that important. -If in the end the tool help you to go farther. - -So if you're going to make a living with it. -And use this tool a lot I highly suggest the second option. +As a conclustion I would state that when you need to choose between +different tools. +Take the time to think about the investment costs. +Sometime, the bit of pain in the begining is worth it. +In particular if you are going to use this tool every days for many hours +during the following years. +If on the other hand you don't plan to use that tool much. +Going with the easy option is certainly the best choice. I consider Emacs to be of the 2nd option when compared to VSCode. Harder to start, but with a lot more control and potential power that you @@ -165,23 +163,83 @@ will probably never be able to get with most modern IDE/Editor. Also choosing a Free Software[fn:1] gives you a lot more control about its future. -A few last words about Emacs, because for now I can state that this is an -amazing tool which when used correctly will improve your coding experience -and project management a lot. - -If you want to start using it from something like VSCode I suggest you to -start by using either [[https://www.spacemacs.org][spacemacs]] or [[https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs][doom-emacs]]. -It will take a few weeks to absorb vim keybindings. -Slowly you'll start to learn how to configure it for your needs. -And I really suggest you to take a look at org-mode. -Mastering it could change your carrier. -org-mode alone would be enough to use emacs. -But there are a lot more to discover. - -The first difficult aspect when faced with open source is the lack of -centralization. -Instead of having a big bundle with everything prepared to work you -generally need to install each part of a big system separately. - [fn:1] note I said /free software/ and not /open source/; c.f [[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html][Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software]] + +** Post-conclusion -- Emacs is awesome +:PROPERTIES: +:CUSTOM_ID: post-conclusion +:END: + +To go beyong my opinion, I'd like to share my experience with editors and +emacs. + +When I started to code. +We coded with vi, not vim, vi. +At that time I only knew, =i=, =a=, =dd= and =cw= vi commands. +So when I started to use IDEs I was thrilled. +After a few year I started to work for a company that forced me to use +their shitty computers. +I started to have wrist issues. +So I decided to learn vim. +And I saw the benefits only after a few weeks. +They were tremendous. +No more wrist pain. +And I started to learn a lot of editing automation. + +Then I started a new work where we decided to code in Clojure. +And so knowning that Clojure is a LISP and most LISPers love emacs because +emacs plugin language is emacs LISP. +I tried to use spacemacs. +At that time I didn't want to invest much time in learning Emacs. +I just wanted to learn the tricks that will make Emacs more valuable to my +work. +And it did after just a few days, weeks. +I used Emacs superficially for years. +Just Spacemacs + a few useful layers. +And it was already quite efficient, at least as much as vim. + +More recently I started to dig deeper. +In particular, I read so much praise about org-mode I was really curious. +And it took me some time to really discover why it is so great. +First, let's just say that, basic org-mode is already quite valuable. + +But you can do a lot. +And unfortunately this is a bit hard to describe how org-mode is great +without really digging a bit. + +So you can think of org-mode as an extremely versatile todo-list / note +taker with agenda and time tracking integration. +Mostly you are in control of your working workflow with org-mode. +The ability to do org-capture and org-refile is also great. +Recently there is org-roam that is a step further to make orgmode a nice +place to keep track of all your knowledge in one place. + +Concretely, emacs has changed my workflow a lot and made me a *lot* more +productive. +It improved not only my coding workflow, but my full work environment. +I started with the editor, a few plugins, and slowly, I integrated more +aspect of my day to day tasks in emacs. +Emacs is designed to adapt to your own needs you can start to automate a +lot of small tasks. + +I really love Emacs and if you want to joyfully join the Emacs users here +are my advices: + +Start by using either [[https://www.spacemacs.org][spacemacs]] or [[https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs][doom-emacs]]. +It will take a few weeks to absorb vim keybindings. +Slowly you'll start to learn how to configure it for your needs. + +I really advise you to take a look at org-mode. +Mastering it could change your carrier. +Im my opinion [[https://orgmode.org][org-mode]] alone is a good reason enough to use emacs. +But there are a lot more to discover. + +However, if you are used to tools from startups, with nice UI/UX. +Almost no configuration cost. +Be aware that digging in Free Softwares is a lot diffierent. +Instead of having a big bundle with everything prepared to work you you +will need to take the time to configure each part of a big system +separately. + +Howevery I'm deeply convinced the investment is really worth it.