Renamed

src/drafts/XXXX-how-to-choose-your-tools/index.org

@@ -1,39 +1,37 @@
-#+Title: Who is in Control
+#+Title: How to choose your tools
-#+Subtitle: How I started to take care of the tools I use.
 #+Author: Yann Esposito
 #+Email: yann@esposito.host
 #+Date: [2019-08-17 Sat 20:00]
 #+KEYWORDS: opinion
-#+DESCRIPTION: Modern tools disapears.
+#+DESCRIPTION: Modern tools tend to disapears.
-#+DESCRIPTION: Some tools are worth a big time investment.
+#+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.
+This week I didn't take a look at HN to grab some news.
-So much I didnt take the time to take a look at HN.
+And this week-end, in the morning I read those:
-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:
 
 - [[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
+Accross the years, too many times I saw tools disapear.
-environment.
+By tools I mean applications, web applications, web sites.
-By tool it could be: applications, web applications, web sites, I think we
+I think we can also include programming languages, control versionning
-can also include programming languages, control versionning tools, building
+tools, building tools, package manager, etc...
-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).
+one (from cvs to svn to git).
-But too often the tool simply disapears or worse downgrade its quality.
+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
+This is often quite frustrating because you lose a lot of your investment
-think this could be worse than a disapearing tool.
+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/.
+My 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
-This could impose the full tooling on a lot of developers without giving them
+them the freedom of choice.
-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
+1. Easy now, but less extensible and harder in the long run.
-2. Harder now but more extensible and less potential blocker in the future.
+2. Harder now, but more extensible and easier in the long run.
 
-And mostly the answer is not hard to infer.
+As a conclustion I would state that when you need to choose between
-If you are going to use a tool a lot, the difficulty to start learning it
+different tools.
-is not that important.
+Take the time to think about the investment costs.
-If in the end the tool help you to go farther.
+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
-So if you're going to make a living with it.
+during the following years.
-And use this tool a lot I highly suggest the second option.
+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.