* * * * *
Random and a rather rambling musings on computing environments and the
customization thereof
I'm not even sure where to begin with this. Or even where I'm going with
this.
First off, there's Aza Raskin's [1] demonstration (Google Video: Away with
Applications: The Death of the Desktop) [2] of Enso [3], an application that
brings the command line back to the GUI (Graphical User Interface) in a very
novel way (and yes, the video is worth watching, and the Enso application is
something that, were it available for either the Mac or Linux, I might buy).
I got the link to the video from Thought Storms: The Return of the Command
Line [4], which I linked to before [5] (and that post is somewhat related to
this post).
This all somehow is all related, primarily to customizing the computing
environment.
One small example: I have customized vi (the standard Unix editor) to my
liking. It's not a lot of customization though. My .exrc file looks like:
> set ai
> set showmode
> set sw=2
> map m ^F
> map v ^B
>
That's it. Five lines of modification. The first just sets auto-indent mode.
The second one displays the current mode (command mode or insert mode) on the
screen. The third sets the tab-indent to two spaces. Those, I can live with
or without (and really, half the time, I don't want auto-indent mode so
that's actually a wash).
It's the last two lines I can't live without.
The first maps the M key to page forward in the command mode. Normally, the
“page-down” command is Ctrl-F but that's two keys to hit, and usually, when
I'm in vi, I'm not editing, I'm viewing. And the last line maps the V key to
“page-up”, which is normally bound to Ctrl-B (again, two keys).
And what normally happens is I get on some random server at The Office, I'm
viewing a file in vi, go to hit M to page down through the document, and get
… something else.
Then I go ballistic.
Sigh.
Which is one reason why I tend to type out insanely long command lines
instead of making a script—because customizing the computing environment
isn't worth my time or sanity (even with a five-line file; also, people using
my customizations, one of which involves renaming rm to delete tends to drive
them up a wall).
This also relates partially to my dislike of IDE (Integrated Development
Environments)s. I've learned to be productive without one, since I “grew up”
without using them. And I've found them to be intrusive the few times I have
used them (mainly beause the built-in editor sucked compared to what I was
actually used to, which again, ties back into computing environment
customization). I found it weird to hear programmers (mostly students) asking
where they could get an assembly language IDE—they were totally lost without
such a crutch (and yes, I'm using that word deliberately here). But my crutch
was a particular text editor [6] from IBM [7]. Was it really that great of an
editor? Maybe. This quote pretty much sums up how I felt about it (the quote
is about a newer version of the editor I used):
> Is PE II really that good? Frankly, no. It's just that I'm really that
> lazy. I've used it for so long that it's like breathing to me. I don't have
> to think about where the keys are or what they do. I just think about what
> I want to do and it happens.
>
> When I need to edit a C file that is too large for PE II, I use Brief.
> Sure, Brief is bigger, better, and faster than PE II. But its key bindings
> aren't etched into my skull like the pattern on an old monochrome monitor
> that's been displayed for months.
>
> But enough about that. I know what my preferred C/C++ programming
> environment is in DOS. I want to find my preferred programming environment
> in Linux. The reason I bring up my personal preference—and the inertia that
> cements it—is that I believe the same sort of inertia is at work among the
> developers I queried.
>
“Linux development: Command Line, Emacs or IDE? [8]”
I used that editor long enough that I never had to “think” about using it. I
just did. And I'm still attempting to use the Tab key for navigation to this
day (under PE, the Tab key didn't insert spaces—it just moved the cursor to
the next tab stop; I could navigate to any point on the screen in just a few
seconds, if that).
So, to bring this back around to Enso [9]—yeah, it's great. Yeah, I'm tempted
to get it (if only it didn't run under Windows). But do I want it? Were I to
become dependent upon it, would using a non-Enso enabled system suck too
much?
What exactly do I want from my computing environment?
Seven months ago I brought my workstation home from The Office [10] with the
intent of replacing my old home system linus. But the amount of customization
I've done to linus is so extensive, that I've yet to actually switch. Even
though I can create entries for this blog technically anywhere (and submit it
as a text file, or through email, or through a web-based interface) I still
prefer editing on linus, as I have several extentions to the editor I use
there to help create entries (and it's still not as fast or as smooth as I
would like it [11]).
Blah.
[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aza_Raskin
[2]
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-
[3]
http://humanized.com/enso/
[4]
http://www.nooranch.com/synaesmedia/wiki/wiki.cgi?TheReturnOfTheCommand
[5]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2007/05/29.2
[6]
http://www.texteditors.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?PE
[7]
http://www.ibm.com/
[8]
http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~priestdo/emacspeak/list.archive.1999/msg00358
[9]
http://humanized.com/enso/
[10]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2007/03/06.1
[11]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2003/11/19.2
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