I have been primarily in the tiling window manager space for the past 5 years… that said I’ve been driving Cosmic on my NixOS workstation and I’m really impressed… it looks great, is simple, performs well and does tiling quite well. It’s not going to take me away from Niri, but it’s my goto suggestion now for any one getting into Linux.
This article is pretty on point with my experience. I'm a "senior technical" manager (of about 60 engineers) and with that comes a ton of responsibility that pulls me away from coding at every turn. I have to be in every call, I have to know everything that's going on and I have to be able to be able to communicate all of this in ways that advocate for the team but also navigate the politics of the organization.
All that said, I often get criticism that I should not be picking up coding tasks every sprint. There seems to be some unwritten rule that remaining a coder is a net negative when you start tickling the upper management ranks. On the one hand I'm told that I need to train the other managers to be more like me and then on the other hand I'm told that I code too much, I'm going to burn out and need to find ways have others do the work.
I personally think being able to do all kinds of coding tasks (prototyping, bug fixes, major time sensitive features, etc) does a lot for me as a manager... the team respects me, I stay close to the code so I can speak about it as well as anyone can and I can contribute to just about anything if the need arises. If I ever get promoted to Director level then I probably will have to step away from coding as an official duty, but I'll happily keep enjoying that part of my job for now.
What is the source of work for these 60 people? Who is keeping them fed?
That is beyond a full time job, and if your cup isn't full today, staying aligned with the product requirements and architectural implications, you need to let go and focus on that.
On a more serious note, 100% agree. I'm asked to delegate more, but I don't want my skills to atrophy and, I'm happy when I'm coding. If I had to JUST manage, I wouldn't survive, figuratively speaking.
I have 5 manager under me, so the 60 are not direct reportees. I do interact directly with most of the devs, but the other managers do a good deal of the lifting too.
Wait 60? Surely not direct reports? I'm guessing you have about 4-5 managers? Impressive that you have the luxury of picking up some coding tasks with 4-5 managers!
Yeah, I should have made that more clear. You are 100% correct, I manage 5 other managers and they have about 10 devs each under them. I do work directly with virtually all of the devs and handle the majority of PRs so we are all one big team.
As it turns out, printer hardware/software is something I specifically don't want any innovation. My 10 year old color and B&W Brother (wifi) laser printers are part of a very short list of "just works" tech I use regularly that require no additional software or firmware updates.
I've been thinking about this a bit lately and I think it's actually less about fundamentals and more of an issue with process. I'm not saying that fundamentals are not essential, but we often don't have the time to learn all aspects of a complex system.
There is definitely a lot of overlap here, but I have a finite amount of time that I can put towards solving problems. I've been thrown into AI over the past 6 months and know none of the fundamentals of this space, but I can still be very productive.
My process now is to know how to pull up docs quickly (in my editor), take advantage of the LSP, use my debugger and learn the systems on the fly. I'm probably not going to take courses in AI, Data Science and other aspects of this discipline as it will only have a marginal affect on my daily activities.
My job is to understand the flow of data, so I need to focus on that and make sure my process, tooling and access to documentation are the best possible to accomplish that.
The article is just saying a sedentary lifestyle is not healthy. I easily sit for 10 hours per day, but I also work out 6 days per week. I'm sure I'm fine as long as my circulation is good. Exercise is the silver bullet.
This is a very 2008 perspective on health. The article doesn't mention exercise at all but the studies I alluded to with “sitting is the new smoking” outright rejected that exercise counteracted all the negative effects of sedentariness. So exercise was deemed to be no less benefitial compared to before, but it didn't make you “catch up” if you also were sedentary for whatever cutoff they had found.
And indeed the very study (or DailyMail rehashing) that we are talking about wouldn't really make sense under the old exercise-only regime since the general public would have no interest in an article that doesn't even mention whether people got any exercise or at least a brisk walk now and then (like making a distinction between someone who only sits for six hours a day and doesn't exercise contra someone who sits for twelve hours a day and jogs for two hours). But the anti-sitting paradigm has penetrated the public consciousness now (notice standing desks and the ilk). Which is why the DailyMail can make tabloid headlines about it.
Two years ago, I transitioned to a minimalist tiling window manager (WM) despite my initial reservations about them. This change was prompted by my desire to experiment with high-end hardware and a 4K multi-monitor setup in a tiled environment. Surprisingly, the switch turned out to be a game-changer, boosting my productivity significantly, with around 90% of my tasks now occurring in the terminal. Traditional criticisms of terminals, such as memorization challenges and lack of guidance, no longer apply, thanks to modern features like auto-completion, interactive history, suggestions, and plugins like Git integration. Unfortunately, the reluctance to embrace this minimalist, terminal-centric approach may hinder power users from unlocking its full potential due to long-standing biases and a fear of change.
With all due respect, I can never take these self-made claims at face value. You definitely feel that you are more productive, but that may or may not be the actual case and it is easy to lie to ourselves.
I've been on a similar quest but my purpose was to eliminate distraction, and becoming more productive was just a side-effect.
i3 (actually sway) helps me with focusing only at those windows that belong to a specific task, and often in full-screen. if I must use a GUI browser which has tabs and constant distraction then I can do so, but the context switch isn't "just mental" but I have to change over to another virtal desktop. this sounds hardly revolutionary (virtual desktops are also in KDE and Gnome). But it is a lot more "painful" than having everything in front of me at all times using 3 monitors. It also makes me actively aware (!!) that a context switch is happening, and so I end up allowing it less, and force myself to finish what I'm doing before attending to some interruption. there is no taskbar no dbus-popups.
I even use my device for undistracted reading of books multiple hours at the time, without snacking on HN content inbetween. (although for this I've started using another cheap old laptop that does not have network and is only running a few things (zathura for reading PDF's and calibre for converting from different formats). -> hardware compartmentalization FTW
generally leaving fullscreen and reconnecting the network and switching to another desktop is just too many steps and i now only break my concentration with a total awareness of it happening.
It honestly changed my life, made me more focused, less anxious, and more in control. Def not going back to the illusion of being productive just because I'm juggling everything at once ...
I more or less do the same, but using gnome and only one monitor. Most people criticize gnome without actually giving a chance to use it the way it was designed to be used. Coupled with the use of workspaces, it has significantly increased my focus (or rather, decreased my distractions)
That's true of virtually every comment making a claim on HN. Unless you've done a scientific experiment and collected data, you want know for sure.
In any case I'll add another anecdote for someone that has nearly the identical setup to the GP and will say it also significantly increased my productivity. Don't really care if anyone believes me.
But how? What were you doing that involved window placement or positioning that "makes you more productive"? I just don't see how these activities, in the context of doing day-to-day work, could shave off more than a few minutes a day.
"Significantly" implies to me some double-digit percentage increase in the ability to accomplish tasks, and I just can't see how a window manager could possibly be responsible for such a thing.
There is a trap when talking about productivity, that everything can be reduced to time. But quality of work is a factor of productivity too.
What is rarely taken into account is that offloading mental energy can lead to better solutions.
For example, I make two paintings. Both take me ten hours, but for the second one I was sitting in a more comfortable chair, in a calm room, and the resulting painting is significantly better.
Less friction might not manifest as a big numerical statistic that you can look at and nod your head in approval, but it might do wonder for the internal levels of stress one feels in interacting with devices. And ultimately, that's what matters most.
I have a Mac and a Linux box for work. I have been using my Macbook for some AI work I'm doing, but my workflow has been a mess. I had 4 desktops going, 2 projects opened w/debugging, many browser tabs opened to various docs, MS Teams, Outlook, etc. I don't even run Apple music anymore because it makes my laptop too hot.
On my mac the desktops constantly change position for unknown reasons. Managing windows is a huge pain on each desktop because it's very easy to obscure them... there is also a ton of wasted space with so much gui noise. CMD tabbing through apps is tedious and inflexible.
I posted some screenshots of my Linux setup in a different comment. My Linux workflow is night and day. All of my projects are streamlined on their own workspace, I can jump between tasks with no mental effort, everything is at my fingertips, I make less mistakes (working in the wrong terminal or editor), everything is done with vi bindings, etc. I have custom shortcuts set for things I need and I have multiple browsers that I can overlay on any workspace if I need to.
I can't quantify my productivity increase, but I know it's there. I also know I'm much happier when I'm working now because I'm much more organized and focused. I'm also not dealing with a Laptop (Macbook) that sounds like a rocket about to take off. My Linux box operates under 1% CPU load all the time. My point is not to say my setup is better (I'm not an evangelist on these things), but that I found a huge productivity boost for my needs with a minimal setup. I was very skeptical when I started out and it was a combination of being out of my comfort zone and being incredulous to a radically different way of using a computer.
2. The third party app “alt-tab” provides an alt tab experience that is much better than the native one, and is likely more similar to the behavior you expect from Linux. See: https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app
I also personally like to use Rectangle for window positioning using keyboard shortcuts, tried the various auto tiling solutions like yabai and amethyst in the past but I think the flexibility of Rectangle is worth having to remember and use a few keyboard shortcuts.
I think it’s unfortunate that so many third party apps are required, but with a bit of babysitting MacOS can be pretty decent to work with.
Mainly the cognitively load and time spent launching apps, finding the window for an already launched app, cleaning up and laying out windows, and moving the mouse around to control the windows. It's just one keystroke to my most use apps now. I'm 100% sure I'm faster now.
Think of a cluttered workbench in a garage versus a clean and organized one. I don't need a scientific study to tell me which one is more efficient.
When I pair with other developers the difference is obvious. Being able to work efficiently in a complex environment is a skill that not many have unfortunately.
I use Kitty for my terminal, i3 for my window manager, vifm for my file manager, vim/neovim for my editor and Firefox. All of my virtual desktops handle different things, like watching movies, doing AI projects, web work, game development, graphics work, etc.
You can do all of this stuff in Windows or on a Mac, but I'm using minimal resources with a highly streamlined workflow. Everything that I can script, I script. I also use Zsh with quite a few plugins so the terminal itself isn't so important. I use Kitty because it's fast, can render graphics, is well documented and has a ton of features.
I believe most of the things OP mentioned have to do with the shell and not the terminal. At the very least, most of the things thus mentioned can be configured in zsh (I don't know how, as I haven't looked into it really)
reply