Ain't nobody got time for that!

Weekly internal talk given at Belighted on May 15, 2013.

Tools and workflow-related hacks to improve flow and reduce self distraction during your daily programming routine.

Transcript

1. SWAF - May 2013
2. You basically live there. The Shell
3. Shell : it's all personal. • As much as, if not more important than your IDE. • Opened at least 8hrs a day. • Pathway to many tools, all remote locations. It HAS to feel comfortable and intuitive. MAKE IT.
4. Shell : iTerm2 > Terminal.app • 256-color mode support. • tmux support. • Split panes. • Paste history. • That obscure feature you really need. http://www.iterm2.com/
5. Shell : * > bash Better : ZSH. • A lot of things built-in. • Easily skinnable. • Awesome completion. Betterer : tmux. • All the things on the left. • Remote sessions. • Shortcut madness. • Vim-like customization. https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh http://railscasts.com/episodes/308-oh-my-zsh
6. Shell : remap Caps Lock to Ctrl
7. Shell : useful commands • Ctrl + a : beginning of line • Ctrl + e : end of line • Ctrl + u : clear line • Ctrl + l : clear window • Ctrl + r : command history search • Ctrl + z : send job to background • fg : pop job back to foreground • !! : repeat last command • !$ : repear last argument from previous command Got any others ?
9. Shell : the usual suspects
10. Example : "git commit -am" I typed "gc" 316 times. That's 732 strokes. Without an alias, it would be 4424 strokes. Seven times as much. For one command.
11. Managing your aliases • When you realize a command is too long, write it somewhere. • At the end of the day, fill your .aliases with all your newfound goodness.
12. Command chains alias stage="gco staging && grb master && gps && stag deploy" I use these 4 commands, in that exact order, I don't know how many times a day. $ gco staging $ grb master $ gps $ stag deploy Not too shabby, right? $ stage Yeah screw that.
13. Shell : alias functions Bet you'd like to pass arguments to your aliases ?
14. Remote locations alias bestaging="ssh belighted@176.31.14.128" Who is seriously gonna remember the IP of the staging server you ssh into once a week ?
15. Your dotfiles are precious! • Observe (or just plain fork) someone else. ◦ Gary Bernhard ◦ Ben Orenstein ◦ thoughbot ◦ A colleague ? • You git your projects. Git your dotfiles. Your machine will change or break eventually, you don't want to rebuild your habits from scratch.
16. How do I dotfile? • Check your home directory in SVC. (nope) • Symlink files in a dotfiles directory to your configuration files. (meh) • Use a custom copy/symlink script (yup, see thoughtbot's style)
17. Shell : jump! $ cd ~/Users/Kevin/Rails/streetpage $ j stre https://github.com/joelthelion/autojump
18. Shortcut of the week ? • Every week, someone proposes a shortcut, shell trick, or workflow improvement of any kind. • That's about it. Thanks, @systh0 !
19. I'm not gonna advocate any of them. They're all good anyway. The Editor
20. IDE-agnostic advice • Your editor has shortcuts. Learn them. • You don't like them ? Change them. • Are you using your mouse a lot ? There's a better way somewhere. • You look a that thing 9 hours a day. Make it pretty, make it easy on the eyes. • Explore the possibilities, browse the settings. You'll find something new every day. • Plugin all the things. Doing the standard shitty way 10.000 times because you don't wanna change it is SO MUCH WORSE than changing it once.
21. Enter Alfred.app The Butler
22. • Google stuff. • Launch apps. • Find files and folders. • Find contacts. Alfred - Basic uses
23. • Custom searches (github, imdb, youtube...) • Workflows • Do math (yes!) • Get your passwords from 1Password. • Launch terminal commands • The sky's the limit! http://www.alfredapp.com/ Free - Power Pack 17 € Alfred - Awesome uses
24. Enter Dash.app The Librarian
25. • Many offline docsets. • Also searches Google. • Also searches StackOverflow. http://kapeli.com/dash Free in App Store - Full Version 17,99 € Dash
26. IT INTEGRATES WITH ALFRED! Dash - There's one more thing !
27. Why do all this ? - Not for the sheer speed. - Not for the geek cred at conferences. - Not because you have a weird obsession with optimisation, which will eventually cause your doom. Because making things so easy they work themselves into muscle memory allows you to not be interrupted by yourself.
28. Bonus : Rails-related tools The Railroad
29. Rails tools : better errors How could we ever live without that ? Pretty error log, inline debugging console. https://github.com/charliesome/better_errors
30. Rails tools : pry Sturdier alternative to vanilla rails console. Autocompletion, pretty colors, etc. http://pryrepl.org/ http://railscasts.com/episodes/280-pry-with-rails
31. Rails : lock & control gem updates • Always lock versions in your Gemfile. • Use Rubygems.org to follow gem updates (via RSS).
32. Thank you ! Kevin Vanzandberghe - @kvzbme