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How I increased my productivity using dotfiles [updated]

Mpho Mphego on March 03, 2019

Originally published at blog.mphomphego.co.za on February 28, 2019. Updated: 17 March 2019 Added demonstrational video for my new-computer set-...

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waynee95 • Mar 3 '19

Nice article. It definitely helps so much when you can git clone your configs onto a new machine and you are ready to go. Also helps with having the same setup on each of your machines.

Personally I use GNU Stow to manage my dotfiles. So I don't need to write my own script for that. GNU Stow is really convenient.

Mpho Mphego • Mar 4 '19

A colleague of mine told me about GNU Stow, I think it's about time I look into it, instead of symlinking my files with ln.
Thanks

C.S. Rhymes • Mar 3 '19

Really good idea!

I used to use something similar where I had a git repo of my symlinked dot files. I had a work branch that had all the work proxy settings and a home branch for when I was working from home direct to the WiFi without a proxy server.

Mpho Mphego • Mar 4 '19

I sync all my dotfiles across my work and home machine, it's like using the same machine!!! flawless

jorin • Mar 3 '19

Nice post :) Thanks for sharing!

I shared an article a while ago explaining how I evolved my install script into an update script to never run into the issue again of having a stale script that doesn't work on a new machine:
dev.to/jorinvo/automate-your-mac-s...

Also, my personal preference is to keep, both, my setup script and my bash config so simple that I'm not afraid of breaking it. I put all bash configs in a single .bashrc file to make it straight forward to find anything and change anything when I feel like.
No matter how we organize the files, I think the point I'm trying to make is, that dotfiles are a living thing which we adjust constantly and we should minimize the friction to change as much as we can :)