I'll start this article by just saying that the tools that you use do not define how smart you are, and here are my thoughts on that.
I'm in the tech field for almost two years now and always faced this constant internal battle in my head, about using the best tools possible to do my job and be "productive", because of this nonstop sense of "being smart".
As a very "environment driven" person, seeing people use those insane Vim configurations and be super fast with their keystrokes and code editing, using the most riced arch installation possible always drove me insane, I wanted that, it felt powerful, it felt easier to do things and more fun...
Every developer that I saw that fit those patterns felt like the image below.
It didn't take much time for me to start being overwhelmed by the feeling that I needed something like that for me to actually look like a awesome developer.
But turns out that the more time passed, I felt even worse, I didn't feel "hyperproductive" and even felt dumb in a sense...
It took too much time to configure a cool environment using things like Vim, minimalist window managers, Arch Linux, and stuff. And every once in a while, things kept breaking and I had to start all over again.
That demotivated me a lot, why wasn't I capable of being that 100x developer with insane hotkeys and Vim motions all the way? Where was the so-called "productivity"?
Recently I Acquired a new MacBook and thus I took the personal mission to do the complete opposite since the macOS cannot be overly customized, I decided to stuck with the most basic things that I could to focus on my job.
Whit this article I hope I was able to tell a cool story about myself as a professional developer and also motivate people that felt just like me in the tech area, you don't need that insane setup, the most incredible Vim configuration, it's okay to use your mouse.
We just need to feel good and make things work, no matter the tool.
Top comments (1)
One thing to note is that everyone is good and efficient in there own way. It doesn't depend on the tool but on how good they are with their tools. I've been in the field for over 10 years. I'm in the arch group, still it does break sometime but that's what I'm comfortable with. As for cli editor, I'm still using nano and I'm not even thinking about really learning emac or vim. Ho sure I find it really cool when I peer with a pro vim, but that same person might be impressed about how quickly I can debug or optimize a critical sql query.
So in the end focus on your own environment and work your best with it, you'll have your turn being the hackerman but when you get there you'll feel that it wasn't really important. (And by the way it doesn't take long to get there once you master your tools)