Using only keystrokes for common editing operations is more efficient than mouse or menu-driven commands, because your hands never leave the keyboard. This is one of most important advice about efficiency I can give: keeping your hands on your keyboard might make you faster, but, more importantly, it will make you happier.
It might surprise some of you, but I try to avoid my mouse as much as possible. With the shell, you use mainly your keyboard. It was more frustrating than simply using the CLI git in the shell. When problems popped up, it was difficult to know what command the GUI was calling under the hood. I was working with a junior developer who was using it without knowing how git was working. I have a real life example with sourcetree, a graphical interface for git. You can explain the GUI, not really the application itself, especially if the wording used in the GUI and in the CLI are different. Explain to a less experienced developer how the tool really work.Use the tool on a remote server without your graphical interface.You won’t be able to solve (or even understand) any bug coming from the CLI layer.It can hide a lot of functionalities you would access easily with a CLI.What about graphical interfaces on top of CLI applications? To me, it has serious disadvantages: It can be a bit tough at first, but the benefits are huge. I encourage you to use the shell as much as possible. They don’t use heavy graphical interfaces to slow down your computer. Automation is the key to increase your productivity and saving your mental energy for what you’re creating. You can automate boring tasks easily with a shell.Using pipes to throw the output from one tool into the input of another give you endless possibilities. The Unix philosophy allows you to use specific tool for a specific need.You can’t put 20 buttons on a graphical interface? With a command line based application, you can have 20 options. It’s easier to give a lot of optional possibilities to the end user, letting him do exactly what he wants.Even if you don’t have the very specific tool you need, you can develop it more easily for the shell no need to design a GUI on top of it. The most common are bash and Zsh I use the second and I highly recommend it. In this article, I will refer to the shell pretty often. I will introduce you to the fantastic world of Mouseless Development Environments. Better tools to use MySQL (or any database, really) in the shell.
It was one of the best decision I made in my entire career: I couldn’t trust it anymore.įast forward a few months, I had the pleasure to meet and work with amazing developers who showed me how to build a very effective Mouseless Development Environment. The bitterness filling my heart was unstoppable. I spent hours trying to fix the whole system, but I didn’t know how Linux-based systems were working.
Then, the tragedy: one morning, fresh and motivated, I decided to upgrade my LTS version. I didn’t know better, so I stuck with it for years.
It was easy to install, easy to use, and it seemed to answer my needs.īut month after month, my pride decreased as much as my annoyance increased. Once upon a time, I was a proud Ubuntu user. , updated Twitter #Mouseless #Tools #Productivity A Mouseless Development Environment