Interesting, but not totally unexpected as this is very much in the tradition of Unix terminal users. Never mind that today's "dumb terminal" is probably an order of magnitude more powerful than yesterdays mainframes, and you can fall back to even bigger servers without many problems.
But I'm always a bit surprised by small-screen laptop-only users, whether it's this rather charming off-the-grid kind or your average Macbook Air coffee shop inhabitant.
I like my mechanical keyboards, large displays (area, not dpi) and desk-bound isolation. Never mind that laptops introduce quite a few technical problems (heat, upgrades, computing power) that are easily avoided by your cheap mini tower.
And I guess that's at least one minor way in which I've succeeded over distraction without even trying: I don't have a big need to mix my programming/writing/browsing with outdoorsy and/or (real-life) social elements.
I wonder whether the rather common preference of landscape background pictures (e.g. Napa valley) is part of that desire.
5 months ago I transitioned from being a desktop C# app developer for medical devices to a Rails remote contractor.
This meant going from a dual quad core 3.33 extreme desktop machine with 3 displays (2 x 24 and 1 21) to an 11" Macbook Air with a 1.7 dual i5.
I'm much faster on the air. I have a tiling setup that I can quickly switch/move windows around, it keeps my vision and neck focused and reduces strain to both. It allows me to better mentally focus on what I'm currently working on, instead of having my IDE, source control, collab tool, bug tracker, etc, always visible at the same time. I'd rather do a couple quick chord commands than snap my neck 30 degrees one way for 15 seconds seconds then snap it back in the other direction.
As to heat/power? Spectacular with my MBA, this thing is as fast as last year's Macbook Pro and the iMac the year before. I've been writing software professionally since '96 and at least in the windows world, the tools have not changed a whole lot in that time period. The only advantage of a faster machine is faster compiles and db rebuilds/queries. And I'm not doing that enterprise level work of 300k+ code bases and 5 gig databases anywhere. But I did 15 years ago, and yeah, now something that would used to take over an hour might take 2 minutes. On my MBA is might take 5 minutes. For something I'd do a handful of times a day, not a big deal, but again, I don't do those types of things anymore.
Don't get me wrong. I'd appreciate more resolution. But probably more inclined to use that for extra clarity rather than increase my desktop space by a significant degree. There's a sweet spot where bad habits begin to creep back in, where just too much info is presented at one time that cognitive overload begins to set in. Just my personal experience, but I've had both setups and the latter works much better for me.
I have had a similar experience. I am a professional Java developer, which means 1G Eclipse + 1mm LOC projects. And started hacking on Go in my spare time. The difference is phenomenal. I can use a full screen terminal with vim + another screen with a browser. This is paradise.
All my tools respond instantly (with a big enough project eclipse stutters on every interaction, even with an i7 + 16G of ram). And I can code happily on my monster quad core or my hacked up chromebook. This is flexibility.
Like brandall10 I found that the difference in focus is enormous. I haven't connected with my code like this for years. In a modern IDE everything moves, every twitch of the mouse brings up some overstuffed menu or brings up some javadoc summary of somesuch. It is an environment of constant distraction.
My terminal is like a warm summer's morning. Clear skies and not a soul to disturb you.
I lived in Emacs + Ruby/Python/Perl for most of 1998-2008 and I've recently been forced into IDEs to do mobile development in Obj-C and Java.
And I'm loving it. I never had this much visibility into my code or anything close to the refactoring power (especially in Java). Maybe things go south with 1mm LOC projects but those are no picnic in Emacs either. I've gotten so addicted to the benefits of a good IDE that I think I'll take a serious look at Rubymine if I ever go back to doing Rails again.
I'm glad that this worked out for you. But my personal "story" wouldn't really fit either extreme. Whether it's a tiny eeepc or a 1920x1200 screen, it's all basically terminal multiplexer to me (or, well, Emacs frame organizers if I'm in that phase again). Not even arranged that differently. I'm not one of those guys with Wall Street multi-monitor-monstrosity setups‡, I too do fiddle with window managers.
For a while I even switched regularly between a 23 Inch Sony monitor and my 17" MacBook, both with the same resolution. The MBP even had the better CPU/RAM compared with the Office PC I abused for admin/dev purposes.
I still noticed that I prefered my desktop setup by a large margin. Mostly because those same pixels spread out over a larger area, encompassing a larger FOV for me (without me crouching like Rodin's thinker). Also, a much better keyboard. I can't really understand all the hype about Apple's scissor action chiclet keyboards. Last decent one they made was the Extended II.
And all this in a package that costs much, much less. For my purposes, all those hyper-engineered ultrabooks (and their Mac inspiration) are overkill. Lots of really clever solutions and manufacturing advantages that I simply solve by putting all that in a large enough box. I simply don't gain a lot from all that cleverness.
‡) Well, apart from when I have to do lot with a browser, either for development or reference. A ridiculous number of sites break when the browser window is too narrow, and switching back and forth between only two applications is a bit of a waste of time. I remember this not being a problem when I was using half my 1600x1200 CRT back in the days…
But I'm always a bit surprised by small-screen laptop-only users, whether it's this rather charming off-the-grid kind or your average Macbook Air coffee shop inhabitant. I like my mechanical keyboards, large displays (area, not dpi) and desk-bound isolation. Never mind that laptops introduce quite a few technical problems (heat, upgrades, computing power) that are easily avoided by your cheap mini tower.
And I guess that's at least one minor way in which I've succeeded over distraction without even trying: I don't have a big need to mix my programming/writing/browsing with outdoorsy and/or (real-life) social elements. I wonder whether the rather common preference of landscape background pictures (e.g. Napa valley) is part of that desire.