dotfiles VS magit

Oh my gosh, that /opt/local rant was prophetic.

This is how I set my $PATH, note this code is portable between several Linux distros (including NixOS), macOS, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and amd64/arm64...

<https://github.com/rollcat/dotfiles/blob/52a634f/.profile#L1...>

Whenever I touch it, I just wish I could put PATH=/bin in there instead, but then I'd be stuck juggling 17 different ways to make bind mounts.

In my dotfiles:

https://github.com/rollcat/dotfiles/blob/0d44759/.emacs.d/th...

There's also a dark variant, and a "base" variant to convince Emacs not to touch colors when running in a terminal. There's also support for matching the system theme in Emacs & Terminal.app on macOS: https://github.com/rollcat/dotfiles/commit/b3e49ad

> If you do consider switching, one warning about Mac is this: Window management is utter garbage. Maximizing is actively discouraged. Tiling left / right etc? Doesn't exist. Everything must be random size and overlap weirdly. Instead, each new version brings a new quick switch or workspace functionality that I have never seen anyone use.

Mac has a different window management paradigm. It suits some people, it frustrates others. I've switched from Linux/BSD after 15 years there, and it immediately made so much more sense to me. YMMV.

It also makes so much more sense if you have a very large screen. I've tried using dwm or Sway with my 43" screen and it's incredibly awkward. You need first-class support for floating windows, or at least smarter tiling.

But I agree, some things on macOS are not as good (workspaces), or plain dumb/useless (stage manager). For missing functionality, like keyboard-driven tiling, I fix things using Hammerspoon: https://github.com/rollcat/dotfiles/blob/master/.hammerspoon...

> Being usable out of the box?

It's interesting that you bring up this point in defense of KDE, because that's exactly my problem with it, especially when contrasted with macOS. Every issue I have with KDE boils down to: "there are too many options, and none of them make the system feel right".

> decent window snapping

In my opinion, no window manager gets it right. I've made a shot at it with my Hammerspoon config[1], it will move/resize/tile floating windows in a 2x2/3x3 grid using custom hotkeys. It's annoying though, that the code works on macOS only - I could probably refactor it to work with an X11 window manager.

[1]: https://github.com/rollcat/dotfiles/blob/master/.hammerspoon...

> put files on my Android phone over USB

I think integration within the Apple ecosystem is what really outshines all competition. I've never had to plug my iPhone over USB to a Mac, and yet I can just copy on the phone, and paste on the computer, like they are one device. Files, mail, contacts, calendar, photos, notes, todos, bookmarks, are all synced - heck I can use the phone camera as a webcam, all out of the box.

> I don't need to give my terminal permission to display my fucking documents folder

Sounds like you never had to fight SELinux or AppArmor. Personally I'm happy that desktop OS's are trying to improve end-user security (why do I have to type the root password to install a game, but I don't need one to run a cryptolocker?), but let's be honest, all attempts so far have ended up half-assed. The root of the issue is that desktop OS's must remain general-purpose tools, otherwise we could just as well call PCs glorified toasters.

> I'd say that's kinda a big selling point of Emacs though: you can write elisp code to make anything you do (not just writing code) less of a pain.

I agree in principle, but in practice, I find myself writing a lot of ELisp just to work around Emacs' shortcomings. E.g. on macOS, to support dark/light theme switching integrated with the rest of the system, I need an external program[0], a shell script to tell that program to call emacsclient, a LaunchAgent to keep it running, an unholy build of Emacs with all of the GNU-unapproved Cocoa integrations that some kind soul is maintaining, and only THEN a piece of ELisp (which is also calling out to AppleScript) to actually change the theme[1]. And as I wrote this, I realised half of this glue didn't even make it into version control.

[0]: https://github.com/cormacrelf/dark-notify

[1]: https://github.com/rollcat/dotfiles/blob/7f6a6d7/.emacs.d/in...

I've been using Emacs for about 20 years, and with every passing year I just wish there was *less* ELisp for me to think about. The actual useful customisations (like adding the +x bit on shell scripts) are few and far between, most of it is just glue and fixes.

This is my strategy for dotfiles. My home directory has a .gitignore with "*" in it. I will "git add -f" any files I want tracked; git is extremely efficient at ignoring the rest. It doesn't require any frameworks, symlinks, installation scripts, elaborate tutorials/manpages, or any other voodoo.

To move in to a new machine - unfortunately you can't git clone into a non-empty directory, but the commands to work around that are simple enough to remember.

https://github.com/rollcat/dotfiles

> I tried my hand at tiling WMs with pop!OS, I just couldn't wrap my hand around it (pun intended). I really admire people who work through all the keyboard shortcuts. It's just not for my capabilities.

I think Windows actually did a great job of making tiling more mainstream - the way windows automatically snap to the left/right half of the screen. macOS could use something like that - I've hacked something similar using Hammerspoon[1] but I think Windows does it better: it's very discoverable for regular users, and has a very intuitive shortcut for the power users (win+left/right/up).

The world of minimalist tiling WMs suffers from the elitism factor. It's a shame that you can't get the right dose of minimalism, without making this huge leap. I think people making most of these WMs misunderstand good UX design: it's not about accommodating non-power users, it's about lowering the barrier for everyone, hackers included.

[1]: https://github.com/rollcat/dotfiles/blob/master/.hammerspoon...

Well, you blew it ;) I have no idea how you've identified my dotfiles as a web project using any kind of an established web framework/language, and at this point I'm too afraid to ask.

I'm happy with my Hammerspoon setup. I need something to fix "the other 90%".

Then the slowness that you're seeing is probably Windows-specific, and that's why everyone else is telling you that Magit is actually fast.

WSL might make things faster.[1] IIUC, the problem is that starting new processes is much slower on Windows than on Linux/Unix and Magit relies heavily on that. This seems to have plagued Git tooling more generally but maybe this got fixed since then.[2]

[1] https://emacs.stackexchange.com/a/58444

[2] https://github.com/magit/magit/issues/2395#issuecomment-1710...

You'll want to invest the time in learning Magit, which will change your life once you get the hang of it (and I was a heavy user of Fugitive in Vim previously!), and it's unlikely you'll find a better integration with GDB anywhere else on the planet than with Emacs, though I can't say that empirically. You just need to take the plunge and start learning it, then cut over and take the hit in productivity one day when you're feeling adventurous. You'll ultimately become far more powerful than you've ever been. Especially if you delve into elisp over time. I use Spacemacs, which is bloated and has bugs, but it has so many features that I haven't undertaken the massive endeavor to replace it from scratch yet.

> Even in this article just a few sentences after stating we should start from first principles he then jumps into the assumption of the "desktop".

Agree. Although I can see how the idea of "first principles" can be a very difficult starting point. A blank sheet of paper is a scary monster.

There's a huge breadth and depth of non-"desktop" GUIs out there, some (like smartphones) are even wildly successful. It's good to explore them for inspiration. Some of my favourites:

- Arcan (https://arcan-fe.com/about/) - I won't attempt to summarize, just dive in!

- SailfishOS (https://sailfishos.org/) - mobile UI focused on interaction through gestures / swipes; I've used it as my daily driver for a couple years.

- Speaking of mobiles, classic Nokia UIs allowed you to navigate to a specific item in the menu by pressing the corresponding digit on the dial pad. Once you learned where a particular item is, accessing e.g. your SMS inbox was extremely quick.

- Apple Watch / WatchOS (https://www.apple.com/watchos/) - I've always loved the idea of a device where one of the primary interaction methods was a wheel/dial of some sort. The watch even gives you context-sensitive tactile feedback.

- ZUIs in general (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooming_user_interface) and the work of Jef Raskin in particular: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy_(software) - this is the guy who helped design the Macintosh, but his other work took a radically different route.

- Magit (https://magit.vc/). Many common git operations are reduced to a couple of keystrokes; the obscure features are more discoverable, and the cumbersome procedures (such as rebasing, or staging individual hunks) become simple and intuitive. Also check out transient (https://github.com/magit/transient), which is the "UI toolkit" that powers Magit.

This can be done most comfortably with org-mode in emacs. It offers a lot of features, and they all operate on plain text. There are also nice integrations for git and languagetool, but I guess those are less exclusive.

How does this differ from https://magit.vc/ ?

I would rather see innovative tools that lessen our dependency on 50+ year old tech. This is still a glorified teletype. It uses AI to autosuggest git commands? Contrast with Magit[1], which (while it has a tiny bit of a learning curve, but also nowhere near 23M in funding) actually makes interacting with git a pleasure.

[1]: https://magit.vc

Also was using Emacs (org-mode)[https://orgmode.org] for years with (Magit)[https://magit.vc] package for git. I feel org-mod is a precursor to Roam Research, Obsidian, et al. Hit the spot for years but I wanted editing on mobile so that’s why I’m here. :)