Up to Main Index Up to Journal for March, 2014 JOURNAL FOR WEDNESDAY 12TH MARCH, 2014 ______________________________________________________________________________ SUBJECT: Abolishing distractions - plain and simple DATE: Wed 12 Mar 20:51:53 GMT 2014 *sigh* This was supposed to be a post for Monday. I had half of it written and then had to leave it. Then it was supposed to be a post for Tuesday and now it's Wednesday and I should be coding, instead I'm still trying to get this post finished! Anyway... Catching up on a few things I came across a post[1] by esr - Eric Raymond - with the title 'How to demolish your software project with style'. At first I just quickly skimmed over it. I then grabbed a fresh mug of really hot coffee, scrolled back to the top of the page and read it again - properly this time. Having read the post I sat and pondered it while finishing my coffee. Again it made me think about the hard pros and cons of starting WolfMUD over again... What did I decide? I haven't yet. Until I do I'll just keep calm and carry on. I've also been tweaking my coding environment a bit. I already have a sparse desktop running dwm[2] filled with xterms. I have a clock[3], an email notification and usually a web browser open on a second monitor - all of them distractions. I started closing the browser and turning off the 2nd monitor. I also started running an xterm in full screen mode but then flipping among multiple xterms on the same desktop doesn't work as the fullscreen xterm is always on top :( Ideally I'd work on a virtual console using GNU screen and not even run X at all. However my main work machine has an Nvidia card and uses the binary drivers from Nvidia[4] - this totally cripples the text console frame buffer performance and full page scrolling is bad enough to give anyone an epileptic fit. In the end I found and applied the noborder patch to dwm. When only one window is visible it is drawn without a border. I can now hide the status bar, use monocle mode and multiple xterms without distractions - exactly what I was after, just a sea of code :) Here is a screenshot of a typical coding session: nondistracting-desktop.gif That is what I look at all day - coding for work or fun. The yellow/gold/amber text colour is my default in Vim and XTerms as I find it easier on the eyes than white or grey. The exact colour is Gold2 or #EFC700 which reminds me of the old mono gold/amber phosphor terminals. Now for some WolfMUD coding with an update tomorrow, or Friday or whenever :P -- Diddymus [1] Eric Raymond, How to demolish your software project with style: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=5167 [2] Love the domain name still: https://dwm.suckless.org [3] My fuzzy clock that displays the time as 'Noon', 'Nearly half past seven' or even 'teatime' - 4pm in civilised places ;) [4] With my employer's blessing I number crunch for the World Community Grid[5] when my machine would otherwise be idle. The last time I checked you have to use the Nvidia binary driver and not the nouveau driver to do number crunching using the GPU :( [5] World Community Grid: https://worldcommunitygrid.org Up to Main Index Up to Journal for March, 2014