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Comment by lucasoshiro | Hacker News Reader

> that if you ever change your OS installation

apt-get/pacman/dnf/brew install <everything that you need>

You'll need install those and other tools (your favorite browser, you favorite text editor, etc) anyway if you're changing your OS.

> or SSH anywhere

When you connect through SSH you don't have GUI and that's not a reason for avoiding using GUI tools, for example.

> even use a mix of these on my personal computer and the traditional ones elsewhere

I can't see the problem, really. I use some of those tools and they are convenient, but it doesn't matter that I can't work without that. For example, bat: it doesn't replace cat, it only outputs data with syntax highlight, makes my life easier but if I don't have it, ok.

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> apt-get/pacman/dnf/brew install <everything that you need>

If only it were so simple. Not every tool comes from a package with the same name, (delta is git-delta, "z" is zoxide, which I'm not sure I'd remember off the top of my head when installing on a new system). On top of that, you might not like the defaults of every tool, so you'll have config files that you need to copy over or recreate (and hopefully sync between the computers where you use these tools).

That said I do think nix provides some good solutions for this. It gives you a nice clean way to list the packages you want in a nixfile and also to set their defaults and/or provide some configuration files. It does still require some maintenance (and I choose to install the config files as editable, which is not very nix-y, but I'd rather edit it and then commit the changes to my configs repo for future deploys than to have to edit and redeploy for every minor or exploratory change), but I've found it's much better than trying maintain some sort of `apt-get install [packages]` script.

it take less than a sec or less than 10s with a google search to adapt...

After installing it, git clone <dotfiles repo> and then stow .

Chezmoi makes this really easy: https://www.chezmoi.io/

I only skimmed through the website, but it looks like it only does dotfiles. So I'd need to maintain a separate script to keep my packages in sync. And a script with install commands wouldn't be enough - maybe I decided to stop using abcxyz, I'd like for the script to remove it. Versioning between the package and the dotfile can also sometimes be an issue.

Yes, chezmoi is for user configuration. System configuration is a drastically different domain. Personally, I manage that with Ansible.

> You'll need install those and other tools (your favorite browser, you favorite text editor, etc) anyway if you're changing your OS.

The point is that sometimes you're SSHing to a lightweight headless server or something and you can't (or can't easily) install software.

Because 'sometimes' doesn't mean you should needlessly handcuf yourself the other 80% of the time.

I personally haves an ansible playbook to ~setup all my commonly used tooling on ~any cli I will use significantly; (almost) all local installs to avoid need for root. It runs in ~minute - and I have all the Niceties. If it's not worth spending that minute to run; then i won't be on the machine long enough for it to matter.

> I personally haves an ansible playbook to ~setup all my commonly used tooling on ~any cli I will use significantly;

^^ Yep. Totally this. I've become entirely too accustomed to all the little niceties of a well-crafted toolchain that covers all my needs at any given moment. It was worth the time invested to automate installing and configuring all the fancy newfangled stuff I've built up muscle-memory for. :)

That's a niche case. And if you need to frequently SSH into a lightweight server you'll probably will be ok with the default commands even though you have the others installed in the local setup.

It does seem like a lot of these tools basically have the same “muscle memory” options anyway.

Stronhly agreed. I don't understand why I'd want to make >99% of my time doing things less convenient in offer to try to make my usage in the <1% of the time I'm on a machine where I can't install things even in a local directory for the user I'm ssh'd into feel less bad by comparison. It's not even a tradeoff where I'm choosing which part of the curve to optimize for; it's literally flattening the high part to make the lower overall convenience level constant.

> When you connect through SSH you don't have GUI and that's not a reason for avoiding using GUI tools, for example.

One major difference can emerge from the fact that using a tool regularly inevitably builds muscle memory.

You’re accustomed to a replacement command-line tool? Then your muscle memory will punish you hard when you’re logged into an SSH session on another machine because you’re going to try running your replacement tool eventually.

You’re used to a GUI tool? Will likely bite you much less in that scenario.

> You’re accustomed to a replacement command-line tool?

Yes.

> Then your muscle memory will punish you hard

No.

I'm also used to pt-br keyboards, it's easier to type in my native language, but it's ok if I need to use US keyboards. In terms of muscle memory, keyboards are far harder to adapt.

A non-tech example: if I go to a Japanese restaurant, I'll use chopsticks and I'm ok with them. At home, I use forks and knives because they make my life easier. I won't force myself to use chopsticks everyday only for being prepared for Japanese restaurants.

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