The Setup: Joe Armstrong | Hacker News Reader

The Setup: Joe Armstrong

joe.armstrong.usesthis.com

87 pointslispython20 comments

From OA under Dream Setup

"If the machine broke I would like to go to any other machine and resume work within a few seconds without losing any data."

cf Rob Pike

"I don't install a lot of extra stuff on those Macs, mostly to reduce maintenance. I like the freedom to wipe and reinstall without losing my world... "

These older developers know how to get things done and not waste time. As an end user, I've arrived at a similar place albeit using kludgy dropbox and rsync scripts.

Find anybody who has used Windows on a regular basis and you'll find they do the same thing. I expect to have to reformat Windows multiple times a year. I've carried this mentality everywhere. I've used Arch Linux and configured every little bit of my OS and found that having a portable config and being used to system defaults is much more valuable than finding an obscure way to make yourself more productive. I can basically pick up any unix-like OS, clone my dotfiles, and I'm good to go.

Why do you have to reformat Windows multiple times a year? I could understand this if you are using versions other than XP and 7 (too soon to tell with 8) but if you're doing it several times a year on those versions then you have some other problem.

It usually isn't so much a "I need to reformat because of this issue"; it's usually "Windows has accrued enough cruft that I could benefit from starting anew". I suppose you could call it OCD; I'd call it a sanity check. I find developers and gamers who install lots of beta software or are "frequently" installing and uninstalling software suffer from the poor system of installation of applications on Windows. Windows installation wizards pretty much throw files wherever they please and uninstallation wizards almost never actually remove everything. There are plenty of applications like Revo Uninstaller which are meant to help clean up after uninstalling an application, but there is no silver bullet. Say you do encounter an issue, having a clean filesystem/registry means you're more likely to be able to reason about your system. For everyone else, this problem has pretty much been solved by package managers in free software and a combination of the AppStore, homebrew/macports, and ".app"s in OSX.

It depends really what you do and how much time you spend in Windows because that's what determines how quickly the cruft accrues. If you've ever uninstalled software, I can almost guarantee that your already poorly organized Start Menu has a few folders and shortcuts that are empty/broken.

"Evernote for a web clipbook, and chandler to organise jobs."

What is chandler? Is it this one: http://chandlerproject.org ?

Seems interesting but also pretty abandoned.

We tried using it in the previous startup I worked with.

It was pretty hard to make everyone use it and soon we ended up installing redmine for issue tracking.

Yes, that's the one. It's the project the book Dreaming in Code by Scott Rosenberg (2008) is based on. It's a shame the project folded right around the time of its 1.0 release -- it looks really promising, but definitely not there yet. So I was surprised to see Joe Armstrong uses it.

I remember being obsessed with it for an afternoon. The design of it looks awesome, but I think it's a victim of being built on a particularly annoying stack.

Redone as a webapp w/an easily setup server, even with no other UX changes, and I'd absolutely use it. I'm going to put researching that on my substandard todo list:)

It looks like the project has some kind of web thingie: http://chandlerproject.org/Projects/CosmoHome

Yeah, that's it. Joe talked about it during a lecture last week. He says he's working to rebuild it.

Excellent news. I followed this project briefly some years ago but reverted to Outlook and Evolution.

> Emacs bash and make for all programming

It seems if you pick your tools well you can accomplish a lot with a little

Living mostly on a Chromebook and programming through action.io, I'm probably closer to where Joe wants to be then he thinks is possible.

> What would be your dream setup?

> Software that’s not broken.

As someone who has just reported yet another bug [1], I couldn't agree more.

[1] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=929329

"I would like to access all my data, securely forever ..." ----

serious issue. people are beginning to understand the very real chance that their grandchildren will never see a photo of their parents exists.

Which implementation of Prolog does Joe use I wonder?

I'd guess SICStus: http://sicstus.sics.se/

I went ahead and asked him and here is what he said:

@clarkgrubb I use the #erlang Prolog system github.com/rvirding/erlog from @rvirding and swipl.

Joe Armstrong is great, but come on: of course he took drugs!

I mean, how else could he write such an innovative language while pedaling his bike to the moon -- much less blow his trumpet at the same time?

> I mean, how else could he write such an innovative language

He used Prolog and was inspired by it... Prolog is far out.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com