Developer productivity Coding on autopilot

Introduction

Welcome! Let’s dive into some cool tools that will take your developer experience to the next level. It all starts with…

Touch Typing

Touch typing is essential. It helps you write and remember commands quickly. Start with Monkey Type, disable everything except characters, and set the time to 30 seconds. Use your score as a benchmark.

Next, try Typing to get the basics down. Practice 30 minutes a day to reach around 20 words per minute. Finally, use Typing Club to further improve your speed. An honorable mention is keybr to identify and improve on keys you frequently miss.

Window Management

Efficient window management is crucial. I usually have Neovim in the middle and a browser or preview app with a book I’m reading.

Press Ctrl + ↑ to open your desktops.
Press Ctrl + ↓ to close your desktop.
Press Ctrl + ← to navigate to the left desktop.
Press Ctrl + → to navigate to the right one.

Command Line Interface

iterm2

For running commands, I use iterm2 for its enhanced features over the default Mac terminal.

Install brew:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

To install bash:

brew install bash

Current running shells:

cat /etc/shells

Change shell from zsh to bash and vice versa:

chsh -s /bin/bash
chsh -s /bin/zsh

starship

Starship customizes your prompt and works with many shells like zsh and bash.

Install starship:

brew install starship

It comes with a default configuration, but you can customize it as you like by reading the docs.

Basic Commands

Here are some basic commands to navigate and modify your file systems:

ls    # list files in a directory
cd    # change directory
mkdir # create a directory
touch # create a file
cp    # copy a file 
mv    # move a file 
rm    # remove a file or directory (be cautious)
cat   # display the content of a file

To learn more about these commands, use their man page. For example, for the ls command:

man ls

Bash Scripting

Bash scripting is useful for repetitive tasks. For example, create a script to automate starting a project. Copy this in a file called project in any directory of your choice.[username] is a placeholder. Replace with the appropriate one from your computer username.

#!/bin/bash
cd /Users/[username]/Documents/Learning
mkdir $0
cd $0

In the terminal run

./project productivity

This will navigate to your Learning directory, create a folder named “productivity,” and change into that directory.

Git & GitHub

Feature branch workflow is a great way to collaborate with Git:

git clone [repository] # Clones the specified repository to your local machine
git checkout [branch-name] # Clones the specified repository to your local machine
git pull # Updates your local repository with the latest changes from the remote repository
git checkout -b [brach-name] # Creates and switches to a new branch named feature-branch
git add -A # Stages all changes (new files, modified files, and deletions) for the next commit
git commit -m "[description]" # Commits the staged changes with a descriptive message
git push -u origin [branch-name] # Pushes the new branch to the remote repository

For more in-depth understand of these commands you can checkout their man pages:

man git

Vim motions

I recommend learning Vim motions. They significantly improve your text editing speed and efficiency. You don’t have to memorize everything right away; practice makes perfect. This is where you can truly leverage your touch typing skills, allowing for a smoother and more productive workflow. You can start learning directly from your command line interface by running:

vimtutor

NVChad

After learning Vim motions, you can use Vim motions in your editor of choice, like VSCode or PyCharm. However, there’s also Neovim, which offers more flexibility in customizing your personal development environment (PDE). To bridge the barrier to entry, I recommend using NVChad. It is an already configured PDE that you can try until you’re comfortable configuring your own.

One of the requirement installing noevim

brew install neovim

Clones NvChad in ~/.config/nvim

git clone https://github.com/NvChad/starter ~/.config/nvim && nvim

Run :MasonInstallAll command after lazy.nvim finishes downloading plugins. Delete the .git folder from nvim folder.

rm ~/.config/nvim/.git from your root directory

Neovim

To configure your own configuration. These resources were the most helpful.

typecraft playlist on how to configure neovim
Josean Martinez neovim setup.

Browser

I use Arc. I has keymaps keymaps I use the most.

cmd + r to reload a site.
cmd + option+ j to open the developer tool.

Bonus: Programming a blog you are reading this from.

Checkout my youtube video one how I use my set up to make the blog containg to post.