# Stabilizing

Over time my computing setup has changed in many ways. Operating
systems, input devices, applications and programming languages. The
past 12 months or so it has begun to stabilize.

Some of the changes have been purely pragmatic, like when I switched
to using the Dvorak key map or stopped using a mouse. Both of these
changes were because of a physical need to change due to the onset of
RSI. A little research and experimentation lead me to choose a more
optimal key map for the English language and to banish the rodent,
which was the primary source of my issues.

Other changes have been due to changes in philosophy and better
understanding what I actually need. Such as using less resource
hungry software and so requiring lower power hardware to achieve the
same outcome.

I have also run into the restrictive nature of libraries and
frameworks where you are forced to work in the way established by the
author of it and no matter how little of it you need, the rest comes
along with it. I tinkered also with OO programming for a while but,
once the novelty wore off, it seemed like it actually made more work
to adhere to the method than what you gained from it. So that too was
abandoned.

It's easy to get carried along with a fad when others are excited
about it. Quite often these people don't even understand why they are
excited about something. They are just carried along by the
excitement of others and not wanting to feel they are missing out on
being part of something new or something great. Unfortunately the
world is full with the voices of salesmen and excitable people rather
than those of seasoned professionals.


## Seeking wisdom

Some time ago I read The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric S. Raymond.
Currently I am reading The Art of Unix Programming by the same
author. In that book he points to the classic text The Unix
Programming Environment written by Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike. I am
quite familiar with Brian Kernighan's work having on a number of
occasions attempted to work through The C programming language and
also having recently purchased a copy of The Awk programming
language. I think sometimes if you want to understand something you
have to go back to the origin and seek out contemporary sources.


## Battlestation

Flat surfaces invite objects. My desk was always a mess with
transient things, usually things which required dealing with at some
point. In an attempt to prevent accumulation of deferred decisions, I
no longer have a computer desk. 

Using a trackpoint keyboard frees you from constantly moving one hand
to and from a mouse and needing a desk to operate it. Dragging a
wired or wireless piece of plastic around a desk for the sake of
moving a virtual pointer on a screen seems somewhat retarded when you
give it some thought.

The relatively recent accumulation of radio equipment has required a
bit of a reshuffle to accommodate it, resulting in those being
stacked on top of each other and a morse paddle cable-tied to the arm
of my chair. The HP T620 thin client, which is passively cooled and
has no moving parts, stands vertically to the right of the radio's.

This is not a curated minimalist workstation. It's an unusual
arrangement[1], but it works for me at the present time.

[1](gopher://gopher.icu/I/images/battlestation.jpg)