What tools do I use daily

List of tools

if you not interested in content just curious about list of tools, I wan't waste your time. I ordered these tools based on how much impact it has on my quality of life.

• dasbob - [link]
• Vimium - [link]
• NeoVim - [link]
• fzf - [link]
• kitty - [link]
• steam deck(steamos, arch linux underhood) - [link]

if you still interested Ill continue sharing my story why i'm using these tools.

What was before

First steps

I started my journey in web development back in 2009 or 2010. I was keen about wyswig editors. Also it was the result that first IDE that i used was Delpi 7, I still think that it was a great tool for a schoolboy. So this landed me to DreamViewer which was really highquality editor both with wyswig and editer mode. Longer I worked with it, more I was finding myself writing in text editor. So this was an experience that showed me in practice that writing code is faster than looking for some visual blocks that can be combined to build this interface.

When software engineering became my work

After it i started trying different editors, but mostly I was learning C++, so my edior was codeblocks or visual studio, where I find out that editors can be better then just notepad. And intelissense is really helpful. But that was what i used in my classes, in free time i was curious about web development and found SublimeText as my favourite, editor. Also at that time I started using Ubuntu and find out that terminal is actually way of communicating with PC, but I wasnt using it much. mostly to run one or two commands and close it to continue working in some GUI. I really liked my setup, I've been doing distrohopping, using different editors. All this landed me to VScode. I really liked how customizable it is and how many plugins exists for it. I even created few plugins for it and I can say dev experience with creating plugins for vscode is really good or at least at was. As from boilerplate you are getting setup with e2e tests, typescript. But was one thing that bothered me while I've been using VSCode. Panes that had errors, terminal, file explorer, wasnt accessible without mouse, or some parts of them wasnt. And switching between them was treated not as switching between panes, but rather opening separate app in specified upfront pane. So each pane needed to be opened by separate shortcut. It was bothering me, but i tolarated it.

Bigger problem

So during the covid I started to feel pain in my shoulder and wrist. As my setup required usage of mouse I was continuosly switching between mouse and keyboard and my posture wasnt good while typing. Biggest issue for me was mouse. I wanted to get rid of it ASAP. Also I wanted to have split keyboard by obvious reason our shoulders are wider than typical keyboard width.Still, based on biacromial measurements taken in years passed and trends observed by researchers, it's probably safe to say that in the United States average shoulder width is at least 16 inches (41 cm) for men and 14 inches (36 cm) for women.

What can we say after this data is that to feel comfortable with average man should use 100% keyboar and by default keeping left hand on ASDFkeys and right hand on numbers. Which isnt base hand placement, typing guides suggests to keep your right hand on JKL;.
So I checked a lot of options, I was thinking about kinesis, but it seemd to bulky for me and it also looked quite outdated to me (sorry to kinessis fans)and instead of it i've ordered ergodox ez.Which was amazing, it had cool online editor to remap keys, ability to emulate mouse from keyboard, also it had glowing keys.
So it looked cool and same time easy to start. I used it for couple of years and dont regret how much i spent for it.
But still I've been using vscode that required mouse.
So I decided to switch to VIM honestly swith to VIM wasnt a big issue for me after I get used to the keyboard. I want to say that decision to switch to VIM was inspired a lot by some colleague that I worked with many years ago, he was using it daily while I was using VSCode. At that time I couldnt understand why he was so excited about terminal applications like fzf. Which he enforced me to start using, thank you my friend :) I belive that actually influenced me a lot, not imidiatly but through the time. That switch slow down me but hasnt give me much negative impact while I was learning.
Firstly because I was working with the same tech stack for many years, also when i was doing this switch I was working with known codebase. Where I really needed only ability to switch between files fast. Also before it i setup precommit hooks and nice CI. I wasnt afraid to actually break something. So to make daily work I didnt need much help from editor, and i was tweaking my VIM just step by step.
The only big issue that i had was browsing internet, but as VIM motion was something that i already get used to I just installed Vimium chrome extension that alowed me to navigate internet without mouse with easy and blazingly fast.
I started using tmux mostly for tabs and being able to acces them from keyboard.
So this was the setup that I liked and gradually improving.

Evolution

After some time VIM was changed to NeoVim, as it has more active community. When Im talking about active community Im mostly thinking about TJ DeVries and ThePrimeagen.
Videos of this youtubers helped a lot both by coping theier setup and also by showing different perspective and vision of how software editor should work.

I switched from tmux to kitty(orange to apples one might say). Kitty has everything that i need(shortcuts to control everything).post of kitty author

One tool that Im using for longest time isfzfThis tool is ireplacable for me. It makes usage of terminal so smooth and nice for me.

Most usefull for me is history search, as it allows me to find something that i already used.

And also i bought steam deck, for several reasons

• It is portable gaming device
• And i can use it as desktop
• It is PC that comes with Linux, so guys from Valve make sure wifi, bluetooth and rest works without hustle.

Mostly I use it attached to monitor, keyboard and webcam. So for me it is 100% functional pc and when i unplug it I can play on go or while im waiting for something.
And last but something that I love the most is my keyboard.I switched from ergodox to dasbob. Mostly because it is smaller. I 3d printed custom case for it, but maybe I'll swich to a new keyboard soon. Something handwired and ultra ergonomic.

Summary

All these steps helped me not only removed pain in my shoulder and wrists, but also it keeps me pasionate about my work even when i have bad days i just want to work to be able to use my keyboard or tweak a bit vim or bash/zsh/fish to improve some tasks. Also it gave me a kick to learn some things that I wasnt thinking before. Im learning about IoT device to be able create keyboard of my dream, I learned 3d modeling to be able create case for my keyboard. Im trying constatnly improve my setup and also myself.