zet

Fastest Time to Productivity

I spend a lot of time focusing on developer and operator productivity. I want to be up and running with all the power I need as fast as possible, and with as few dependencies on external things also as humanly possible. I suppose it’s the hacker in me that drives these decisions. It’s definitely not the way a software engineer tends to thing, or an academician with their emacs, or a machine learning person, but they can all stand to benefit from the result.

There are three up-and-running scenarios:

  1. Monolith of tools (like a rats nest)
  2. Terminal-centric development
  3. Cloud native infrastructure engineering
  4. Max hacking

The first one can be entirely done with a z-like Bonzai monolith. Not even a terminal is needed since a simple REPL can be built into it.

  1. Install z binary

The second needs some extra binaries installed, but would work on any system with a VT100-compatible terminal on which these apps can be installed. The best example of this is on a Mac or Windows machine:

  1. Install a terminal (MS Terminal, iTerm2, Alacritty, etc.)
  2. Install bash
  3. Install vim
  4. Install tmux
  5. Install lynx
  6. Install git/gh
  7. Install z
  8. Run z setup [all|bash|vim|tmux|lynx|git] to configure above

The third caters to those who are required to use a Mac or Windows machine due to company or other policy. This requires a virtual machine engine:

  1. Install VirtualBox or VMware
  2. Install (Headless) Ubuntu Server Linux
  3. Install vim
  4. Install tmux
  5. Install lynx
  6. Install git/gh
  7. Install z
  8. Run z setup [all|bash|vim|tmux|lynx|git] to configure above

No WSL2. It’s buggy and broken. I found out the hard way.

The fourth is when you have full control over everything that you use, for example, as a professional or private hacker:

  1. Install your favorite Linux Desktop Distro (Kali, Arch, Debian, etc.)
  2. Install vim
  3. Install tmux
  4. Install lynx
  5. Install git/gh
  6. Install z
  7. Run z setup [all|bash|vim|tmux|lynx|git] to configure above

The pattern is really the same on the last ones. The main thing is bundling all personal application setup and configuration files into the z binary for setting up immediately on any system.

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