As software engineers should we get really comfortable with a single development environment? And if so why?
Well yes of course I think we should all be really comfortable with our development environments or I wouldn’t be writing this blog post.
What I aim to do is give you some clear reasons as to why.
Here is a quick list if you want the tldr
Working in the same environment everyday will give you familiarity. With this new found familiarity will come Speed.
You’ll be learning muscle memory for all the different key maps to quickly change applications maybe even to quickly change desktop screen. The key maps in your editor of choice would start to become natural. Maybe you’ll even leave the mouse behind and enjoy just using keyboard on its own.
You would become familiar with common CLI tools that will save you time. For example ‘grep’ or ‘ripgrep’ to search through files quickly. There are plenty of CLI tools that will make your day to day life easier. I might write blog post about the ones I use regularly.
With just these couple of points you’d be getting some new found confidence in your development environment. You’ll be whizzing around solving all sorts of problems. While screen sharing with a colleague looking like a wizard.
There are more reasons for getting good and familiar with your development environment but I thought these are some of the best.
I am thinking about writing a post about my development environment to give you some ideas of what mine looks like and the tools that I use all the time.