Aside from the fact that this guy has produced some decent software, I can't believe that hardware/software configurations of random people is interesting discussion matter.
People think that if they emulate successful people they will be more successful themselves. So it's about a form of fashion.
'X uses brand Y hardware, that must be a factor in his success, so if I buy brand Y as well I'll stand a better chance at success'
Never mind that 'X' would probably make a go of it given nothing but a teletype and the people that emulate 'X' couldn't make good use of a cluster with 50 nodes and a wall sized display.
It's not the hardware that matters, it's the guys & girls using it that make the difference.
>People think that if they emulate successful people they will be more successful themselves. So it's about a form of fashion.
That's true and there's really nothing wrong with that. Being a hobby guitarist I feel this is very similar to many guitarists and other musicians. A guitarist doesn't want a guitar that's just nice sounding and good quality, it has to look good. If you feel your instrument has a certain "mojo" it can help you get in an inspired mood more easily. If you have instrument you don't like you can't perform at your best. A jazz guitarist might not be happy about playing a guitar that looks like it's made for heavy metal no matter what it sounds like.
Sometimes when you're passionate about something, tools are not just tools. No one needs Armani suit to protect themselves from cold, no one needs a ferrari to get from one place to another and no one needs a Gibson Les Paul to play guitar.
If someone can be more productive because working on a Macbook Pro makes them feel more like a Rock Star Developer than working on a PC with Windows XP, I don't see anything wrong with that.
I like learning about tools other people use because sometimes someone'll say, "I really love this tool", and I'll give it a try and, hey, what do you know? I love the tool too.
There are some good articles on there - Andrew "bunnie" Huang[1] shows us how he can be handed a next-day plane ticket and not miss any work time, Jason Rohrer develops games on a seven-year-old laptop[2], Mark Pilgrim explains haw his writing setup isn't actually that important[3].
However, about half of the interviews on there are some variation on "Apple laptop, Apple monitor, standard Apple suite of applications + some others", which does wear thin after a while.
You misunderstand - I don't mind what combination of tools people use to get work done, as long as they're happy with it. But on a site that tries to describe interesting setups, it eventually stops being so interesting.
Aha. Perhaps someone should make a site documenting exotic setups of famous tech people. I know of one Emacs user who has a foot peddle for the control key or something.
I'm a little bit curious about the setup that really productive developers (Linus Torvalds, for instance) use - if someone goes to find out, fine by me. I don't think Jason Fried is really a developer though - or is he?
Jason says in the article that he doesn't program.
Also, Linus doesn't really code anymore; he just types `git merge` until his fingers fall off. (or at least that's my understanding, I'm nowhere near being on the kernel team)
> Also, Linus doesn't really code anymore; he just types `git merge` until his fingers fall off. (or at least that's my understanding, I'm nowhere near being on the kernel team)
'X uses brand Y hardware, that must be a factor in his success, so if I buy brand Y as well I'll stand a better chance at success'
Never mind that 'X' would probably make a go of it given nothing but a teletype and the people that emulate 'X' couldn't make good use of a cluster with 50 nodes and a wall sized display.
It's not the hardware that matters, it's the guys & girls using it that make the difference.