[D13Fd]

Honestly that is kind of weird.

I just re-imaged my Macbook Pro laptop this week, to completely remove some super invasive exam-taking software that I had to install for a licensing exam.

The whole thing was very painless. I keep all of my data in one folder. I copied that folder, and copied some preferences for apps that don't sync to a folder (e.g., VS Code) to an external SSD.

I booted into recovery mode, wiped the disk, and re-installed Mac OS. Then I copied my folder back and re-did my settings.

The whole thing took a couple of hours, although a lot of that was babysitting the installs etc. while doing other things. I definitely wouldn't put it into the "extremely expensive" bucket in terms of time spent.

[mulmen]

The expense comes in having to re-learn basic actions or go find a setting. My job takes longer to perform now because I have to stop and re-learn simple things that used to be instinctive, such as dismissing notifications and looking at icons or changing the direction my mouse scrolls.

[gonehome]

This is very 'unhacker' advice, but I generally learn to love defaults.

I also think a lot about sane defaults when working on/deploying software to customers myself. I choose what systems to use in part based on how good the defaults are.

The closer you are to accepting defaults the easier your life is. Obviously there are exceptions, but things like mouse scroll direction? Just learn to love the new one.

[Pokepokalypse]

>This is very 'unhacker' advice, but I generally learn to love defaults

There's a lot of wisdom in this advice: the more time you spend messing with settings to customize the UX; the less repeatable this configuration is, and the harder it is to get a new system back up and running.

Also: what's "hacker" is working on many many different systems, and being able to at least minimally adapt to each different system's set of defaults, so you can remain productive. (and for me, this means absolutely forgetting all about one platform's take on hot-keys, shortcuts, and setting up aliases).

Mouse-scroll direction? I can't abide the "reverse" (scroll down to go up), and that's one thing I'm not ever going to let slide on a new system.

[gonehome]

Yeah - I think we have the same perspective.

On mouse-scroll direction, the 'reverse' is actually the way the content moves (if you imagine your hand on the screen). I came around to thinking this makes more sense than the direction the scroll bar moves, but it was weird at first.

[glhaynes]

Some other advantages:

- Things might be less likely to break. Certainly the default settings are the most likely to have a test case associated with them. How likely is it that there's a test case around the unique combination of the 35 parameters you've configured that are relevant to the particular operation you're attempting?

- It may be better. A number of times I've heard of some odd default and thought "that's obviously wrong" but given it a chance and learned to like it. Definitely change things that really are important to you, but vendors often put a lot of effort into making good defaults.

- If you're a developer, a less configured system is more likely to be similar to what an average user uses, giving you a more similar experience to them.

[mulmen]

I guess I didn't explain myself well. "Starting fresh" can mean two things.

1) Adapting to a new system that has changes outside your control. This is the case of a major version update in MacOS.

2) Reverting to default settings and re-configuring the environment.

In the case of 1 I am disrupted because I have to learn new ways to do what I could already do before.

In the case of 2 I am disrupted because I have to repeat configuration I already performed.

The context of this thread is choosing 2 on a regular basis just for the sake of doing it. By choosing to always accept defaults you are effectively maintaining a stable system, which is the opposite of what the second situation advocates.

[gonehome]

1 is just the cost of living in a world that isn't static.

2 is what I'm suggesting to mostly avoid if you can.

[mulmen]

I’m sorry, I guess I am just missing the point you are trying to make.

[Jiocus]

"The wise warrior avoids the battle." - Sun Tzu

Sounds hacker to me.