About
Kia ora, I’m a software engineer based in Aotearoa New Zealand. I have extensive experience building full stack applications and APIs using Python, TypeScript and AWS.
What hardware do you use?
I’m currently using a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12. Lenovo hardware has had its ups and downs, but I’ve found their laptops to have the most consistently good enough Linux support for years now.
Over two decades of computer use, I’ve run into a few problems with RSI. To help with that I recently switched from a generic mouse and keyboard to a Logitech Ergo M575 and a Keychron V8 Alice. The Alice layout is a bit controversial, but I like it.
For a long time I’ve run two external monitors, but recently I had the chance to try a curved widescreen monitor. Despite initial skepticism, my experience was really positive and I now think it’s a much better solution than multiple screens. The specific one I’m using is an LG 34WR50QK 34" Curved Ultrawide Monitor.
To avoid office noise, I prefer over-the-ear, closed-back headphones. I’ve been using a pair of Sennheiser 450BT for the last few years, which are pretty good at blocking out external noise. When it’s quiet, I prefer Grados for their spaciousness and clarity.
And what software?
My OS of choice is Ubuntu. It mostly just works. Day-to-day, I live in tmux and use Emacs as my main editor.
I’ve experimented with the Zed editor a bit, as it’s been hard to get Emacs to play well with multiple different versions of TypeScript, and configuring LSPs and tree-sitter is still pretty unwieldy. I don’t love Zed’s focus on “AI” but it’s language support is pretty good straight out of the box.
Most recently I’ve started working on a bit of Java for my dayjob. VS Code has been the easiest to configure IDE for that, and normally doesn’t run like molasses (I’m looking at you, JetBrains).
My position on generative “AI”
In short, I’m a skeptic: the touted benefits of spicy autocomplete are overstated, and the societal drawbacks are virtually unreported. No work by me on this website was created with the use of “AI” unless explicity stated otherwise.