Uses

Table of Contents

• Hardware
  • Laptop
  • Display
• Command Line
  • Shell
  • Shell Prompt
  • Package Manager
• Applications
  • Command Prompt
  • Browser
  • Text Editor
  • Terminal
• Services
  • Code Hosting
  • Deployment
• Miscellaneous
  • Fonts

Hardware

Laptop

I use the 2020 M1 MacBook Air. It's light and portable, but at the same time it can handle pretty much anything I throw at it.

Display

To ensure compatibility with my MacBook, I have chosen the LG UltraFine 5K Display.

Command Line

Shell

My default shell is the Fish Shell. The syntax highlighting is nice, and the inbuilt autocompletion is a killer feature. Fish also comes with a few other small improvements, such as mapping .. to cd ...

I also have my eye on Nushell, a really promising project. It reimagines some parts of the traditional shell, such as ls output, which is structured in Nu, making it easy to sort and filter. However, it's less known, so the tab completion is a bit lacking.

Shell Prompt

As a shell prompt, I use Starship. It's cool because it shows information relevant to the current directory, such as:

• Name of current directory
• Git branch (& status)
• Node.js version
• Time the last command took to execute

Starship is also a cross-shell prompt, so it integrates smoothly with both Fish and Nu.

Package Manager

When it comes to installing stuff. I use Homebrew, the go-to package manager for MacOS. It's great because it simply just works.

Applications

Command Prompt

Instead of MacOS Spotlight, I use Raycast, an application that significantly improves upon the concept of a command prompt, with loads of built-in features and installable extensions to add even more.

Browser

My main browser is the MacOS default browser, Safari. Despite its bad reputation, it's good-looking and it works well with Keychain, Apple's built-in password manager, so there is no need to use a 3rd party password manager.

During development, I also test on Firefox and Chrome.

Text Editor

My daily driver is Visual Studio Code. Not only do I use VS Code for code, but I also write pretty much everything else in there. In comparison to word processors such as Microsoft Word, VS Code doesn't allow you to format text as such, which leaves me with one less opportunity to procrastinate.

VS Code also has an amazing ecosystem of extensions. Those I use are listed in my Mac Setup process.

Terminal

I use the default MacOS Terminal. Many people use iTerm, but I prefer the default terminal. MacOS ships with it, and it serves its purpose. End of story.

In terms of Terminal configuration, I set the font to be Fira Code (12pt) to make Starship render properly.

Services

Code Hosting

I host all of my code on GitHub. All of my code repositories are public and open source. I also use private GitHub repositories as a backup for personal projects, such as essays, etc.

Deployment

All of my web-based projects are deployed on Vercel. Being the creators and maintainers of Next.js, their platform is specifically designed to host Next.js applications, but they also support vanilla web hosting, other frameworks, and even other languages. They also offer a generous free tier, which is an added bonus.

Miscellaneous

Fonts

Inter is my go-to sans-serif font. I came across Inter because Vercel uses it for their interfaces, and I really enjoy the clean look and feel of their design system.

For code (monospace), I use Fira Code because of the awesome ligatures it ships with. I have it enabled both in VS Code and in the default MacOS terminal.