230: Bang Terp

Brett

[00:00:00] Christina: [00:00:00] You’re listening to overtired. I’m Christina Warren. He’s Brett Terpstra. Hey Brett, how are you?

[00:00:05] Brett: [00:00:05] I, so I’m like in the weeds building this, you know, bunch. My, my like automation app that I’ve been kind of obsessed with. I decided it can run shell scripts. So you should be able to see the output of shell scripts. And so I built this entire system that, uh, not only does it load like your full log-in shell environment, it also converts, uh, like ANSI color codes in your output.

[00:00:34] Two attributed strings that it can display in a nice Menlo presentation. Anyway, I that’s where my brain is right now. So I’ll come around. I’m ADHD. Uh, it’s common symptom is trouble switching tasks. I’ll get there.

[00:00:54] Christina: [00:00:54] you’ll get there. Um, no, but I mean, I think, I think the, I like this, [00:01:00] that, uh, this is where your brain is. And I would honestly, this got us talking about, about shell scripts, uh, or I guess about, Shell’s not shell scripts with shells in general, because you put fish on our list and that was going to be like a later topic.

[00:01:16] But I just want to talk about it now because I really like talking about like shell

[00:01:20] Brett: [00:01:20] jump into tech, just we’ll lose. You lose that portion of our audience right off the bat that

[00:01:26] Christina: [00:01:26] Okay. You’re right. You’re okay. Okay. You’re right. We know. Okay. Well, I was going to say, should we do like the health corner first, but I felt like this was sort of associated with the health corner. Cause like, this is what your mind was on.

[00:01:39] Brett: [00:01:39] Um, You know, let’s I let’s break tradition. Um,

[00:01:44] Christina: [00:01:44] are you sure? Cause we can just go to the health Corps and then come back to fish.

[00:01:47] Brett: [00:01:47] I’m not sure I’m finding, it’s making me uncomfortable, but in my life I’ve I generally go with things that make me uncomfortable because it

[00:01:53] Christina: [00:01:53] no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. Let’s start with the health corner. Let’s talk about, let’s talk about, let’s talk about the health corner. So

[00:01:59] Brett: [00:01:59] mental [00:02:00] health, I want to, I want to read this line from discord, uh, in regards to last week show.

[00:02:07] Uh, SMA said, um, today’s episode is great. Putting scheduling slash sponsors ahead of sleep is entirely on brand.

[00:02:19] Christina: [00:02:19] Estimate nailed it. Totally. 100% on brand.

[00:02:25] Brett: [00:02:25] you know what I realized this morning? So I didn’t realize I have Tourette, but I realized that so my Tourette shows up in muscle twitches. Um, like I’ll, I’ll get a feeling that I absolutely need to tighten or, or flex a muscle at and like all over my body. But. Primarily in my legs. And I realized while I’m doing tree and yoga this morning, that the, the one thing that always, uh, knocked me over in balance poses is my Tourette’s.

[00:02:58] Like, it never clicked for me [00:03:00] before, but I realized that like I had to twist to be able to flex a muscle in my calf. And that it’s that slight twisting just to Twitch a muscle that ruins my balance poses. It’s it’s a little funny. Yeah. Uh, did you ever see that, uh, uh, when Billy Eilish, she also has threats that manifest much the same way, um, that she, during interviews, she, uh, she’ll wait until the interviewer is asking a question because she assumes the camera will then be on them and she lets out she’ll like, hold in her muscle twitches and then let them out when the camera switches away.

[00:03:43] Uh, but she told that she tells a story about how one time the camera didn’t switch away. So in the middle of like a televised interview, she just went off with her face. It was, yeah. Did you watch the Billie Eilish documentary yet

[00:03:58] Christina: [00:03:58] I haven’t seen it yet. No. [00:04:00] Um,

[00:04:00] Brett: [00:04:00] I want to.

[00:04:01] Christina: [00:04:01] I do as well, because I really, really like her. And I, uh, I ha I have watched, I guess, for like the last four years or however long they’ve been doing it, where she answers the same questions with vanity fair, you know? Um, but, but each year it’s, it’s changed. They got really lucky there because obviously she like broke out big with, with ocean eyes or whatever when they first like, had her for that thing.

[00:04:24] But I mean, that was kind of one of those, you know, Maybe not one in a million, but probably one in 500,000 sort of things where the purse where somebody they already had kind of a relationship with would wind up breaking out the way that she did.

[00:04:40] Brett: [00:04:40] Yeah. Yeah. She deserves it though. I really

[00:04:43] Christina: [00:04:43] He does. I really like her too. I like her brother. I liked them a lot. And,

[00:04:48] Brett: [00:04:48] name? He has a funny name, Denise? Yeah. I mean, not like funny name, but it’s an odd name.

[00:04:56] Christina: [00:04:56] It’s it’s an well, yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s an uncommon [00:05:00] name for sure. Yeah.

[00:05:01] Brett: [00:05:01] uncommon. So we are we’re recording. His episode is actually going to go up a little late because we’re recording a day late and then hours on top of that, because both of us had psych psychiatry appointments and I, so I ended up canceling. Uh, a second podcast recording yesterday. Like the first one was a scheduling conflict.

[00:05:29] The second one, I found that after my psychiatry appointment, which went great, I was super anxious. Like something about going to see the psychiatrist gets me very, um, riled up. And then I feel like I can’t, I don’t know what it is. I think it’s a tip a general, like, I get the same with going to the doctor.

[00:05:53] It’s just like a, a white coat syndrome kind of thing.

[00:05:56] Christina: [00:05:56] Oh, I can see that. Okay.

[00:05:58] Brett: [00:05:58] But yours was just this morning and you’re [00:06:00] clearly, uh, you’re clearly holding it together better than I,

[00:06:04] Christina: [00:06:04] Well, I think the difference too, I’ve been with this shrink, uh, except for like my dark period when I ghosted him for so long that. I don’t have, I don’t know. I mean, you know, it, it, it’s close to 20 years at this point, so it’s been such a long standing relationship that I don’t have, I guess maybe some of the anxiety that you might have from a normal doctor appointment sort of thing.

[00:06:33] I don’t know.

[00:06:34] Brett: [00:06:34] What? Yeah, no, there was the psychiatrist that I saw for, like, it must’ve been. Eight to 10 years, uh, before he retired, I was comfortable with, I never got freaked out, going to see him. Uh, it was after that when like the next doctor cut my meds and, uh, left me with this like, fear of going

[00:06:56] Christina: [00:06:56] right. I was going to say now,

[00:06:58] Brett: [00:06:58] what’ll happen.

[00:06:59] Christina: [00:06:59] I was going to say, [00:07:00] now you have like a very real fear response. Right? And so you go into it kind of with this, you know, like almost PTSD sort of thing. And then you have, you know what I mean? And then it’s like, okay, we, you get out of it and you feel like the sense of relief, but you’ve had this anxiety and this.

[00:07:16] This pent up, like uncertainty going into it. Like, I can totally see that, like I’m, I’m my shrink is going to my psychiatrist. He’s going to retire at some point he’s 75. It’s going to be sooner than later, and I’m going to need to find someone and I’m not looking forward to that. I don’t even know how I’m going to handle that because, you know, uh,

[00:07:36] Brett: [00:07:36] Yeah,

[00:07:37] Christina: [00:07:37] you know, like,

[00:07:38] Brett: [00:07:38] know the feeling.

[00:07:39] Christina: [00:07:39] No.

[00:07:39] I mean, and it’s one of those things that like, okay, that actually makes me anxious. Right? Like thinking about things that like make me anxious, that makes me anxious thinking about finding a new person, because it is such a, as we’ve discussed on this show for years, like it is one of those things that will make or break.

[00:07:54] I think anybody’s mental health treatment plan is what, um, doctor you have [00:08:00] and or what counselor you’re talking to because I’ve had bad ones. And I’ve had good ones and I’ve been lucky that I’ve had two good ones and I’ve had a whole bunch of bad ones and many of them are not good. Right. It’s just one of those things where, especially with the state of, of medicine being what it is and, and how insurance things work, it’s not easy to find somebody good.

[00:08:24] And, and it’s, what’s stressful to me about this, which is going to be different whenever I have to do this again, different about when I did last time is I’ve never done this as an adult. I had the, in many ways, I’m not saying it was in any way positive, cause it certainly wasn’t. But going through a lot of this stuff as a kid, as a teenager, the one upside was that, you know, you do have a sense of like time to experiment because, okay, I missed a bunch of school and I had other things and like that’s bad, but it’s not as if [00:09:00] you can’t take those days or take that time to find it.

[00:09:03] Whereas as an adult, it’s like, I need to find someone who will get me my meds, and then maybe I can try to figure out like the, the better. Alignment of who the right person is. Um, and I guess I had to do that as a kid, too. There were people that I saw, like I called a guy in my phone, like Dr. Kevorkian. Um, although, you know, that wasn’t like an accurate thing.

[00:09:24] He was just, he was useless. Uh, he was just basically a grant, saw a guy who he called Dr. Worksheet. And that’s basically what this guy was. He would just write me my meds and. So it’s like, okay, you can find like a stop gap for that. But if you want to find a real person like that takes time and effort and energy, and that can be very much the equivalent of a full-time job in and of itself, just to try to find the right doctors.

[00:09:49] Brett: [00:09:49] Yeah. Yeah. Uh, at least you have options where I live. I have the hospital. Like the mental health division of the [00:10:00] hospital, which has not had an actual psychiatrist. Uh it’s all, all, uh, Pete PAs. Is that the word I’m looking for?

[00:10:09] Christina: [00:10:09] Yeah, physician’s assistance.

[00:10:11] Brett: [00:10:11] like they haven’t had a full-on doctor for probably five years now. They can’t hold on to anybody.

[00:10:18] Um, In fact, not, probably not since my doctor retired, who I was seeing through there, but then we have a mental health clinic that has two psychiatrists, which are, um, I w I at best, there they are. Okay. That’s where I’m going now. And my doctor is okay. Uh, I would say I never feel really terribly listened to, um, Or beyond that you have to go out of town.

[00:10:47] Like I there’s really no shopping around to do, which sucks. The nearest, the nearest, if I have to go out of town, it’s at least a half hour drive to the [00:11:00] next option. I don’t want to do that. I don’t like driving that much.

[00:11:07] Christina: [00:11:07] I fancy that, although half an hour, I don’t know. This is just me growing up places where, and living places where traffic is terrible. I’m like a half an hour is whatever. Like I did actually live very close to my psychiatrist for a number of years. Although when I started seeing him, I don’t believe I lived that close to him.

[00:11:25] And so he was literally almost across the street. And so it was when he, I could like walk to his office, but, uh, you know, many of my other doctors. Growing up anyway, it was different when I was in college. And then after, because I lived in, in the city, but it was not uncommon to have to, you know, drive into, you know, Atlanta proper to go to like the specialist that I would go to.

[00:11:49] Brett: [00:11:49] I can’t do traffic anymore. I’m so used to like in, in, in Wynnona, uh, it takes 10 minutes to get anywhere and rush hour means it takes like 12 minutes. [00:12:00] It’s, it’s ridiculously small and there’s ridiculously few cars on the road. And I that’s one of my top three things about why I want to live in a small town.

[00:12:13] Christina: [00:12:13] No, that makes sense. I mean, I definitely, I don’t like cars. I don’t like driving, but, uh, I don’t really have like a choice in terms of, you know, I need to take Uber or whatever I can walk and I guess, you know, public transit will be. Or I’ll feel more comfortable at public transit once I’ve had a vaccine, uh, which who knows when that’s going to be what’s the, what’s the rollout or what’s kind of the update process.

[00:12:35] How are things going in Minnesota with the vaccine rollout?

[00:12:37] Brett: [00:12:37] um, they’re still mostly doing old people in frontline workers, but I signed up for their, uh, the government has a vaccine tracker. They call it it’ll basically keep you informed as, as, uh, stuff becomes available and you can enter like comorbidities and stuff that you have. Uh, and as, as, as the vaccine becomes available for [00:13:00] people in your group of vulnerable vulnerability, uh, they’ll send you a text message.

[00:13:06] And so now I sit and wait, L is fully vaccinated.

[00:13:10] Christina: [00:13:10] That’s awesome. That’s that’s so good. So she, she got the Pfizer one, right?

[00:13:15] Brett: [00:13:15] I think it was Madrona.

[00:13:16] Christina: [00:13:16] Madrona. Okay. Yeah. That’s the one that my parents got. So did like her arm hurt after the second dose? Yeah. Okay.

[00:13:22] Brett: [00:13:22] days. Um, you want to, she, she got her new job. Do you wanna hear about her new job?

[00:13:28] Christina: [00:13:28] I totally want to hear about her new job.

[00:13:30] Brett: [00:13:30] know how she’s into knitting? Maybe you don’t know, but she’s

[00:13:33] Christina: [00:13:33] Well, I remember you telling me that she’s into that.

[00:13:35] Brett: [00:13:35] when she was sick and dealing with Lyme, uh, she got into knitting and it became like, I would say a passion. She, she, she’s very passionate about knitting and she makes amazing stuff like.

[00:13:47] I’ve known people who have knitted for, you know, most of their lives and are not creating stuff as cool as I think, but also I love her to death, so maybe I’m biased. But anyway, she, uh, there, there [00:14:00] a job opened up at a local, uh, yarn store called yarn analogy. And so she, she applied and, uh, went through the process.

[00:14:11] Uh, it w once they kind of got down to brass tacks, it didn’t sound like they would be able to pay her enough, but they, they texted her the next day or emailed her and said, Hey, we crunched some numbers. We can match what you’re making now. And I got to tell you she’s been there about a week and she is so happy.

[00:14:31] Like she comes home laughing every day. And at her previous job, working with, uh, loud non-verbal people and, uh, direct care stuff. She came home tired and stressed and, uh, smelling like Febreeze, which with her chemical sensitivity required like an immediate shower after getting home. Things are so different.

[00:14:53] It’s like night and day. She’s so much happier. Now,

[00:14:56] Christina: [00:14:56] Yay. I’m so happy to hear this. Yay for [00:15:00] neurology and yay for El. Like this is great.

[00:15:02] Brett: [00:15:02] speaking of new jobs, I applied for one,

[00:15:05] Christina: [00:15:05] Okay.

[00:15:06] Brett: [00:15:06] um, Oracle has started a developer relations team.

[00:15:13] Christina: [00:15:13] Uh huh.

[00:15:14] Brett: [00:15:14] they’re, uh, they’re I talked to the, the head of it and they’re basically fighting against like Oracle’s 40 years of, um, yeah. Uh, the old guard and they’re working to try to build something that can make Oracle relevant for another 40 years.

[00:15:33] And they’re looking for, uh, content writers, uh, content editors. And developer advocates and kind of the job positions they have are kind of a mix of all, all of those things. And, uh, uh, Victor from two are actually. Hooked me up with, uh, the guy at Oracle. Uh, we had a good chat and he, he spent a few days [00:16:00] reading my entire blog apparently and said that he, he thought I’d be a great addition to the team.

[00:16:05] And so I sent her an application and I, I dunno, man, I don’t know if I want a day job, but also. It sounds like a fun job doing interesting things. And I bet it would pay better than being an independent developer right now.

[00:16:23] Christina: [00:16:23] It would definitely pay better and you would get better benefits, which would be good for some of your other stuff. Uh, also as somebody who is a developer advocate, like it’s a fun job. I mean, it’s a lot of what the stuff that you’ve been doing naturally for years, honestly, like your blog is a great resume for, um, you know, um, developer relations because all the side projects and stuff you build, right?

[00:16:45] Like,

[00:16:46] Brett: [00:16:46] and I I’ve become over like 10 years of writing my blog and writing for like Mac stories and Macworld, um, and to, uh, Like I’ve, I’ve learned to very, uh, very easily [00:17:00] predict what people aren’t going to understand, what people are going to be offended by what people are going to have questions about.

[00:17:08] And I can write in such a way that I can explain things, um, uh, proactively to, to make I can break very clearly, but I can write in, uh, an informal tone. That still conveys information very clearly. And that’s not like that’s a learned skill and I’ve been in the weeds on that.

[00:17:31] Christina: [00:17:31] It’s a learned skill, but it’s also one I’m going to argue. I think that there’s part of it. That is an innate thing. Like being able to being a good explainer, like you can definitely learn it and you can become better at it, but there are. People who are more predisposed to do it than others. And, and I think the people who are more predisposed tend to be the people who find a way to do it naturally.

[00:17:49] Like, you know, even going back to your, your, your two off in download squad, blogging days, like when you and I met, like that had an element of that to it. Right. But everything you’ve done for your personal blog and for the other places [00:18:00] you’ve written definitely has like, you nail that tone. I mean, I would say the same for myself.

[00:18:05] You’re, you’re better than I am in terms of. You know, like your, your technical ability, but I feel like I’m very good at breaking down complicated things. And I know an understanding, like you said, what people are going to need context about and what people are gonna need information about. And that is a, it is a learned thing, but it is also one of those things.

[00:18:25] I think that there are people who are good at it naturally are drawn to those things like that was me doing journalism. And I think this is why it was an easy transition for me into developer relations. Because we talked about this on systematic, because a lot of it is like, just kind of knowing your audience and knowing how to explain something.

[00:18:44] Um, like in, in my interview with Microsoft, my, what I white boarded was, how did, how would you break down a complicated story? And I, I broke down because it didn’t, it just happened. I had written a very complicated story about, uh, [00:19:00] the then, um, Oh, I guess he still is. He’s in jail now. He was recently sent back or whatever, but the, uh, de facto head of Samsung was involved in this scandal with the then prime minister of South Korea.

[00:19:15] And there’s all this shiny ball stuff. And it was very complicated and it was one of those things where, um, I knew the story was interesting and I pitched it to my editors and was originally they kind of dismissed it. And then they came back a couple, like a month or so later. And they’re like, Oh no, we want this story written now.

[00:19:33] And I was like, well, mother fucker, God, you know, cause it was really complicated and it was one of those things where we had to explain. I had to explain the shy ball system. I had to explain the, uh, different, uh, w which is unique to South Korea and how their corporations work. I had to explain the infighting happening within the Lee family, in which control Samsung had to explain the different bribery and other, um, you know, like, um, uh, you know, like, [00:20:00] uh, corruption scandals happening within the government.

[00:20:03] You know, there were like all these moving parts and. Had to kind of weave it into a way that people who weren’t deeply in the weeds could do it. And some of it too was because as I’d kind of gone down the rabbit hole, that’s why I’d want to try the story to begin with. Like I had to learn about that stuff myself, which is also a thing that is frequently, at least for me.

[00:20:21] And I think for you too, like we, we have a problem we need to solve from a development standpoint. You go down the rabbit hole, you’re figuring out what you’re doing, and then you have to kind of figure out a way, okay. How do I now explain this to other people so they can see the value in what you’re doing?

[00:20:37] So,

[00:20:38] Brett: [00:20:38] do you think ADHD helps you at all? Yeah, me too. I feel like part of like, part of the reason that I write clearly and succinctly is because I’m always thinking about what I be able to read through this. And I don’t have a high capacity for long articles. Like anything that re anything that’s more than like three pages of a desktop display, [00:21:00] text I’m out.

[00:21:01] Like I’ll never make it to the end. Um,

[00:21:03] Christina: [00:21:03] no problem with long articles, but yeah, I feel like. My ADHD helps me with that. Um, maybe being succinct or being understandable. I don’t know. I think part for me, I always use not so much now because she’s not like the perfect muse for this, but for the stuff that I did at Mashable and Gizmodo and when I would go on CNN and other places and whatever, and I would need to explain like a really complicated.

[00:21:29] Technical topic too. It means you’re mining is that always like use my mom as kind of my guide. I was like, okay. How, how would you explain this to your mom? How would you, how would I explain this? Cause she’s smart, but she’s not an expert in it.

[00:21:41] Brett: [00:21:41] I use El now because she has an amazing capacity for learning things that are well outside of her wheelhouse, but they need to be like a lot of times if I’m explaining something tech, there’s this whole backstory that she

[00:21:55] Christina: [00:21:55] She needs the context.

[00:21:57] Brett: [00:21:57] And like, I that’s, one of the skills I’ve [00:22:00] developed over time is to kind of backup and say, what do you need?

[00:22:03] To understand this. What, what groundwork do you need first?

[00:22:07] Christina: [00:22:07] Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Um, and I think, um, Ella, my mom would get along really well. Like they, they have similar like hearts, like Intel, which are very good ones. And, um, like, like L my mom has a huge capacity for learning things outside of her wheelhouse, but. Which is odd. I always buy, like, it was never a derogatory thing.

[00:22:27] I think people they go, you’re using your mom as your thing. And like, no, my mom is awesome. Like, but my mom is not a technical, um, person in the traditional sense, but she’s smart and she can understand things. So I just need to use, okay. Like, how, how would I, how would I talk to her about this? And, and I think that, you know, and I have a different person kind of in mind, uh, it’s not usually a single person.

[00:22:49] It’s, it’s kind of a group of people when I’m talking or writing about developer focus stuff, especially if it’s more of like beginner content or people who aren’t familiar, as you said, with the [00:23:00] context and, um, and knowing what that line is. Is something that I think you only learn from experience, which you have from the years you’ve been doing that.

[00:23:09] And I think that’s one of those things that is really important in developer relations, because you do have people who come from all across the gamut, you have people who are really experienced in a certain area. You also have newcomers. You have people who just dabble in and out and are just trying to get the documentation and figure out how to do it.

[00:23:25] And don’t really care for the preamble. They just want to know the brass tacks, do people who are, you know, students or career switchers who are learning. If people who. Do you actually care about the depth? You know, like there are those different people and you just need to know that line about like where you go.

[00:23:40] And I feel like your blog does a really good job being conversational and authentic and, um, understandable. And, and I think the most important thing is it feels approachable. Like even if like I read your blog and I’ve been reading your blog, you know, for as long as we’ve been friends and. What I’ve always loved about your writing is that there’s some stuff that [00:24:00] even if I am like, okay, I couldn’t write and do this stuff with bunch that you’re doing.

[00:24:05] Like, I wouldn’t be able to do that code myself, but reading about what you’re doing with it. And listening to you talk about it and talking with you about it week to week, I can understand it and it feels approachable. So it’s like, okay, this isn’t something that I would do myself, but it doesn’t feel like so out of the realm of my comprehension, right.

[00:24:23] Which, which is important.

[00:24:25] Brett: [00:24:25] Are you ready for an amazing segue first? Thank you. That’s very kind of, you. But also, are you ready for an amazing segue?

[00:24:32] Christina: [00:24:32] I’m totally ready for him. And he seems segue.

[00:24:35] Brett: [00:24:35] Speaking of short things that are well explained and, and are interesting. Oh, I feel like I had it better in my head, but anyway, wouldn’t it be great if there was a pocket size guide that could help you sleep, focus or act better?

[00:24:51] There is. And if you have 10 minutes, Headspace can change your life. I’m doing okay. Right?

[00:24:58] Christina: [00:24:58] That’s fantastic.

[00:25:00] [00:25:00] Brett: [00:25:00] Headspace is your daily dose of mindfulness in the form of guided meditations in an easy to use app. Headspace is one of the only apps advancing the field of mindfulness and meditation through clinically validated research Headspace meditation start at just one minute, each speaking of short things, uh, they even have a set of walking meditation, so they’re easy to fit into the busiest schedules.

[00:25:24] Headspace is proven to help you feel better. Their approach to mindfulness can reduce stress, improve, sleep boost, focus, and increase your overall sense of wellbeing. Whatever the situation Headspace really can help you feel better. If you need some help falling asleep. Headspace has wind down sessions.

[00:25:41] Their members swear by. I do I concur with this ad read the wind down sessions are great when I’m not in a, when I’m not in a place where I can listen to an audio book. Or like, I won’t absorb it. These wind down meditations are awesome. [00:26:00] Um, and on the other side of sleep, you’ll find the, uh, the wake up, which is daily original content intended to inspire your day from the moment you wake up.

[00:26:09] And if you’re feeling overwhelmed, Headspace even has three minute SOS meditations that you can do anytime you need it. I did air quotes for SOS. Nobody could see that, but I feel like it came through

[00:26:22] Christina: [00:26:22] I think so. I think it did.

[00:26:24] Brett: [00:26:24] So I used to think that my mind was too busy to meditate. I thought that someone with ADHD and crazy manic episodes couldn’t be still enough to do it.

[00:26:33] It turned out that I was exactly the kind of person who could benefit from meditation. And Headspace really helped me find my groove. I had, I had the great courses, a mindful meditation, like given to me, gifted to me. And it was like, 80 hours long. There’s no way, no way, but 10 minute meditations that can kind of ease you into it.

[00:26:59] Super [00:27:00] easy. Um, Headspace is backed by 25 published studies on its benefits. 600,500 views. And over 60 million downloads. Headspace makes it easy for you to build a life changing meditation practice with mindfulness that works for you on your schedule anytime, anywhere. So our listeners deserve to feel happier and Headspace is meditation made simple, simple, go to headspace.com/overtired.

[00:27:28] That’s headspace.com/overtired for a free one month trial with access to headspaces full library of meditations for every situation. This is the best deal that’s out there right now. So head to headspace.com/overtired today.

[00:27:45] Christina: [00:27:45] Thank you Headspace.

[00:27:46] Brett: [00:27:46] Thanks Headspace. Um, I’m a fan, I’m a fan. So I added a bunch of like news articles that were there’s a lot of privacy stuff going on right now.

[00:27:57] Christina: [00:27:57] Yeah, no, I saw that. Um, before we [00:28:00] get into that, let’s go back to fish shell. Before we talk about that. Yeah. Let’s let’s go back to fish. Saul.

[00:28:04] Brett: [00:28:04] now. I feel comfortable with this now. Um, so I was just evangelizing for fish in, uh, in, uh, um, uh, Slack that I got invited into this Slack team that, uh, like I thought it was going to be a bunch of, uh, well, I, I, I don’t know what I thought it was gonna be, but I get in there and.

[00:28:29] All the greats are in there. We’ve got rich Teagle Daniel gel cut Florian Albrecht, like, uh, it’s a who’s who of independent developers.

[00:28:41] Christina: [00:28:41] Hell. Yeah.

[00:28:42] Brett: [00:28:42] and you can ask a question. You can ask a stupid question to which they will reply. Obviously there are no stupid questions and you will get help. It’s amazing. I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t talk about this.

[00:28:53] Like everyone’s invited, I don’t, I don’t know what the, uh, I don’t know how open it is, but I got in and [00:29:00] I’m super it’s amazing. But anyway, I, I was, uh, I was asking questions about this, uh, in S task controller I’m working on and we got into a discussion of shells and I found myself evangelists for fish.

[00:29:13] I know it has, it has its quirks. It’s a little bit slow. But the, uh, the, the completion and the type of head stuff, and it remembers, uh, command history per directory. So it will remember what the last command you ran in this directory was, and I love it. I couldn’t be happier. I’ve used it for a year now. I, I, I opened up basher Z shell and it feels old and boring, and I love fish.

[00:29:46] Christina: [00:29:46] Yeah. I like it. My only issue with it is that the thing about Zetia, especially if you use like or something, is that you can, you either, you can’t get everything that you can get with fish, but you can get some stuff that’s, that’s closer. Although to your point, it will make [00:30:00] things slower. Right. Because you can have this like massive, like, um, you know, um, um, um, XOs like profile, like that’s just massive.

[00:30:08] Uh, but. My only thing with fish. Cause I like fish and it makes sense. And like it’s a good shell. And like, it, it, I think that it was former Apple people who created it. If I recall correctly, I’m I could be wrong. I could be wrong on that. Uh, that feels right. But there’s some sort of Apple connection, but I’m not sure, but the only thing is is that.

[00:30:27] The nice thing about shell is that it is backwards compatible with bash. And there are certain times where I will not either remember like a command in visual need to look it up or more to the point, like you need to run something. And if it hasn’t been explicitly like said that it’s like bash, you know, then if you’re running it in, in, in fish, like it’s going to give you issues.

[00:30:49] That’s that’s, that’s my only thing.

[00:30:51] Brett: [00:30:51] So all of my, all of my favorite bash scripts and I was at bash stalwart for a decade, um, I have a very, uh, a [00:31:00] very customized, very powerful bash setup and all of my bash scripts. Uh, you just put a bash hash bang in them

[00:31:08] Christina: [00:31:08] Right. No, I understand. No, I understand that. My point is that there are some times you’ll run across things like, especially I’m thinking, like, if you’re doing things from like remote machines or whatever, Where, um, you know, you, you have a script that you’ve, you’ve downloaded from someplace that like you’ll have to go back and edit and add that, or you’ll have to switch your shell environment.

[00:31:28] Brett: [00:31:28] Yeah, I do find myself running bash L for like a log-in shell pretty often, but, um, mostly because I need to figure out why something used to work for me and no, it does,

[00:31:41] Christina: [00:31:41] Right,

[00:31:41] Brett: [00:31:41] yeah, there are like, the scripting is like a very different syntax. It takes a lot of getting used to even just the idea of like exporting, uh, an environment.

[00:31:52] Variable is different in fish. It takes some work.

[00:31:55] Christina: [00:31:55] No totally. I mean, and then the thing for me, I think the reason why I haven’t ever committed to it, although I [00:32:00] really like it is because a lot of the stuff that I do is on virtual machines and is on like, you know, uh, or, or in containers or in other platforms like the cloud where I’m not necessarily going to install fish to get up and running.

[00:32:14] So if I’m like doing something remote, then I have the environment that I have. Right. Like I probably have bash, like I might have Zetia shell, but I probably have bash. And so. I, it, it, I haven’t been able to kind of work it into my like personal kind of muscle memory of, of stuff.

[00:32:31] Brett: [00:32:31] can be like, if you, if you’re a daily user of basher Z shell, you’ve got a pile of aliases and scripts and, uh, modules, especially with Z shell that you’re just used to having and, and assets aging into anyone else’s environment. Even if it’s the same shell can still feel,

[00:32:52] Christina: [00:32:52] No, of course, except I have like my dot files and like get hub repo. And like, there are ways [00:33:00] with certain environment things where I can like set it to use my dot Biles, like, so. That that’s my point. Like you’re not wrong. You’re completely correct. That it still is one of those things. But I guess the difference is that I found workarounds for that.

[00:33:11] Whereas I haven’t for fish, which is why I personally haven’t been able to get with it, although I’ve tried. Cause I it’s, it’s kind of like, I think of it like divorce tech. It’s one of those things where it makes sense, like this is what everybody should be using, but I’m just like, I’m going to be using query because that’s what everyone uses, even though it was not the best

[00:33:32] Brett: [00:33:32] that is an app comparison. Like I know in my heart. That there are better, uh, better keyboard layouts than Cordy. And, uh, I’m just, I’m used to what I’m used to and learning something that will only work on my machine and not anywhere else. I go. It’s a good comparison. Nicely done.

[00:33:52] Christina: [00:33:52] Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, that just came to me. I was like, what’s, what’s the analogy. I was like, Oh yeah, this is the divorce book of, of shells.

[00:33:57] Brett: [00:33:57] Fucking brilliant. [00:34:00] All right. Did we talk enough about fish? I got, so it has this, uh, coloring when, when the, when you type a command that exists and is a valid command. It turns green, uh, uh, arguments. Get one color redirections, get a color quoted strings, get another, uh, con substituted commands. Get a different color.

[00:34:21] So as you type your string is colored also, it’s giving you type ahead completion and it can automatically, there’s a module for Zetia that can do this too, but it can automatically parse, um, all the command line flags and options and with things like brew and get it purses, all the sub commands. So it gives you full.

[00:34:44] Uh, full command completion for just about every command on your system. It knows every flag in every option for every command.

[00:34:53] Christina: [00:34:53] Yeah, no, I really like that. And like, yeah, like you said, you can get extensions for seashell to do that. The problem with both of them, uh, is, [00:35:00] does slow things down initially, but it’s so useful like that. I think that for a lot of people it’s worth it, but it can definitely slow things down because I’ve made that mistake actually.

[00:35:10] Both with fish and it was the shell, uh, because I’ve like gone too far into configuring them and then like had this insane profile. I’m like, Oh, okay. Yeah, no, my terminal is very slow now. And this is a very fast machine, so I need to par this down. Right? Like that’s, that’s always, um, actually I should do a video about that.

[00:35:30] I should do a video for people to like tame their, their shell environment because. I have a feeling. There are a lot of people who, you know, they build up. Yeah. They’re like, God, this is so useful. And they’re like, Oh, why is this taking so long? I’m actually, it’s fun up while we’re talking. Speaking of ADHD, I’ve been going through that.

[00:35:46] I’ve been like going through my, my, um, Zetia, like profile, trying to kind of call stuff. Um, because what, what I’ll wind up doing and, and you maybe you’re wrong. Maybe you’re different than this, but like I’ll wind [00:36:00] up even sometimes like having like different. I profiles that I use with different apps. So I have like a different, you know, one that I’m using with, um, with I term two versus, you know, terminal or whatever, because one will get, yeah, I, I’ve only done that a couple of times as I’ve been trying to like play around, usually I try to keep it consistent, but the reason I did that one time was I was like, I really needed like a burgeoning system with like my profile to kind of go through stuff and I, I didn’t have time and it was so slow.

[00:36:28] It was like, okay, I just need to kind of start over. And I, I, I just like, you know, made a new, a new profile for, um, for item two, because