This is also one of the reasons I write C++ with vim without any auto-completion nor fancy plugins (I do use syntax highlighting though, but I think it comes by default with vim nowadays), as well as using GNU screen -- not every machines install tmux by default, surprisingly. In case I need to login into some random Linux box, I'm sure I'll be almost as productive as I am on my own machine.

You mean, you're almost as unproductive on your development machine as on a random remote system that has no tools. And you somehow regard this as some sort of playing field leveling that generates an advantage.

Imagine a car mechanic that won't use a big hydraulic lift that hoists a car in seconds and lets him walk under it, claiming that by using a manually cranked portable jack, he can be almost as productive when fixing something by the roadside with emergency equipment as he is in his garage.

If you ever meet such a mechanic you can be sure that he programs computers as a hobby.

I assume this is tongue-in-cheek, but I don't think the comparison works at all.

I spend maybe 1% of my working hours (being generous) using `ls` and something like 50% (likely more) using my editor.

If there is some alternative to `ls` that makes my `ls` workflows 2x faster, my productivity increases by 0.5%. If I use a sub-optimal editor that makes my workflow 2x slower, I lose 25% of my productivity.

When I need to login to a remote box, I am also very likely to need to use `ls` since I am less familiar than on my own machine, whereas I am unlikely to do any sort of heavy development work (typically I just need to edit a couple configuration files, or do some git operations).

I’ve been on machines in the last few years that didn’t have screen either. Maybe it was a minimal install or something, but I specifically remember having to install it to get some long running stuff going.

(Thinking it was Ubuntu server, but guessing someone will correct me)