This is so important. I've seen so many fellow technologists (and I've skated this myself) obsess about their setup to the point that they're spending more time on that than the actual thing they're building.

The whole "90% of my time as a coder is spent typing, so I should optimise my ability to type fast" is so, well, wrong. 90% of our time should be spent thinking, and most of that reading.

> This is so important. I've seen so many fellow technologists (and I've skated this myself) obsess about their setup to the point that they're spending more time on that than the actual thing they're building.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urcL86UpqZc&t=112s

This is just my opinion so maybe im describing something other than what you are observing.

This was me, until I got AI. Now im building cool stuff that I never would have built (but also slowly destroying what little skill I had and not knowing much about the underlying code). Of the code I do know about well, I am fixing and improving my old code and being amazed (but probably not deeply learning) with new tricks and techniques. The focus on setup to me was always my mind playing a trick on me. The AI reduced the "hump" I need to cross so I just try it. Its really another form of perfecting your setup.

Focusing on the setup for some might be a way to avoid the hard thinking part that comes with immense practice and focus. Its a hump everyone has to cross. It comes easier to some but not others. I remember doing exactly this when I was unemployed traveling Europe wanting to get into a software engineering role after being boxed into a QA testing role for years. I was a CS grad and did this same stuff in college to my detriment(thats how I ended up in QA I guess). I paid for InterviewCake and spent countless days in European hostels and cafes doing nonsense like perfecting my setup or editor instead of focusing deeply on the problem set. This might also be a symptom of ADHD. Recently started medication and the immense change in productivity has recently made me weep that I wasted half my life doing things like perfecting my setup instead of actually doing something.

> 90% of our time should be spent thinking, and most of that reading

I don’t know if that’s accurate for most of us, who are simply humble CRUD app developers.