taste as a proxy for curiosity

defeating the defaults

too many people are fine with the defaults
but more often than not, the default is the median option

take vscode - perfectly fine, gets the job done.

but nearly every vscode user i know has the same font, theme and shortcuts. why?

because most people mistake working for optimal

i do not make the claim that these vscode users are in any way worse programmers than those who use vim or emacs

but i believe, a person who has not fiddled with their vscode settings, who has not tried to tweak their shortcuts and who has not said to themselves, "damn, there has to be an easier way to do ..." , is unlikely to venture beyond comfort zones elsewhere or worse, has never had to

stuck in a local maxima

breaking out from your local maxima of productivity is hard

most power-user tools will slow you down at first

productivity gains will only come once you've mastered them

it's hard to justify investing time in learning vim bindings or customizing tmux shortcuts, even if the long-term payoff is obvious and especially if you’re juggling deadlines

thus, i claim that people who put themselves through the trouble of learning such tools are driven by an inherent curiosity for the craft - one that's hard to measure otherwise

you can't rush taste

i learn when i break things and i learn when i fix things

the ability to un-fuck a broken config only comes with time

the wisdom to have all your ~/.dotfiles under version control only comes after you accidentally nuke your setup

and even then, you don’t find tools like gnu stow unless you're curious enough to ask "damn, there has to be an easier way to do ..."

in this sense, taste isn't clean or elegant - it is scar tissue

pick your battles

but taste is not about endless tweaking and chasing that perfect neovim config. knowing when to stop is a skill in itself

take this site - vercel is super beginner-friendly

but i don’t know any front-end, and i just wanted something simple that let me post with zero friction.

sometimes, defaults are fine

but being unaware of anything other than your defaults, is not

curiosity leaves a trail

your setup tells a story. dotfiles, keybindings, themes are proof you cared enough to look under the hood

none of it makes you a better programmer by itself

but it shows you asked a question most don’t- what else is possible?

your taste is nothing but the ability to differentiate between the median option and the one that actually fits you and the task at hand

here is a list of some of the tools i like, we might disagree on some of these choices, but that's the point

oh-my-posh

aerospace

ghostty

raycast

lazygit

neovim

zsh-z

tmux

fzf

zed

as long as you have an opinion about your choices, and have explored beyond the defaults, you’re already ahead. it’s not about picking the “best” tool—
it’s about caring enough to pick at all

ps: i'm looking for a summer internship

if you enjoyed this post and think i might be a good fit for your team, i’m looking for a summer internship where i can work with smart people, learn fast, and ship things that matter

i care deeply about good tools, clean abstractions, and asking the right questions. feel free to reach out or share this with someone who might be hiring