 Hey guys, I'm just stopping by the office for a second to pick something up here. I was actually taking the weekend off It's something I I don't normally do is you know take more than a day off Yeah, at a time, but I didn't make anything yesterday. I took yesterday off. It was a Saturday and I'm taking today off Two days off in a row is kind of unusual for me But I felt like I needed it because I was drained I was mentally and physically exhausted because in the last three months I think I Been up here at this office every day for the last three months that silk I think there was one day I didn't come up here at all and I think that was father's day I think father's day fills in somewhere and I had to go out of town that day But other than that, you know, maybe maybe not made a video every single day but I've been here working every single day and I was taking this weekend off So I thought I'd make one of these quick dirty vlog style videos because these are always fun You know, I enjoy just pulling out the cell phone and just chatting about whatever The topic I wanted to discuss today is I keep seeing this on the internet these people that talk about How people that rice their desktops, you know, you spend all your time customizing your tolling window manager and your terminal emulator and your text editors and your Widgets on the desktop your wallpapers and you're doing all this cool stuff to create your own desktop environment But that's all a waste of time because you're not really learning anything. That's not the way to learn Linux, right? That's Apparently it doesn't count, you know, rice in your desktop is a waste of time You won't learn anything is what a lot of people on the internet I see this all the time on various subreddits. It's a waste of time because that's not real Linux You know, you're not really learning anything. I guess because you didn't earn a paycheck doing it, right? It's just for fun. So how could you possibly learn anything? I know that's crazy guys Don't listen to these people these Debbie Downers that tell you you're wasting your time, you know configuring your Software because you're learning a ton. I mean, I've learned so much from configuring my window managers and my terminal emulators my text editors and You're gonna be exposed to so much cool stuff You'd probably normally never be exposed to even in a real job where you earn a paycheck doing stuff with Linux You know, you would be exposed to programming languages you would never normally be exposed and if you're one of these tiling window manager hoppers like I am because Let's take herbs, Luftwm for example and BSPWM both of those with tiling window managers are typically configured in Bash and you set up bash scripts to handle everything So that is great, especially for those that are trying to really learn Linux Linux administration things like that now you you get to play around with some bash scripting because that's a skill You really need to know Python is another scripting language that you really need to know on Linux and Qtile Qtile is a tiling window manager written and configured entirely in Python That's a great tiling window manager and it's great for those that are trying to learn Python If you want to learn some Haskell, you know, obviously Xmone ad you better learn a little Haskell before you get to Xmone ad Otherwise, you're not gonna have a good time. You want to learn If you want to have a good time and awesome window manager, you better know a little Lua In DWM you better learn a little C you get to learn a little bit about the C programming language You get to learn about compiling software too. That's another thing patching software These are skills, especially as a Linux desktop user. Most Linux desktop users have never had to patch their software and recompile DWM teaches you those kinds of skills text editors, you know neovm is configured in Lua Emacs of course is configured in Emacs lists and you're wondering. Well, if you know what uses Emacs lists Other than Emacs, why would I waste my time learning Emacs lists? Well, I mean, there's other lists variants, you know various lists Languages and they're all very similar. So if you learn Emacs lists, you pretty much can Quickly pick up some of the other various lists variants and just learning any language is useful because I see another thing on the internet These people that tell you you're wasting your time if you learn this language because nobody really uses it When I talk about Xmone ad even I think well, why learn Haskell? That's that's not something you'd ever use Well, what does it matter even if you'd never use it? Let's accept their their argument that you'll never use it other than playing around with Xmone ad Oh, I don't accept that argument, but let's say I do accept that it's not a waste of time learning how to program in a language that you don't already know because Learning Haskell trust me when you move to other languages, you know, some of the experiences you had in Haskell will translate You it will help you with some of these other languages because you'll find similarities between many languages, you know One of the cool things and the more you play with different programming languages too, you know When I open a config file in a language, I don't normally work in I don't know much about I see Similarities between some of the other languages maybe that I do have some familiarity with anyway I'm going off on a long rant here. I'm not even a professional programmer. Obviously. I don't work with computers You know, this is just a hobby for me and but for most of you guys This is a hobby too, right? You're just a normal desktop Linux user and does it pay off to learn some of this stuff? Sure Because you're gonna find stuff when you're configuring window managers, especially you're gonna want your window manager your desktop environment That you're building yourself. You're gonna want it to act and behave in certain ways. How do you achieve this? Well, typically you achieve this through scripting You're gonna learn about all the GNU core utils, you know Some of the the terminal applications that you need to know about and it's a great learning experience You know rising your desktop really is a learning experience. It's not all about, you know Having a really cool screen shot that you can share on r slash Unix point I mean, that's a benefit too, but what the real benefit is it's the learning it's the learning process and the Experience you get from that and you can really take that and you can actually leverage that Later on down the road may be in a real job because I promise you that I probably You know some of the skills I picked up just configuring some window managers I could probably if I wanted to you know, get some entry-level admin job or something I probably know more command line tools than most people would Going into those kinds of positions. Why just from playing around with my desktop just from rising my desktop So when people on the internet tell you that this kind of stuff is useless It's pointless. You're wasting your time Ignore that those people they're either just trolling or they don't know what the hell they're talking about or What they're trying to do is to try to keep you from gaining more knowledge You know, many people see other people as a threat and they're just trying to to keep you down They don't want you to go out and learn anything new but because Many cases they don't want to learn anything new so they're trying to to get you to sign up on that team So you can be a part of their team the people that don't want to learn anything new don't be like that Anything that you want to explore explore. It makes you not just a better Linux user better computer user better programmer developer, whatever it is. You're trying to do it just makes you a better person anyway peace guys