Yet Another "Put your dotfiles on GitHub" Post

If you're someone who tends to stick to defaults, or perhaps you're not even aware of your system's dotfiles, then of course there's not much for you here.

Though, if you happen to be a member of the humbled 'target audience' of this post, perhaps the question "Why not?" would speak greater volumes. The level of configuration we, as users, are given for most of our utilities, regardless of their size, importance, or purpose, means we can completely shape and mould how they function and appear. Over time, as your collection of dotfiles grow, and perhaps gain complexity, it's only natural that one should want to take care of these configurations in a sane, simple and safe fasion.

Losing these precious files can have quite the impact - keybindings aren't the same, functions behave differently, appearance isn't what you're used to - all things that will likely slow down your workflow. It comes to mind, as I write this, "well, perhaps we have only ourselves to blame for this issue?". It's a sensible argument that if one were to just stick to defaults, they wouldn't be faced with these problems. But, alas, we don't like sticking to defaults, control over every tiny aspect of our systems and their tools is large factor of what attracts us to them.

Yep! Again: "why not?". Using a decent version control system to help manage your dotfiles makes a lot of sense. Not only does it fill the boots of a means of backup, but you can benefit from many useful features; think branching, cherrypicking, commit logs, diffs. These may seem a bit overkill, but I'll talk more about how I use some of these features a little further on.

Okay! I'll first detail my dotfile structure.

|-- README.md
|-- bsd
|   |-- Xdefaults
|   |-- config
|   |-- irssi
|   |-- ncmpcpp
|   |-- symlinker
|   |-- tmux.conf
|   |-- vim
|   |-- vimrc
|   |-- xombrero.conf
|   |-- zsh
|   `-- zshrc
`-- osx
    |-- Xdefaults
    |-- config
    |-- irssi
    |-- symlinker
    |-- tmux.conf
    |-- vim
    |-- vimrc
    |-- xinitrc
    |-- xombrero.conf
    |-- zsh
    `-- zshrc

.Xdefaults -> /home/cmacrae/code/git/dotfiles/bsd/Xdefaults
.tmux.conf -> /home/cmacrae/code/git/dotfiles/bsd/tmux.conf
.vim -> /home/cmacrae/code/git/dotfiles/bsd/vim
.vimrc -> /home/cmacrae/code/git/dotfiles/bsd/vimrc
.xombrero.conf -> /home/cmacrae/code/git/dotfiles/bsd/xombrero.conf
.zsh -> /home/cmacrae/code/git/dotfiles/bsd/zsh
.zshrc -> /home/cmacrae/code/git/dotfiles/bsd/zshrc

commit c131132ddee6c9ef82e43bee8fff8dbc1b4134b1
Author: cmacrae <<redacted>@gmail.com>
Date:   Wed Mar 26 22:10:49 2014 +0000
    
     Added floating rule for xmessage

$ git show c131132ddee6c9ef82e43bee8fff8dbc1b4134b1

Author: cmacrae <<redacted>@gmail.com>
Date:   Wed Mar 26 22:10:49 2014 +0000

    Added floating rule for xmessage

diff --git a/bsd/config/bspwm/bspwmrc b/bsd/config/bspwm/bspwmrc
index 0ae7b69..0f1c707 100755
--- a/bsd/config/bspwm/bspwmrc
+++ b/bsd/config/bspwm/bspwmrc
@@ -25,3 +25,4 @@ bspc config -m HDMI1 top_padding 22
   
bspc rule -a xombrero desktop=Two
bspc rule -a MPlayer desktop=Three floating=on focus=on follow=on
+bspc rule -a xmessage floating=on focus=on

If you've had a peek at my dotfiles repo, you may have noticed my symlinker script sat amongst the configs. I use this to 'bootstrap' all my configs when doing a fresh install, or, adding some new dotfiles into the mix. It's very simple, but very handy. It does a quick sanity check to ensure you're symlinking the correct dotfiles, by checking uname -s - I track my OpenBSD & OS X dotfiles - just in case it's a particularly bad day, and I'm somehow stupid enough to be sat in the wrong directory when I run the symlinker, that day is yet to come… but, sanity checks are there for sanity. It then proceeds to symlink all the dotfiles & directories, doing checks for the existence of said files & directories, removing them if they exist, creating any directories that may be necessary if not there already (~/.config), then symlinks everything. I've also added a little statement to check to see if I've got all my Vim bundles, and if not, to then go and grab them! I'm in the slow and painful transition of moving over to emacs, so I'll be tackling the equivalent in the near future.

You may have also noticed there's a single read line in my script, which of course requires input. This is to circumvent having to include my irc bouncer's password in my public dotfiles, as I've seen some people do… It copies my irssi config to the correct place, rather than symlinking it, then just uses sed (GNU sed, for in place) and read to replace the string 'XXXX' with watever is entered. Simple, but effective, I think.

Feel free to nab this script and modify it to our needs!

Well, if you've got this far, I appreciate you taking the time to read my post in particular. As I mentioned, there are many other posts like this, strewn throughout the vast abyss of nerdy blogs - but I hope I've brought a little perspective to the table, and perhaps even some minor differences in approach.

I find it rather difficult to put aside the time to write blog entries nowadays, I do in fact live a rather busy life. And the 'list of things I want to learn/set-up/try' is forever growing. Perhaps I'll be writing about some of it in the near future! On a positive note, it's consoling that this post has turned out much longer than originally planned, as this shows me how much I enjoy writing once I finally get going. I'll make an effort to write more frequently, I certainly have a lot that I want to share…