<h1>My Writing Environment As a Software Engineer</h1>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>TL;DR: <em>Get a good text editor, and get good at using it.
Keep a notepad by your side.
Find a quiet place to write.</em></strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Writing is one of life's greater joys.
It's a mental workout that often brings me a level of clarity that is hard to find elsewhere.
I have never sat down to write for an extended period of time without coming away with a greater understanding of myself and the universe.</p>
<p>I imagine that sounds pretty cheesy.</p>
<p>I just want to impress upon you the importance writing has had in my life.
As with anything this important, I have an instinctual urge to optimize it.
As software engineers, isn't that part of our modus operandi?
To spend an unnecessary amount of time optimizing things?</p>
<p>Well, that's exactly what I've done.
Over the years, I've spend a unruly amount of time tweaking and changing the tools I use to write.
I'd love to talk about 'em.</p>
<h2>Neovim</h2>
<p>In the past few years, Neovim has the talk of the town.
Its ancestor, <code>vi</code> was borne from the observation that most writing is re-writing, and thus it includes a vast array of specific tools for editing text, rather than writing it.
<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/neovim/"><code>r/neovim</code></a> has swelled to more than 110 thousand weekly visitors and thousands of plugins and LSPs to choose from.</p>
<p>Unless you choose a pre-built distro like <a href="https://www.lazyvim.org/">LazyVim</a>, Neovim does very little out of the box.
It is through relentless customization that it becomes something truly powerful.
Beside the various keybindings in my config, the important plugins and tools that I use are:</p>
<h3><a href="https://writewithharper.com">Harper</a></h3>
<p>As I'm the chief maintainer, this one should be of no surprise.
Don't worry, I won't give you the marketing spiel.
I'll simply say that Harper is a grammar checker that happens to work exceptionally well in Neovim.</p>
<h3><a href="https://github.com/folke/zen-mode.nvim">Zen Mode</a></h3>
<img src="/images/zen_mode.png" alt="Zen Mode: Activated">
<p>Plain Neovim organizes each file to cover the maximum amount of space on-screen.
Practically, this means most of my text ends up on the left side, which can hurt my neck.
Zen mode restricts the width of the file and centers it on the screen.</p>
<h3><a href="./the_simplest_neovim_markdown_setup">Tatum</a></h3>
<img src="/images/tatum_screenshot.webp" alt="A screenshot of Tatum at work">
<p>Tatum is a small tool I wrote in a few hours that lets me live-preview my Markdown as HTML.
I won't repeat myself.
If you're curious about Tatum, check out my <a href="./the_simplest_neovim_markdown_setup">previous blog post.</a></p>
<h3>More Details</h3>
<p>If you're thirsty for <em>all</em> the details of my Neovim setup, take a quick look at the configuration code on <a href="https://github.com/elijah-potter/dots/tree/master/nvim">GitHub</a>.</p>
<h2>ReMarkable 2</h2>
<p>A few years ago, while I was still in school, I splurged and purchased a used Remarkable 2.
Even now, there is rarely a day that goes by where I don't use it.
Sure, everything it does could be easily approximated by paper.
On the other hand, the thin device saves my back whenever I have to travel and there's a certain joy that comes from using an e-ink device like this.</p>
<img src="/images/remarkable.jpeg" alt="A Recent Brainstorming Session on the ReMarkable">
<p>I mostly use it to read digital books and blog posts, but it's also come in handy for getting around writer's block.
Being forced to slow down and use my hand to write, rather than a keyboard, is quite helpful in some inexplicable way.</p>
<h2>A Quiet Space</h2>
<p>More important than any text editor, at least for me, is a quiet space.</p>
<p>As I said before, writing can take real cognitive effort.
A space with distracting noise can make it unnecessarily hard to get words on paper.
I've found local libraries or co-working spaces to be great places for quiet authorship.</p>
<p>Whatever you do, do not listen to music with words in it.
Even if it <em>feels</em> more productive, I retroactively find that it makes me less so.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>There's probably some more important points I'm leaving out, but I definitely believe I've hit the big three.
For me, the most important parts of a good writing environment, as a software engineer, are my text editor, a notepad, and a quiet space.</p>

Writing is one of life's greater joys. It's a mental workout that often brings me a level of clarity that is hard to find elsewhere.

<p>Writing is one of life's greater joys. It's a mental workout that often brings me a level of clarity that is hard to find elsewhere.</p>

My Writing Environment as a Software Engineer

<h1>Code Ages Like Milk</h1>
<img src="/images/front_range.webp" alt="The Front Range in the summer is hard to beat">
<p>A bold title, no? But it’s true, and it’s something that I (and most other maintainers) have to deal with on a regular basis. Failing to account for this reality can slow down development and dissuade contributors from sticking around.</p>
<p>As the chief maintainer of Harper, one of my main jobs is to act as quality control. I receive <a href="https://github.com/Automattic/harper/pulse/monthly">a number of PRs each week</a>, both from new contributors and old. Given the diverse pool of contributors, it makes sense that I review a diverse pool of code of varying levels of quality.</p>
<p>When I have my head down on technical and attention-intense projects, I have less time to review code. When I have less time, I need to set priorities. The question becomes: Would I rather let code from high-quality, reliable sources pile up, or code from sources of unknown quality?</p>
<p>I usually end up reviewing the high-quality sources first, since they’ll likely require fewer revisions. Fewer revisions means quicker merge means improving the user experience faster. Whether or not this is a good decision is something I’ve been thinking about all week.</p>
<h2>Code Ages</h2>
<p>As code sits stagnant in a PR, it ages. You might say I’m crazy, that there is no way the code itself changes as it sits still in an unmerged and unmodified PR. I’d say you’re right, except for one teeny-tiny detail: Code only has meaning when it sits within a broader context. If that broader context changes (for example, when other PRs are merged) the meaning of the unmodified code does too.</p>
<p>Let me put it another way. If the patch from a PR remains stagnant, but the code it gets patched onto changes, the actual impact of the patch does too. This can cause all sorts of problems, from merge conflicts to erroneous test failures.</p>
<p>The longer code sits in a PR, the more time it usually ends up taking me to get it merged (when I finally have the time to get to it), just from the merge conflicts alone. It’s the Lindy effect rearing its ugly head once more.</p>
<h2>Features Age Too</h2>
<p>Not only does code age when left untouched and unused, so do the features they represent. If a user requests for a button that marks some text as bold and they don’t receive that feature promptly, they’ll find an alternative solution, possibly from a competitor.</p>
<p>The rest of the app can evolve too. If you’re an individual contributor, it’s in your best interest for your code to make it to master. If that doesn’t happen quickly enough, another contributor (or, if the software is extensible, like Obsidian or WordPress) or plugin author might beat you to the punch.</p>
<h2>What Can I Do About It?</h2>
<p>I believe the way I’ve been handling this until now has been entirely wrong. I should be allocating more of my time to training new contributors and fielding PRs from established ones. Open sources is a team effort.</p>
<p>As for you, dear reader, that’s for you to figure out. The worst way code can age is if it stays in your head. Don’t let your ideas go to waste. <a href="./never_wait">Open that PR</a>, or remind your reviewer to take another look if you haven’t already.</p>

Failing to account for this reality can slow down development and dissuade contributors from sticking around.

<p>Failing to account for this reality can slow down development and dissuade contributors from sticking around.</p>

Code Ages like Milk

<h1>Do Not Write with an LLM</h1>
<img src="/images/green_bird.webp" alt="A photo taken by myself of a green bird.">
<h2>A Growing Trend</h2>
<p>I have been seeing an increasingly prevalent trend of people showing up in online spaces proudly flaunting that they are writing with the assistance of AI.
I often see them clarify that they are going further than letting the model perform grammar or fact-checking.
They are describing an idea to an LLM, and giving it complete control over the final written document.
They seem to be proud of this. They shouldn't be.</p>
<h2>What <strong>Does Not</strong> Work</h2>
<p>Writing seems to be a shadow of a more fundamental and useful process we like to call "thinking".
There is a reason why LLMs, which are the closest thing we currently have to "software that thinks" is trained to think through writing.
It seems logical, then, that we can use this "software that writes" to help along our own thinking process, right? Wrong.</p>
<p>Writing is one of the most cerebral activities that humans do on a regular basis.
<a href="https://elijahpotter.dev/articles/why-i-talk-to-myself">I try to sit down and write about a complex topic at least once a week.</a>
There are a number of reasons I do that pertaining to my job in particular, but there are more generally applicable reasons that can apply to any profession.</p>
<p>When a mathematician needs to think critically about some theorem or proof, they often turn to a dry-erase board or a chalkboard.
The mathematician then writes in clear notation what they imagine the problem to look like in their heads.
From there, they can manipulate that notation until they reach their desired outcome.</p>
<p>The English language is extremely similar, with a key difference.
Mathematical notation is specifically designed for a narrow domain.
Natural languages, on the other hand, can be applied to any field.
By writing your idea down on paper (or in a Google Doc, it does not matter), you give it substance.
This substance can then be shaped iteratively towards a goal of some kind.</p>
<p>No great ideas were written down on the first try.
They started as a vague notion, and through writing and rewriting, they became something concrete and valuable.
You cannot dictate a vague notation to an LLM and expect it to spit out something tangibly valuable.
Any attempt to do so is lazy, and it will result in failure.
I have seen it in the wild, and frankly, it is a little embarrassing.</p>
<p><a href="https://ammil.industries/i-know-you-didnt-write-this/">This article</a> feels especially relevant today.</p>
<h2>What <strong>Does</strong> Work</h2>
<p>Using an LLM for research can be very effective.
Searches to ChatGPT or Perplexity can surface information faster than digging around in a book you read three months ago.
For lots of searches, these two sources have completely replaced Google and DuckDuckGo for me.</p>
<p>They're also quite excellent fact-checkers.
I've seen that plenty of folks have received quite good results by pasting their work into an LLM with an internet tool (like ChatGPT with Thinking enabled).</p>
<p>Finally, I've personally found that LLMs are quite good at finding places where I simply forgot to insert context.
Sometimes I forget to define a term or insert a relevant link.
Even small models like <code>gemma3n:e2b</code> can catch me.</p>
<h2>What <strong>You</strong> Should Be Doing</h2>
<p>When you need to communicate an idea in your head, sit down with a notepad and a keyboard and explain it.
I personally think you should use a grammar checker, since they are far less likely to impede your thought process, but if you need to, you can instruct ChatGPT to critique your work once it is finished.</p>
<p>If an idea deserves an audience, you're capable of writing it out yourself.
In the same vein, if you can vaguely describe it to ChatGPT, you can vaguely describe it to your intended audience.
Do yourself a favor and skip the middleman.</p>
<h2>What We Should Be Building</h2>
<p>Now, I'd like to enter the section where I talk specifically about what this all means for people who create tools for writers.
That includes both Harper and WordPress.</p>
<p>A tool that helps someone write is a tool that directly interfaces with how that person thinks.
That might include what they think about, but more concretely I am referring to the actual day-to-day process of thinking through complex ideas.
If you don't believe me, it's probably because you skipped ahead instead of reading this post from the beginning.</p>
<p>Most crucially, we cannot allow ourselves to build tools that dissuade people from expressing their ideas in the way they imagine.
This can take the form of friction, like building tools that are so cumbersome that one dreads to open them at the start of the workday.
This can also take the form of a tool that crushes or overwrites an author's core message.</p>
<p>A common complaint I hear about Grammarly (from people who have switched to Harper from Grammarly) is that it's too demanding. When they write prose in a creative or unusual fashion, their service often forces them back into a colder and more formal way of speaking.
We don't want to be like them.</p>
<p>For Harper, that means we need to be diverse in our training datasets and mindful of feedback from our users.
For WordPress, it means we need to encourage our LLM integrations to tread lightly and respectfully.
They need to accept when they're wrong.
Just as any good human should.</p>

I have been seeing an increasingly prevalent trend of people showing up in online spaces flaunting that they are writing with the assistance of AI. They seem to be proud of this. They shouldn't be.

<p>I have been seeing an increasingly prevalent trend of people showing up in online spaces flaunting that they are writing with the assistance of AI. They seem to be proud of this. They shouldn't be.</p>

Do Not Write with an LLM

<h1>Photography as Meditation</h1>
<p>The goal of meditation is to become more mindful and aware.
For me, it is often an attempt to get an appreciation for my surroundings—to see how utterly complex the world is.</p>
<img src="/images/pink_flower_tree.webp" alt="Spring has sprung in Colorado. That means pink flowers everwhere.">
<p>Photography does something similar for me.
The heft of the camera in my hands reminds me to slow down and take in the view.</p>
<p>My mother is a photographer—a great one at that.
She's been in the business for at least as long as I've been alive.
She tells me something similar: the act of framing a picture is itself a way to understand your subject better.</p>
<img src="/images/puddle.webp" alt="Spring brings rain and rain brings puddles.">

Reflecting on the clarity photography brings.

<p>Reflecting on the clarity photography brings.</p>

Elijah Potter

Photography as Meditation

Comments

Other Stuff

My Writing Environment as a Software Engineer

Code Ages like Milk

Do Not Write with an LLM