Valticus

Oftentimes, when you buy a new PC, it comes preloaded with applications. Some of them are essential, like an anti-virus, and some of them are not. Over the years I’ve come to realize that the responsiveness of your device (it doesn’t necessarily have to be a computer, it can be a mobile phone or a tablet, too) depends on how many applications you have installed. This digital minimalism approach to performance optimization is especially true for mobile devices, where applications are often started at boot and remain in the memory even if they are not used, draining battery power.

My general rule is to always ask myself if I am really going to use the app I am about to install very often or just occasionally. If the answer is: “No, I don’t really need this app.”, I don’t install it no matter how great the hype is over it.

I’ve watched “The Queen’s Gambit” on Netflix, and I must admit - I love this chess-themed dramatic series! And I am not alone in enjoying this brilliant show about chess and genius, of course. According to this article in “Business Insider”, and I quote:

Netflix said last week that “The Queen’s Gambit” was its biggest limited series yet and was watched by 62 million households worldwide in its first 28 days, sparking a massive surge in chess popularity and chess set sales (a view is counted if an account watches two minutes or more).

Eye comfort is very important, especially to programmers, who spend most of their day looking at code in their favorite editor. This programming productivity tip can significantly improve your coding experience and reduce eye strain during long development sessions.

I’ve already mentioned a few themes I like, and today I am going to teach you how to set your editor up in such away that the theme changes automatically depending on what time of day it is. This developer tools automation can greatly enhance your coding comfort throughout different lighting conditions.

Back in 2021, I wrote about my plans for this blog - a vision to create a valuable resource covering various topics beyond just programming. Looking back, it’s interesting to see how those plans unfolded and what directions the blog actually took.

What Was Planned

The original plan outlined several content categories:

AI, or Artificial Intelligence, is revolutionizing technology and software development at the moment, and to no surprise. AI can help humanity in many different areas, such as diagnosing an illness at an early stage with machine learning, or assisting a driver with direction through GPS navigation, or driving you to a desired destination with autonomous vehicles. The integration of AI tools in programming workflows has transformed how developers approach coding and software engineering challenges.

While it is debatable whether or not we should trust AI to take over crucial areas of our lives (have you seen “Terminator?”), one area I found Artificial Intelligence to be particularly useful in is programming and software development workflows. Using the right AI development tools and code completion extensions, you can save yourself a lot of time while coding with AI enabled. These modern developer tools are becoming essential for programming productivity and efficient software development.