zenburn

Let's face it, software engineering is hard!

It is tough to produce high quality code, under tight deadlines, solving complex problems, with constantly changing requirements.

But let's forget for a moment about the intellectual challenges posed by engineering correct and performant software, and let's focus on the physical demands imposed on software engineers.

I am not suggesting that software engineering is among the most physically demanding professions, but I believe that sometimes we fail to recognise the physical strain imposed by being confined at a desk, precariously sitting on a chair, hunching over a keyboard, staring at a computer display for prolonged periods of time, furiously typing blocks of source code.

It gets tough enough during a normal working day. It gets really tough when coding marathons happen. Be it for that unmissable deadline at work, or for that impending release date, or for that new cool personal project that I am working on, sometimes you just have to keep coding for hours and hours on end...

I thought I would share a tip that helps me squeeze out code at high speed in those never ending coding sessions. Here goes: Make sure you use a color theme that you find appealing and easy on your eyes.

I discovered the Zenburn colour theme and it works wonders for me. I really like the darkish, delicate overtones, which do not glare into my eyes, yet manage to make syntax colouring stand out.

Combine Zenburn with a good terminal and a good editor (oh, say, like konsole and emacs), and there you have a terrific coding setup, which has taken me through the toughest coding sessions I dare to remember.

The Zenburn theme has a story of its own. Look around on the world wide series-of-tubes to find out more about the Zenburn theme and obtain the Zenburn theme files. By the way, the konsole Zenburn theme file is GPL-licensed.