Screenshots from developers: 2002 vs. 2015 (2015)

common theme: tiled layout, terminals, minimum fancy decorations.

I think I see only one truly tiled layout. But yes, "terminals and editors" as the core developer workflow is extremely conserved over time. It dates from the mid 80's on Sun 2's and really hasn't changed much in four decades.

It's probably not worth arguing whether this is the "best" when compared with vscode+LSP+Claude or whatever happens to be en vogue in the moment.

But terminals and editors is sticky in a way that tells me it's probably close to optimal. Those of us in the cult aren't observed to leave the compound except in extremely rare circumstances. I'll be doing the same stuff on my death bed, likely.

> But terminals and editors is sticky in a way that tells me it's probably close to optimal.

Optimal for those users, at any rate. IMO using a terminal editor is so painful compared to a decent GUI (Sublime or even VSCode) that I have a difficult time understanding why anyone would choose such a tool. I just try to repeat the mantra of "everyone likes different things" and stop trying to understand something where I likely never will get it.