I've been an oh-my-zsh user for many years now, being very happy with the very small set of features I use from it. Previously I could never think of trying to figure out how to replicate the features I need without the other features from oh-my-zsh, which does make the shell noticeably slower.
Just now, after reading this article, I used Claude code and have removed the OMZ config within 5 minutes. Here's my prompt - maybe others could find it useful. I ran this from `~/.oh-my-zsh`.
```
Here's my zsh config - I'd like to remove oh-my-zsh and replace the provided functionality with just raw zsh. i use starship for my prompt so i don't need
any help there.
can you explore the oh-my-zsh codebae and see what it would take to replicate the features it currently provides me in the shell?
my zsh config below:
export ZSH="$HOME/.oh-my-zsh"
ZSH_THEME=""
DISABLE_AUTO_TITLE="true"
plugins=(direnv fzf)
source $ZSH/oh-my-zsh.sh
--- CLAUDE RESPONSE ---
Minimal Raw Zsh Replacement
Since you use starship and have DISABLE_AUTO_TITLE=true, you can skip prompt and title-related code. Here's what you'd need:
# Completions
autoload -Uz compinit
compinit
zstyle ':completion:*' menu select
zstyle ':completion:*' matcher-list 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}' # case insensitive
# History
HISTFILE=~/.zsh_history
HISTSIZE=50000
SAVEHIST=10000
setopt extended_history hist_expire_dups_first hist_ignore_dups
setopt hist_ignore_space hist_verify share_history
# Directory navigation
setopt auto_cd auto_pushd pushd_ignore_dups pushdminus
# Key bindings (emacs mode)
bindkey -e
bindkey '^[[H' beginning-of-line # Home
bindkey '^[[F' end-of-line # End
bindkey '^[[1;5C' forward-word # Ctrl-Right
bindkey '^[[1;5D' backward-word # Ctrl-Left
bindkey '^[[3~' delete-char # Delete
# Colors
autoload -Uz colors && colors
export CLICOLOR=1 # macOS ls colors
# Plugins replacement
eval "$(direnv hook zsh)"
eval "$(fzf --zsh)"
```
Granted I've only done this like 5 minutes ago and might be missing functionality I'll realise later, but a quick few checks give me hope I have all the functionality I want.
Love this! I haven't used Beanhup, but was a user of text based accounting systems (beancount, hledger) for many years to track personal expenses. I stopped doing it when I realized I wasn't getting much out of it, but the knowledge of double-entry accounting still helps me to this day when I keep track of my business expenses in Xero.
One thing which I disagree with in this article is the focus on file based data storage:
> That makes it 10 times harder because you need to parse the text file, update it accordingly, and write it back. But I am glad I did. That guarantees all my accounting books are in the same open format.
This quote captures my issues with it. It just makes things so much more difficult; and it makes the whole process slower as the file grows. I remember that when I used hledger for tracking my expenses over 3 years, I had to "close books" once a year and consolidate all the transactions for the past year into 1 entry in a new ledger file to keep entry/query operations fast.
I get the sentiment; you want open data formats that remain even after your app is shutdown. But you can get the same by using open formats; maybe a sqlite DB is good enough for that?
The only thing that would be more complicated with a DB is versioning & reviewing commits like this app does; which does seem like a very exciting feature.
I'm not at all familiar with text-based accounting tools, but I feel like the performance issues could be addressed by using multiple files instead of one big one.
When do you split the files? How do you track which data resides in which files? Does one file represent one kind of data (table)? Does it reflect data within a given time range? Do you sometimes need to retrieve data that crosses file boundaries?
You quickly lose the simplicity inherent in saving to just a single file.
Which is where Sqlite shines. It's a single file. But with a full, user defined schema. And can update it and query it incrementally, without having to read and write the entire thing frequently. It handles all of that complexity for you.
Some people, myself included, prefer text-based files as a user interface. Like, some Vim users won't leave their Vim session forever and would like to do everything in it. While SQLite is immortal software and will probably be there forever, using it means changing the UI/UX from text files to SQL queries or other CLI/UI operations. I think it's a preference for UI/UX style instead of a technical decision. For that preference of UI/UX, we can push on the technical end to solve some challenges.
> When do you split the files? How do you track which data resides in which files? Does one file represent one kind of data (table)? Does it reflect data within a given time range? Do you sometimes need to retrieve data that crosses file boundaries?
Not really. Splitting anywhere from per-day to per-year is probably fine! Or split arbitrarily and merge the files at runtime. Make it configurable! Add tools to split or merge files, it's really not that hard, a far cry from a database engine.
> You quickly lose the simplicity inherent in saving to just a single file.
No, you really don't.
> Which is where Sqlite shines. It's a single file. But with a full, user defined schema. And can update it and query it incrementally, without having to read and write the entire thing frequently. It handles all of that complexity for you.
That you need a particular tool or library to interact with.
I'm not going to try and sell you on the benefits of using plaintext tools because you've already clearly made up your mind, but there are reasons even if you can't see them. SQLite has like 160k lines of code complexity that isn't necessary and is inherently less composable.
I get where you're coming from. My books are also growing big right now, and indeed, they have become slower to process. Some projects in the community, such as Beanpost [1], are actually trying to solve the problem, as you said, by using an RMDB instead of plaintext.
But I still like text file format more for many reasons. The first would be the hot topic, which is about LLM friendliness. While I am still thinking about using AI to make the process even easier, with text-based accounting books, it's much easier to let AI process them and generate data for you.
Another reason is accessibility. Text-based accounting only requires an editor plus the CLI command line. Surely, you can build a friendly UI for SQLite-based books, but then so can text-based accounting books.
Yet another reason is, as you said, Git or VCS (Version control system) friendliness. With text-based, you can easily track all the changes from commit to commit for free and see what's changed. So, if I make a mistake in the book and I want to know when I made the mistake and how many years I need to go back and revise my reports, I can easily do that with Git.
Performance is a solvable technical challenge. We can break down the textbooks into smaller files and have a smart cache system to avoid parsing the same file repeatedly. Currently, I don't have the bandwidth to dig this rabbit hole, but I already have many ideas about how to improve performance when the file grows really big.
Thanks for responding and your thoughts! Generally agreed with all you said.
However, I feel like maybe a different approach could be to store all the app state in the DB, and then export to this text only format when needed; like when interacting with LLMs or when someone wants an export of their data.
Breaking the file into smaller blocks would necessarily need a cache system I guess, and then maybe you're implementing your own DB engine in the cache because you still want all the same functions of being able to query older records.
There's no easy answer I guess, just different solutions with different tradeoffs.
But what you've built is very cool! If I was still doing text based accounting I would have loved this.
My somewhat limited understanding of this is that from your perspective, an increase in your asset/cash account would be a debit.
A big confusion for me initially was that my banks always talked about crediting my account whenever money was deposited/added to my account.
I finally understood it when I realized that from the banks perspective, an increase in my account is an increase in their liability towards me; they now owe me more money. Which is why they call it crediting my account.
So now I think of it like this: an increase in an asset is always a debit, an increase in liability is always a credit.
Most of the listed features are incremental updates over the previous model; the MK3. However, as someone who's been using 3D printers for about 3 years, I'd say the biggest improvement here is the automatic first layer calibration.
Until recently (most notably until the Bamboo Labs Carbon X1) you had to spend time setting up your printer to get a good first layer. This would involve changing the distance between the nozzle that lays out the melted plastic and the bed on which the model is printed. Because this distance varies not just between different units of the same printer, but also has to change based on what material (PLA, PETG, etc) you're printing with, it needed some knowledge to set correctly.
While that process did get much simpler (with most of it being automated), it still involved some tweaking on the part of the user. That's a problem for people who are new 3D printing. It meant that you couldn't start printing immediately after unboxing your printer. It also meant that you had to spend considerable time (a few hours at least in my case) figuring out what a "good first layer" means, and then tweaking your printer to print the first layer well.
With this update, you can now start printing immediately after unboxing your printer (after some minor assembly), which is a huge thing for people who are new to 3D printing.
When I got my first printer a few years ago, I remember having to spend a couple of hours initially learning how to do this calibration, and I didn't get great results until a few more weeks of learning and tweaking.
Note that this is from the perspective of a hobbyist. People using 3D printers on a commercial scale might find the other improvements to be a big thing for their use case.
A personal story about how writing helped me make a decision.
A few months back, I was job hunting due to tech layoffs and ended up with two offers from different startups. One was a 2-year-old YC company with a larger team, while the other was a brand-new startup where I'd be the first engineer, building the tech stack from the ground up.
Deciding between the two was tough, so I tried a creative exercise. I wrote draft emails to both hiring managers, explaining why I chose not to join their startup. After about 90 minutes, my preferences became clear.
The only reasons I had for joining the more established startup were job security and better work-life balance. Meanwhile, my passion for the new startup was evident in the email I wrote. This exercise helped me uncover my true feelings.
---
It was a very useful exercise; might be able to help someone else faced with this issue.
I'm sorry you feel this way, but maybe my experience can give you hope.
I moved countries in 2013, and barely had 1 friend after I moved. I had a few office colleagues I was friends with, but very rarely met with them outside of the office.
My days were similar to what you describe. Working long hours and then sitting at home with Netflix or Youtube. COVID has made it worst in your case unfortunately.
Here's what I learned which might help you:
- Watching movies or Youtube isn't necessarily a "waste" of time. It's just a way to spend time. You don't need to spend your time being productive or social. If the movies or videos let you pass the time in peace, enjoy that. I also enjoyed reading books back when I was living by myself, but the majority of my time was spent in "wasteful" activities like social media and movies. As long as it's a conscious decision to spend your time this way, I would suggest to not call it "wasted" time. You're spending time doing things that help you relax and unwind. It's not wasted.
- It took me a long time (> 2 years) to find a group of friends that I was happy being around. College is really the last time in my life when I made friends quickly. I think it's purely because being together for hours everyday over the course of years naturally builds friendships. Making friends after college takes time. As someone who is introverted, it took me even longer.
- The time I had to spend by myself was difficult at times, but that was just because of the way I had framed it then. Like you said, there's an expectation of how people your age have to act; go out and have fun. Ultimately it is someone else's expectations that you are enforcing on yourself. Find things that bring you some version of joy. Don't worry about what others expect you to do.
- Find hobbies. If you have a well paying job and low expenses, you should try your hand at different things. I've tried and given up on so many things over the years. A few; like 3D printing and FPV drone flying have stuck around. Again, I used to think that I was failing because I didn't stick with hobbies for a long time. I now realize that it would have been worse trying to force myself to spend my free time on things I didn't enjoy.
- Following up on the hobbies thing - find communities around your hobbies that you enjoy. It's a great way to make friends. Communities don't need to be in-person either. There are so many amazing people you can make friends with online through your interests.
Finally, working in-person with others in the office is a great way of accelerating friendships. Many in my current friends circle are people I met in the office, or people I met through my colleagues.
The last thing I'll end with is to not worry too much and give it time. That's essentially what helped me; giving it time.
A CLI app that converts my Excel based banking statements into a CSV that can be imported into the "You Need A Budget" budgeting app.
I needed this because my UAE bank (Emirates NBD) exports transactions in a weird deprecated format; SpreadsheetML. YNAB can't import this. And converting this manually took time and (a lot of) patience.
I usually try Advent of Code (https://adventofcode.com) every year with a new language I'm interested in. So far it's allowed me to get respectable knowledge of:
- Go
- Rust
- Clojure
Hoping to try out Elixir for this year.
I also sometimes build Conways Game of Life in a new language for fun.
Just now, after reading this article, I used Claude code and have removed the OMZ config within 5 minutes. Here's my prompt - maybe others could find it useful. I ran this from `~/.oh-my-zsh`.
``` Here's my zsh config - I'd like to remove oh-my-zsh and replace the provided functionality with just raw zsh. i use starship for my prompt so i don't need any help there.
--- CLAUDE RESPONSE --- Minimal Raw Zsh Replacement ```Granted I've only done this like 5 minutes ago and might be missing functionality I'll realise later, but a quick few checks give me hope I have all the functionality I want.
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