I am a node.js developer and in my everyday development I mostly have node.js , mongodb servers running, bash is my default shell, I was using sublimetext as my default editor until textmate was opensourced yesterday!

dotfiles are great way to manage your development environment. After doing things repeatedly, over and over again, I came up with some scripts which eased my job. All you need to know is bash scripting.

This is how I have organized my dev box.

~/local - all custom built stuff (servers, db servers etc) ~/code - all the projects you work on ~/bin - custom bash scripts if you are using any

My dotfiles contain the following

  • .gitconfig - which is the global git-config
  • .bashrc - which sources some additional scripts
    • completions - some bash completions
    • aliases - some alias commands
    • paths - exports some custom paths (~/bin for example)
    • prompt - PS1 which shows git branch
    • extras - which has some custom functions defined
    • paths - has some custom paths that I have added to $PATH
    • bookmarks - is a simple tool to bookmark any folder. You can use it like $ bookmark rails and then $ go rails

I also use z which is a folder jumping tool. You should definitely try this! If you are planning to install my dotfiles make sure you have the above mentioned folders created. I use a mac and my favourite font is Menlo 13pt. This is how it looks