office faq

This FAQ refers to my home office in Salt Lake City. These are real questions that people have asked on IRC or other forums. According to an informal IRC poll, interest in my home office exploded after this post started floating around the innertubes.

First, here's an overview of the room:

On with the FAQ:

How big is the office?

120 sq ft. But don't worry, I don't hog all that cavernous space to myself! I share it with my wife and 2 others.

I bought this card table in college. I switched to a real desk for a while but it was too big and got in the way, so I sold it and went back to the card table.

How do you work with such a tiny screen?

I spend all day in a text editor. 80 columns should be good enough for anybody.

Three pennies. I have no idea where these came from.

Genuine Ikea furniture.

Wood floor + wheely chair?

It's just as awesome as it sounds. And the wood floor covers the entire upstairs of the house. Who says you gotta stand up to grab a snack from the kitchen?

What an ominous-looking door. Where could it lead?

That is not for man to know.

Some of the native flora and fauna. She bites.

Is that Macvim? Haven't you tried Textmate?

Yes, that's Macvim. Yes, I tried Textmate back when it was first released, in fact I used it for 8 months and even presented a Textmate tricks and tips session at a local user group. Vim drew me back in the end, just like it always does.

By the way, if Apple would get off their butts and release a quality tablet mac w/keyboard, I could finally get rid of that yellow legal pad.

Whoa, is that a 2001 Hyundai Accent parked outside? I've always wanted one of those!!!

Well this is your lucky day, because that car is for sale! Act now, it won't last long.

My inbox, and my outbox. For maximum convenience, the inbox is situated so that it can be dropped en masse directly into the outbox.

Is the shredder really necessary?

Oh yes.

Recently I was forced to start sharing my office due to the economic crisis.

And that is that

In all seriousness, I'm glad that Mitch Haile has an office that he loves and is so uniquely his. Don't take any of this as a slight against you Mitch, it's simply another perspective. I just can't understand why on earth anybody would want to surround themselves with so much stuff!

I'm working on 3-5 different projects on any given day, and my dual-monitor setup has never once felt too small. I haven't bought an actual physical programming book in years, and I've sold or donated almost all of the ones I did own. One of my projects is a distributed software system that runs across entire data centers, but I prefer to leave the server farm where it belongs -- in another city, not in my closet.

Often I'm not even working in this office. Salt Lake City has no shortage of wonderful coffee shops, libraries, parks and other destinations with everything I need to be productive: a seat, a table, a power outlet and an Internet connection. During the Summer you'll rarely even find me indoors -- I typically work out on my back porch, glass of iced tea by my side. Maybe I'll post a follow-up tour when Spring warms things up a bit more.

I'd love to hear from others, and see their home office setups. Drop me a line with comments and/or criticism, and I'll post a follow-up.