Dorian is a full-stack software engineer currently located in Northwest Indiana. He fell in love with programming as a teenager and has been developing software professionally for 20 years. He considers himself lucky to work on things that challenge and fulfill him. He found that his genuine interest in this craft has served him well in his career. He considers himself a product engineer and adopts a multidisciplinary approach to development that combines technical expertise, business acumen, and user-centric thinking.
Currently, he works as a Staff Software Engineer at Malomo, an eCommerce order tracking platform.
When he’s not behind a keyboard, he’s usually spending time with his wife and their dog Sagan. He also has several other hobbies which include playing the guitar, drums, and woodworking.
You can find more about Dorian here: Github, Blog, and Twitter
His current tech stack: Elixir, Phoenix - Web framework for Elixir, PostgreSQL, Kubernetes, TypeScript, React.
Neovim and Terminal
A lot of his config relies on the Lazy.nvim plugin manager, and uses lazy loading techniques to optimize start time. He spent time shaving off milliseconds because having a responsive environment makes a huge difference in productivity. At the time of writing, on a M2 Max MacBook Pro, it opens in ~22ms!
For the color scheme, he uses tokyonight.nvim: 🏙
He uses telescope for almost any fuzzy operation, except one - live grep. He found the live grep in Telescope lacking and limited, so he created his own using a combination of fzf.vim and RipGrep. This allows him to live search for text in the project and easily refine his search to certain file types/names/folders.
Favorite Tools
gh: GitHub CLI, he uses it for setting notifications when a workflow/deployment is done, and to create and edit PRs in Neovim.
delta: A syntax-highlighting pager for git, diff, and grep output.
fastmod: A fast partial replacement for the codemod tool using regex.
Homerow: It's like EasyMotion in Vim but for any app on macOS.
kindaVim: Vim anywhere on macOS.
Alfred (his alfred workflows).
Raycast: for AI functionality and quickly jumping into/copying info from repos/pull requests/Jira tickets etc.
Hyperkey: adds one more modifier to your keyboard.
Unicornleap: Makes unicorns leap across your screen when tests pass! 🦄
DataGrip: his preferred way to interact with SQL databases.
CleanShot X: indispensable screenshot + annotation tool.
Tmux: Terminal Multiplexer.
airmux: Tmux session manager written in Rust.
Alacritty: Terminal Emulator
Dotfiles
You can find his dotfiles here: ✨ My dev setup
His configuration is designed to facilitate keyboard-only navigation and minimize unnecessary movement, aiming to prevent repetitive strain injury (RSI) and maximize efficiency.
For zshell, he uses the zinit plugin manager with powershell10k prompt. Also, most of his scripts rely on fzf and gum.
Here are a few meta-features of my dotfiles:
I built my own interactive installer for my dotfiles using a combination of idempotent Ruby + bash scripts - this helps me recover quickly if something ever happens to my machine and keeps all my machines in sync (supports macOS and Debian-based distros)
My dotfiles have semantic versioning and automatic releases based on Conventional Commits. This served as a playground to test the release-please GitHub action for automatic versioning and changelog generation.
Currently, to my knowledge, there are at least four developers who are using a fork of my dotfiles. Therefore, I make an effort to document any breaking changes.
I have a few desktop apps built from terminal apps + iTerm + Apple Automator
BTop - allows launching btop as a desktop application
TerminalVim - allows opening files from macOS in a NeoVim "desktop app", and integrates well with Note Taker Alfred workflow, for quickly jotting down notes during meetings.
Desk Setup
Computer: MacBook Pro M2 Max 16"
Audio Interface: Rodecaster Pro (v1)
Microphone: Rode Procaster (Dynamic, XLR)
Headphones: AKG Pro Audio K240 STUDIO
Keyboard: Kono 67, Kalih Red Switches
Trackpad: Apple Magic Trackpad 2
U2F: OnlyKey
Automation Button: Flic
Docking Station: Anker 577
Desk gun: Bug-A-Salt 3.0 Classic Yellow with Bug Beam Laser
Fidget toy: PROHANDS PRO Finger Exerciser
Coaster: https://www.printables.com/model/77698-hexagon-coaster-set
Webcam: Logitech Brio 4k
Monitors: 2x LG 32UN880-B 32" UltraFine Display Ergo UHD 4K
Favorite Books
Technical:
Elixir in Action by Saša Jurić
The Pragmatic Programmer by Dave Thomas and Andrew Hunt.
Seven Concurrency Models in Seven Weeks by Paul Butcher.
Practical Object-Oriented Design by Sandi Metz.
Non-technical:
Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche.