Who are you, and what do you do? What do you like to do outside of work?

I’m Adrian, a frontend web developer, a DJ, and a language-learning enthusiast (quite terrible at it, unfortunately).

I help guide product design and do frontend (and sometimes backend) development work in a small team at a software development/consulting company called Makhongele.

I primarily work in the JavaScript/React.js/Node ecosystem, a powerful stack for building modern web applications today.

I hold a B.Eng degree in Computer Science from Ocean University of China. Initially, when I started out, I intended to be a mobile/iOS developer, but I fell in love with the openness and flexibility of the web ecosystem and never looked back.

A music enthusiast at heart, I generally listen to a variety of genres including pop, hip-hop, house, Afro-beats, and EDM, and I’m usually open to exploring unfamiliar genres.

In the DJ space, I’m known as @dj_a.drivoe (or DJ A.D.), and I generally play music that is closely aligned with the genres I listen to, with a heavy emphasis on Amapiano as of late.

I’m also decently conversational in Chinese (Mandarin, aka 中文, 普通话), which I picked up during my time living in Qingdao (青岛) and have been fascinated by the process of language learning ever since. I’ve been trying to teach myself Italian in my spare time (on and off) and I am always curious about the similarities and differences of language constructs and cultural perspectives across different languages and cultures.

What hardware do you use?

I own a very minimal yet effective hardware setup. For a long time, I was using a mid-2014 Apple MacBook Pro 6th gen Intel (a testament to Apple’s great hardware and software optimization), and recently switched to a 2021 M1 Pro MacBook Pro and have been happy with how well it performs whilst staying cool and silent (I’ve yet to hear its fan spin). Pair that with a single 27” 1080p Samsung LS27C… display, and not forgetting the ZSA Moonlander, my very first split mechanical ergonomic keyboard (more on that later). I also got myself a Rayswitch 360 laptop stand that raises my laptop to eye level when working on the desk, reducing the strain on my neck.

For my DJing setup, I primarily use a Numark Mixtrack Pro FX, a compact controller that packs a mean punch when it comes to features whilst still being portable and lightweight, which I usually connect to my older 2014 MacBook Pro, as it is not a standalone controller. The last crucial piece of my setup is my trusty EcoFlow River Pro 712 kWh UPS, which has been a lifesaver on certain days when we experience power interruptions.

And what software?

I use Alacritty terminal in place of the default Mac terminal. I’ve been daily driving Vim (classic Vim) as my IDE of choice for about 2½ years now and have been happy with my config overall. I’m also experimenting with my new Neovim config, but making that switch has taken a while, and I will probably continue using Vim until I can get my Neovim config to full feature parity with my current classic Vim config.

A few of the pillars of my Vim config:

• vim-fugitive for resolving commits and other Git-related tasks;
• Vimspector for debugging;
• Tokyo Night (for Vim), a beautiful theme (repo has been archived though);
• fzf for all my fuzzy-finding needs;
• and lastly, coc.nvim, a plug-in that acts as the default manager for all my language servers, linters, and formatters, and comes with its own ecosystem of extensions for nearly all programming languages.

And since I use Vim, it means I generally use the keyboard way more than the mouse/touchpad. After a couple of hours of typing on a laptop/regular keyboard, I start to feel pain in my wrists. This is what led me to get the ZSA Moonlander, which has been a game changer for me when working for long hours at my desk. The ortholinear keyboard layout helped me correct a lot of bad typing habits I had picked up from years of using a normal staggered-layout keyboard. The split nature of the Moonlander means I can position each half at the right spot and angle that allows me to type without extending my wrists. I think a lot more people should be thinking about getting split ergonomic keyboards (there are far more people in other fields who do more typing than I do).

I recently switched from Chrome to the Arc browser and will probably never go back. Specifically, the Spaces feature replaced the need for tab groups, which I had been using in Chrome. Moreover, it archives tabs (in each of those Spaces) that I haven’t used after a couple of days, reducing the chances of having a thousand tabs open (like most people still using Chrome do). Since the tabs appear on the sidebar, it’s much easier to read tab titles and find the exact tab I’m looking for within each Space. And whilst I’m working within a tab, the sidebar moves out of the way and auto-hides, leaving me with a distraction-free, spacious browsing experience.

I use Raycast as my launcher of choice, and it comes packed with lots of useful features like window management and snippets. I use Vimwiki (Vim plug-in) and Apple Notes for my note-taking needs. I generally lean towards Serato DJ Pro for DJing. It’s fast, clean, and intuitive—and it gives the best DJing experience, in my opinion. It also happens to be the software that works with my current controller. I only use rekordbox if I’m preparing my music to play at a venue that uses Pioneer DJ hardware. It is the software used by most world-class DJs and events.

What’s your keyboard setup like? Do you use a custom layout or custom keycaps?

When I got my ZSA Moonlander, I chose to stick with the default printed keycaps and went with the Cherry MX Brown key switches, which have been great so far.

I also decided to start with the default ZSA Moonlander layout layers and gradually changed small parts of the layout to suit my needs. A few highlights from my custom layout include replacing the Caps Lock key with the equal sign, as I use that symbol a lot in JavaScript programming. I moved the Escape key to my right red thumb key and relocated other commonly used keys to my thumb clusters, removing all the strain that my pinkie fingers have to deal with on a normal keyboard.

What would be your dream setup?

My dream setup would probably include the following:

• A monitor with 4K resolution or higher, e.g., the Apple Studio Display, to match my MacBook’s color profile;
• A Framework laptop for tinkering with Linux;
• A tenting kit for my ZSA Moonlander;
• Some LED strips or Philips Hue bulbs to add some background light behind the screen and balance the contrast in dark conditions;
• A Magic Trackpad to use when I’m working at my desk (it’s a bit of a pain to move my hand from the Moonlander onto my laptop’s trackpad on the laptop stand). I would probably put this between my two keyboard halves.

I wouldn’t mind getting an M2 MacBook Air to handle my DJing needs, and would definitely like owning a Pioneer XDJ-RX3, one of the best all-in-one professional DJ controllers out there.