Who are you, and what do you do?

I’m Clément. I’m a developer, working primarily with Haskell, at Fretlink. I’m really into functional programming, so even outside of work, I tend to read about it, write about it, and play with functional languages.

Apart from that, I’m practicing archery and I spend some time reading books. Some people say I spend too much time chatting on Twitter as well. Maybe it’s true. Who knows?

What hardware do you use?

I use my company-issued ThinkPad X1 Carbon. I work from home but travel to Paris every week to meet the team, so a lightweight laptop is really important. At home, I have a Lenovo P24h-10 screen that serves as a docking station. My keyboard and trackball are plugged to it, so I only have the one USB-C cable going out of my laptop.

I recently got a standing desk adapter to be able to work standing up with my infant daughter in a baby sling. Writing some Haskell and playing Air’s Moon Safari is the best combo for getting her to sleep.

In addition to my ErgoDox EZ, I have a Logitech MX Ergo Trackball. Both are on a dedicated tray so cables are neatly hidden.

And what software?

My laptop runs on NixOS, a Linux distribution based on the Nix package manager, and my desktop environment is i3. It’s a tiled window manager designed to be keyboard-first.

I’m not an IDE guy; I use a text editor called Kakoune. It’s heavily inspired by Vim, with a special focus on simplicity and composability.

In my day-to-day work, I use Stack to compile Haskell, Nix to manage packages, Slack to converse with my colleagues, and Firefox for everything else.

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

I have a black ErgoDoxEZ Glow with blank keycaps and Cherry MX Blue switches. I’ve added custom keycaps to a couple keys that I want to have easy access to when I’m not touch-typing (arrow keys, Esc, Backspace, and Return).

I’m using the French “bépo” layout, but it’s configured at the OS level since I use both my ErgoDox and my laptop keyboard. Bépo makes full use of the keyboard, so I had to move some keys here and there to make everything available on the primary layer. Dual function keys were instrumental in this.

What would be your dream setup?

I’m left-handed, but I grew up learning to use right-handed pointing devices. Right now, I have a Logitech MX Ergo Trackball, but I’d like to replace it with an ambidextrous model. Apart from that, I’m quite happy with my setup.