Getting started with dotfiles

Setting up a new development environment can be a time consuming thing, but it doesn't have to be! That's where dotfiles come in.

Dotfiles are essentially files that are used to customize your system, and they are named as such because the configuration files often start with a dot (you know, like .bash_profile, .zshrc, etc).

I'm storing my dotfiles here. At the moment, I just copy or symlink them to existing config files, but you can get real fancy and create an installation script if you want.

A symlink is a symbolic link that creates a shortcut to another file. So let's say I installed this dotfiles repo on a new computer and wanted to link the config files to my current config files (usually in the home directory, ~). I would do something like:

ln -sv "~/.dotfiles/git/.gitconfig" ~
ln -sv "~/.dotfiles/zsh/.zshrc" ~

Boom! dotfiles setup 🌟