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How to be a Tarzan developer 🏕️💻

Let’s talk about optimizing our time away from our systems—because sometimes, we gotta code from the wild.

What is it? 🤔

A Tarzan Developer is someone who can code from anywhere—even from a jungle, dodging wild monkeys while fixing merge conflicts.

Yeah, I just made this up. But hear me out—with modern tech, you can actually pull this off. Remote access, mobile development, and cloud tools have come so far that you can write code while chilling on a tree branch (hypothetically).

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Why? 🚀

Because life isn’t always fair.

I travel weekly from home to the office, and during that time, my beloved personal PC sits at home, alone, missing me 😢. But my work (and curiosity) got me thinking—can I still code without it?

Spoiler alert: Yes. And it felt amazing. For a while. Then reality hit.

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How? 🛠️

Alright, let’s break it down. Setting up a system that lets you work from anywhere takes just three simple steps:

  1. Set Up Your Personal Computer 🏡💻

    1. First, make sure your PC is accessible remotely. I used Tailscale to create a mesh network, which basically means my PC is always just a secure tap away.
    2. Setup SSH (because without it, you’re just pretending to be a hacker).

  2. Set Up Your Mobile Device 📱

    1. Install Tailscale on your phone. Connect it to the network, and now your phone can talk to your PC (hopefully in a civilized manner).
    2. Install Termux (or any SSH terminal app). Now your mobile can be your gateway to the coding jungle.

  3. Use a Terminal-Based IDE 🧑‍💻

    1. You need a code editor that runs inside a terminal. I used Neovim with LazyVim—but that’s a rant for another day. Let’s just say, it was an emotional rollercoaster.

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Who is this even for? 🎯

Honestly? I thought it was for me, but it turns out… I am NOT a Tarzan developer. 🏴‍☠️

It was fun at first—felt like I was in Watch Dogs, hacking into systems from my phone. But after a few days, I realized…

Is it Worth it? 🤷

✅ YES. Because it’s free. If I had to pay for it, I’d just use a proper virtual desktop like Azure Virtual Desktop (which, fun fact, I actually used, and it works great).

🚨 BUT there’s a problem:

Tailscale does NOT auto-reconnect once disconnected. So if my phone lost connection, I had to go back home, manually restart it, and cry a little. alt text

Final Thoughts 🌲

Being a Tarzan Developer isn’t easy. But if you love hacking on the go and don’t mind tiny screens and occasional rage quits, it’s totally worth trying.

For me? It was a fun experiment. But I think I’ll stick to my big-boy PC for actual work.