Who are you, and what do you do?
I'm an artist who works with code, ink and paper. When I'm not making art, I work as a Software Engineer. Sometimes I do things related to Machine Learning.
It wasn't really my intention to become a programmer - or an artist - when I started studying mathematics (and physics) at Uni. I ended up taking a greater liking to the programming part than the mathematics, and here we are.
What hardware do you use?
My main workhorse is a desktop computer that I built some time ago. The goal was a combination of silence and performance. Highlights include a sound dampened tower (Fractal Design Define S, a surprisingly silent graphics card (MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming X), an i7 processor, 32 GBs of RAM, and a 512 GB M.2 disk. At the moment I have a 30" Lenovo (LT3053p) monitor, which I'm very happy with. After trying an embarrassingly large number of keyboards, I'm currently using a Kinesis Gaming Freestyle Edge keyboard with a lift kit. Next to it is a Logitech MX Anywhere 2.
Music needs are covered by a Cambridge Audio DacMagic Plus, and a pair of old Grado SR125s.
I have two EMSL Axidraws. An older A4 version, and a V3/A3. The Axidraws are excellent machines, and I can recommend them to anyone who wants to experiment with drawing machines.
Recently I also bought a 17" inkjet printer (Epson SC P800). Still in the process of working out how to get the results I want from it.
And what software?
My computer has dual boot with Windows 10 (out of necessity), and Ubuntu. Most of the time I don't need to start Windows at all. In Ubuntu I run AwesomeWM, and I pretty much live in the GNOME terminal.
For programming, I use a mixture of Common Lisp (SBCL), Python, and some JavaScript. The past few years I've been using Lisp almost exclusively when making art. It started as an experiment, where I wanted to learn something new. I ended up liking it quite a lot, and I've been using it since.
For version control I use Git, and I edit and write code in Neovim. Mostly stumbled into vim by accident, but now I can't use anything else.
I find Python very useful for making small utilities and tools. As an example here is a tool that makes file names based on the time and current git revision. And here is a tool for creating SVG files that can be plotted efficiently.
For quick image editing I use either Inkscape or GIMP. I also use Photoshop from time to time. Particularly when editing larger files, or when preparing for print.
What would be your dream setup?
I am fortunate enough to essentially have all the equipment and space I strictly speaking need. It would be amazing to have my own dedicated studio space, but my dream setup is more to do with time than space: I don't know what would happen if I suddenly had the opportunity to spend all my time and energy on art. I'd like to find out.