rs485 and serial ISP I made a couple of arduino mini pro and esp8266 pcbs with an rs485 transceiver just to find out that I forgot to think about in-system-programming:

Assuming that I don't need to disable the transceiver i tied *RE/DE to gnd/vcc. It turned out that id do need disable the transceiver (at least the receiving part) in order to be able to program the mcu because otherwise the transceiver disrupts the serial data.

But I don't want to lose one pin for this (which in case of an esp8266 are rare) and I don't want to use jumpers because I really like the workflow without.

Is this even possible? 

EDIT: The transceiver is an SP3485.
Currently it is connected like:

Mini Pro     SP3485
A-rx ------  RO
GND  --1k-- *RE   A  ---- somwhere else
Vcc  --1k--  DE   B  ----        "
A-tx ------  DI


Which blocks serial programming because of a) the "echo" and b) holding A-rx line high.

If I connect *RE --1k-- Vcc and DE --1k-- GND I can ISP the Arduino, but now I obviously can't use the transceiver anymore.
I can't understand the purpose of connecting *RE/DE to GND/Vcc. With
this setup, the driver inside the transceiver is always enabled, and
it's always driving the A/B pair. Meaning the device at the other end of
the link cannot drive the pair itself without making a collision.
Basically you have a simplex link, where the Pro Mini is always the
sender.

The normal way to connect an RS-485 transceiver is to have DE driven by
a GPIO pin of the MCU. You pull this pin HIGH when you want to talk, and
leave it LOW the rest of the time so you can hear other devices talking.
The *RE pin is connected either to GND (if you want to hear the echo of
what you say) or to DE (if you don't).

That being said, you are correct in that the transceiver may cause
problems when uploading the firmware on the Pro Mini. One possible
solution is to put a resistor between RO and A-RX. The TX of the FTDI
cable should have a low output impedance and be able to overpower that
resistor. Another option is to use ICSP (in-circuit serial programming)
instead of going through the bootloader. It would be easier if you can
put an ICSP header on your board.