Ask HN: Which tools have made you a much better programmer?

Getting better at coding is usually a long, slow process of study and practice. However, sometimes I run into something that's easy to understand and, once I'm using it, feels like I've leveled up.

A few personal examples are: * version control - specifically, reading up on git and understanding the more complex commands * debuggers * flame graphs for performance debugging * good code search

What have you added to your workflow that's made you much more productive?

intellisense and friends.

As a junior developer, method documentation and autocomplete on demand are crutches i leaned on VERY heavily with great success.

- Version control

- Unit testing

- Leak detectors (for languages like C/C++)

- Race detectors

- Auto-formatting (eslint, gofmt)

- A solid editor (prev: vim, now: vscode)

- One-step deployment scripts/automation (even for small projects)

I have not found a lot of value in debuggers, outside of after-the-fact debugging (e.g., core files.) I much prefer printf-style debugging.

Doing lots of small test or benchmark programs to better understand how the language works.

* `perf top`

* `scan-build`

* https://github.com/pwndbg/pwndbg, a very comprehensive gdb extension/config.