JASC Paint Shop Pro 7.04 from 2001. Still by bitmap editor of choice. Unfortunately all versions after that were crap and the 7.04 lacks alpha channel support when copying to or pasting from the clipboard. But man, am I fast with that tool.
Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)
271–280 of 574 posts
Re: Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)
#272Vimium. Vim-like shortcuts for the browser. I can't name any other tool or extension that gives me anywhere near the productivity boost of Vimium. I spend probably half of my work day plus a few hours a day in my spare time in the browser, and it makes navigating the browser feel like butter. When I'm tired and don't want to be glued to my desk, I can relax and surf with one hand which just feels incredible. I quickl…
There's also Tridactyl, which is a similar project, but more customizable. https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl
Re: Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)
#273- Listary: a launcher (double press crtl to open)
- silversearcher ag
- total commander
- Obsidian
- chrome extension: "I don't care about cookies" will remove all the annoying gdpr cookie popups.
- espanso : highly customizable text expander (eg type :myip to replace it with your current ip using your fav scripting language)
- sqlyog : sql client with awesome power features I never seen before: eg schema and data comparision between 2 db sources.
- manictime: a time tracking software which also takes screenshots. You can then go back and see what you did and how long.
Re: Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)
#274make, dbx, vi, sed, awk, cut, paste, (s)diff, (f/e)grep, comm, sort, col, column, bash, csh, ksh, man, find, cvs, svn, date, f77/xlf, cc/xlc, bcc, TeX, ghostview
Re: Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)
#275LSP. The Language Server Protocol. Entirely changed my life for the better this year, once I took the time to get it integrated into Emacs and get the various backends I needed installed. Easily has saved me hundreds of hours so far, being able to view function prototypes quickly, pull up documentation as an overlay on the code, jumping to the next error, and even down to getting simple things like enumerated 'case'…
I was going to say the same. Before LSP it was constant effort to keep up with changing tools/scripts/hacks to keep all the code navigation/completion working, and it was still never as good as its now. And once in a while I'd randomly have to look at some code that is not my primary work language, but everything will just work out of the box. Working with Emacs has never been better. Huge shoutout to Magit mode, whi…
The only mystifying thing to me about Emacs' LSP support has been the fact that they chose to bring Eglot into Emacs core, instead of the (in my opinion) superior LSP-mode.
Re: Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
IDEs like this are definitely kludgy and slow but the productivity gain from code navigation, test tool integration, profiler, and debugger is just insane (imo). Having a tool that helps you visualize the code (while it's running) is incredibly powerful
slow? i use both pycharm and webstorm and their are definitely neither kludgy nor slow...
Curious, why not just used IntelliJ with the plugins for python?
I’ve never used the standalone apps. Do they provide a better experience?
Re: Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)
#277Of all the software I can think of quickly, the one I think may have saved the most time in my life is Google Maps.
This is the single software that made me maximize my travels. Removing the fear of getting lost is life changing.
Re: Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)
#278Not a program, but the concept of functional programming and pure functions. It makes it a lot easier to think about code, and also makes it easier to test and parallelize code. Although be warned, it can also have the "side-effect" (functional programming pun!) of making you somewhat insufferable as you try to convince everyone around you that functional programming is amazing.
At my job I was introduced to functional programming with Python with strong typing. I was at first rushing implementing ~50 business rules (which changed weekly) on the setup of a system. Then this functional wise kid came along and we did in one week what took me 5 weeks. Along with that, using MQTT to separate your program with Protobuf makes everything so much easier. Program crashes? Let it burn and let systemd…
Can you share more about Python with strong typing?
Re: Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)
#279Shell productivity tools like fish, fzf and z.
Feels like doing parkour on the command line!
Re: Ask HN: Programs that saved you 100 hours? (2022 edition)
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've tried to migrate to something more lightweight like (neo)?vim, Helix, emacs; but regardless of how good their syntax awareness/LSP support is, it's always inferior to JetBrains IDEs. Simple example: (any language, e.g. Rust) rename a function across multiple files and undo it. Let me know how you'd do it in your editor of choice.
Go, command line: $ gorename -from '"my-package".myFunc' -to myRenamedFunc
I would say that’s a fairly trivial example. How about renaming a method? Or, moving a class to a different file?