Ask HN: Which tools have made you a much better programmer? • Hacker News Board

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

#21

Post by robbyt » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

Using multiple programming languages.

Using Golang has helped me create better data structures, and using C helped me understand linking, using python helped me understand closures, and using Ruby helped me understand that I hate programming.

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

#22

Post by Jeaye » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 5:18 PM UTC

- GNU/Linux + i3wm; complete control over my programming environment.

- bash + GNU coreutils; seriously, take the time to be able to write helpful bash scripts which can run basically anywhere.

- git; use it even when you're not pushing to a remote. Add helpful aliases for everyday commands. Build a good mental model of commits and branches to help you through tough merges. ( my ~/.gitconfig: https://gist.github.com/jeaye/950300ff8120950814879a46b796b3... )

- Regex; combined with bash and your GNU tools, a lot can be done.

- Vim; modal editing and vi-like navigation can blow open your mind. Explore the existing plugins to accomplish everything you want to be able to do. It's all there. ( my ~/.vimrc: https://github.com/jeaye/vimrc )

- Functional programming; if you're new to this, start with Clojure, not one of the less-practical languages. This has made such a huge impact on the way I think about code, write code, and design code that it's possibly the biggest one here for me.

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

#23

Post by nivethan » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 5:20 PM UTC

Jeaye wrote: post #22

- GNU/Linux + i3wm; complete control over my programming environment. - bash + GNU coreutils; seriously, take the time to be able to write helpful bash scripts which can run basically anywhere. - git; use it even when you're not pushing to a remote. Add helpful aliases for everyday commands. Build a good mental model of commits and branches to help you through tough merges. ( my ~/.gitconfig: https://gist.github.com/…

For a very long time I didn't use anything besides just plain vim, 2 biggest things to add to your vim use is undodir and YouCompleteMe. Crazy that I didn't have either of these for so long, undodir I wish was part of the default.

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

#24

Post by herve76 » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 5:21 PM UTC

Github

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

#25

Post by city41 » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 5:22 PM UTC

Here is a similar conversation from about a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23118940

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

#26

Post by scanr » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 5:22 PM UTC

The Jetbrains suite. Lightens the cognitive load, makes it easier to refactor and keep code tidy. All of which allow me build better software.

For almost everything else e.g. git, learning how to use the command line instead of a UI is the best way for me to learn how the tooling works.

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

#27

Post by tonyedgecombe » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 5:22 PM UTC

ReSharper, I probably wouldn't have got around to understanding LINQ without its regular prompts.

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

#28

Post by entropicmind » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 5:22 PM UTC

randylahey wrote: post #2

Choice of editor is subject to taste, but I find VI/Vim keybindings and modal editing an absolute must-have for productivity.

I agree. When first learning Vim the learning curve is very steep for what feels like basically advanced cursor moving but with more experience it becomes a very powerful text editor. Last week another I had a 10,000 line file that was the output of a bash command with two columns and each column was in quotes. I needed to remove the first column and the quotes around the second column. There are many ways to do it but all I had to do was open up vim and type `qaAT"d0jq` and `10000@a` and cleaned it right up.

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

#29

Post by foepys » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 5:23 PM UTC

itqwertz wrote: post #20

MacBook Pro. After years of dealing with a Windows workstation, I went into credit card debt to purchase a quality laptop computer for my development needs. I have had the same one for 6 years and found little reason to buy a new MBP.

Lenovo ThinkPads are similar in build quality and processing power while being significantly cheaper and they have a usable keyboard. Same for Dell XPS, I believe, but my company is using ThinkPads.

Windows is usable even for node and git development nowadays.

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

#30

Post by piinbinary » Tue, Jun 09, 2020, 5:23 PM UTC

I'm going to re-interpret the question more broadly than just "tools" (unless you consider a technique to be a kind of tool):

* Taking good notes

* Writing good plans, good documentation

* Sharing updates and coordinating with the right people at the right time

* Understanding an unfamiliar codebase

* Test frameworks

* Different design techniques (pure functions, dataflow programming, etc)

* The terminal and related features (like emacs bindings, or middle-click to paste last selection)

* Firefox/Chrome devtools

* Emacs keyboard macros