perf and pprof.
Ask HN: Which tools have made you a much better programmer?
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Re: Ask HN: Which tools have made you a much better programmer?
#92magit
Re: Ask HN: Which tools have made you a much better programmer?
#93- Solid editor: I've used a few editors and IDEs in the past. I think a learning to use a programmable editor is a better investment than learning to work with an IDE. IDEs are generally single purpose: working very good for a limited selection of languages, platforms, etc. Having a good editor at your disposal allows you to manipulate any text oriented (and sometimes binary) format. When your editor is programmable and has an active community, you can probably find a plugin to solve your problem more effectively or write something yourself, with your editor! With all your customizations in code, you can manage your editor in the same way as you manage your products: source control! This gives you the possibility to improve your daily working environment reliably and iteratively. IMO, Vim and Emacs are both very good options. Both were created decades ago and still have very active communities. Personally prefer Emacs and use vim on occasion for remote work.
- Learn basic vim and emacs keybinds: most interactive shells use readline (or similar) library. These shells often have emacs keybindings by default. Vim is often the alternative option. This was an eye opener while learning emacs: suddenly I started to understand how to efficiently navigate any shell, even remote systems, without configuration!
- Tcl: Easy to learn, hard to master and powerful! Syntax and semantics can be explained in 12 bullet points[1]. Bundled with the native tk library, its my goto language for quick-n-dirty GUI tools and prototypes. The "every thing is a string" principle makes it extremely flexible. Apart from quick-n-dirty, it's also used for stable tools such as expects, gitk and environment modules. Even sqlite and redis started as tcl scripts!
- POSIX shell scripting and core utils: write once run anywhere.
Re: Ask HN: Which tools have made you a much better programmer?
#94- 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/…
My life was also improved with some additional aliases in my git config:
[alias] dfif = diff idff = diff grpe = grep
Re: Ask HN: Which tools have made you a much better programmer?
#95Years ago I switched from Mac OS/Apple when I became a developer/data scientist to linux based system. (ubuntu)
I understand there are similarities between MAC OS and Linux... etc. Being on the same OS as most of the web servers saved me time in learning the basics of linux, bash, etc.
Also at the time I couldn't afford to keep buying new software license.
The only enterprise software I use is Navicat for user frienldly interface into databases.
Re: Ask HN: Which tools have made you a much better programmer?
#96The 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.
Seconded, although to be fair the choice of IDE doesn't really matter as long as it's relatively good. When I moved from vim to Jetbrains, one of the biggest things was seeing all the small errors including spelling mistakes. Being able to easily see and fix minor syntax errors or things like missing variables etc really makes a difference, especially when you are working on a codebase where that was missing for a long time.
If anyone is an emacs/vim user it's certainly worthwhile to enable similar error reporting plugins to get the same effect
Re: Ask HN: Which tools have made you a much better programmer?
#97Using a step debugger and stepping through all the code I just wrote, or using it to explore code other people wrote.
Surprisingly this seems to be a very uncommon use for a debugger, some programmers are mislead by the name and only use it for actual debugging ;)
Re: Ask HN: Which tools have made you a much better programmer?
#98Git and grep!
I use ripgrep (`rg`) much more than I use grep now. Wish I'd discovered it sooner.
Re: Ask HN: Which tools have made you a much better programmer?
#99An automated test suite with snapshots and contracts for data.
Re: Ask HN: Which tools have made you a much better programmer?
#100- 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/…
My life was also improved with some additional aliases in my git config: [alias] dfif = diff idff = diff grpe = grep
I handle this case with auto-correction for all one off errors via .