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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?

#141

Post by abhiyerra »

inetsee wrote: post #135
tych0 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My life was also improved with some additional aliases in my git config: [alias] dfif = diff idff = diff grpe = grep

Years ago Interlisp (does anybody here remember Interlisp?) had a function called DWIM (AKA Do What I Mean). It was an (optionally enabled) part of the REPL. If you typed something that made no sense, DWIM would try to figure out what you really meant to type, and offered to run the corrected command. I have often wondered why that functionality disappeared, and why no one has tried to resurrect it. Search engines of…

Zsh has this. But it mostly drives me mad.

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

#142

Post by AdrianB1 »

benjohnson wrote: post #47

Putting this in my hosts file helped me maintain my focus. 127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com 127.0.0.1 reddit.com 127.0.0.1 facebook.com

Lol, same for Facebook here. I don't have an account (I had one years ago), but the Internet is full of FB links. Considering doing the same for Twitter, even if I never used it (it is not so popular in Europe).

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

#143

Post by hota_mazi »

romes wrote: post #123

Flycut. It's a clipboard manager. I hit cmd+shift+v and I can scroll through my previous clipboard states. It's an amazing upgrade from a one-state-only-clipboard life. "Flycut is a clean and simple clipboard manager for developers. It based on an open source app called Jumpcut. Flycut is also open source too: http://github.com/TermiT/flycut"

If you're using Windows 10, you already have this: press Windows-v.

The clipboard can also be shared across your Windows devices.

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

#144

Post by andrethegiant »

tych0 wrote: post #94
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/…

My life was also improved with some additional aliases in my git config: [alias] dfif = diff idff = diff grpe = grep

You might be interested in https://github.com/nvbn/thefuck

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

#145

Post by superasn »

scanr wrote: post #26

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.

Yes, I would agree with that. If you make websites there is just nothing better than PHPStorm. It is one of the program that just works and makes your life a hell easier. Also a huge shoutout to 'lazyone' on SO for always answering my questions. It's one of the rare companies that actually understand what you're saying instead of just pasting canned replies.

BTW I'm not affiliated with them but they're having a 50% discount sale right now.. iirc 25 birthday sale. They seldom give out discounts, so this is a great time to upgrade too.

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

#147

Post by dunefox »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #115

- Git - quite self-explanatory - Visual Studio Code - I like more than the paid version (that I have a subscription for) - SQL Server Management Studio execution plan modes - it is a gem that few people know about and even fewer can utilize it effectively to make 10 second queries run in 30 milliseconds. - Composer (PHP) as my first encounter with package management, years ago. - Notepad++ - the only mini-tool availa…

There is a paid version of VS Code?

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

#148

Post by cosmotic »

Jetbrains tools help point out better ways to do the same task and learn about new language features by identifying slow or compatible code then instantly refactoring to the better or newer version for you. It makes learning new language features easy because it gives you examples in context with code you're familiar with. (among many other ways the jetbrains tools are great)

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

#149

Post by heinrichhartman »

Lots of great tips/tools here. Let me add this to the list:

Dash https://kapeli.com/dash

Makes browsing documentation really fast and convenient. Have that bound to F1 in my emacs to lookup the current word at point. So you instantly zap to man pages, lua reference manual, python docs, perl docs, ... you name it. Highly recommended.

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

#150

Post by jordanpg »

Jetbrains IDEs have been mentioned already, but I'll add a specific feature of Jetbrains IDEs, the Productivity Guide[0].

This contains a list of keyboard shortcuts and tracks your usage or non-usage of them, identifying various ways you can speed up your workflow in the IDE using keyboard shortcuts instead of the mouse.

Building on this, the Key Promoter[1] plugin will notify you when you could have used a shortcut instead of the mouse.

Reclaim seconds of your life wasted moving the mouse around.

[0] https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/productivity-guide.html

[1] https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/9792-key-promoter-x

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