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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?

#241

Post by nickysielicki »

zeroxfe wrote: post #5

- 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.

> 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.

Have you heard of/tried rr? I think you might find that it fits your thought process better than traditional debuggers.

https://rr-project.org/

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

#243

Post by aggronn »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #193
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/…

Re: i3wm I installed it a couple years ago, went whole hog, down the rabbit hole, but realized a couple of things. 1. I rarely ever use anything more than a simple L/R split. 2. When I do use something more complex, it's almost always in the terminal, in which case why not use tmux? These days I'm back to using gnome because ubuntu switched to it over unity (which had a weird multitouch bug that drove me crazy). What…

My typical setup is that I have a single desktop for each project I'm working in. Web projects split into 4 panes. Top left, browsers (different chrome profiles running in different i3 tabs), bottom left dev console (same), top right vscode, bottom right, i3 tabs for all the consoles I have open (`npm run`s, git, etc). For go projects I have full left split IDE, ssh in to vagrant top right, bottom right are local consoles (tabbed) for building/running tests/etc.

This would not be possibly if I wasn't using 4k monitors. That was a big shift for me, because now I think of each 4k monitor as 4 1080p displays.

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

#244

Post by pathartl »

An actual debugger. I started as a PHP/WP dev and spent many hours running results through echo or var_dump. IMO the debugger is the absolute first thing you need to learn about the platform you're writing for. Without it, you're taking shots in the dark and you truly don't know how your code is executing.

It seriously pains me to see people not using one. I have a friend who is taking an online PHP backend class. There was one lecture on debugging, and all it consisted of was "here's what using var_dump looks like". I showed my friend how to actually set breakpoints in their JS code, set watches, etc and they felt cheated by their class. They should.

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

#246

Post by 0xADEADBEE »

karatestomp wrote: post #227
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

I must forget to give grep an filesystem path argument at least 10% of the time I invoke it. What I'm intending to do in all of those cases is recursively grep in the current directory. "Warning: recursive search of stdin" might be my most-seen console error message.

This used to happen to me constantly. I fixed it accidentally in switching to Ripgrep [0] which defaults to recursively searching the current directory. Bonus: it parallelises too!

Honourable mention also to FZF [1] which not only makes it trivial to locate a file in a directory tree, but has revolutionised my history use with its fuzzy matching.

[0] - https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep

[1] - https://github.com/junegunn/fzf

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

#247

Post by ninjakeyboard »

Learning functional programming will make you a better developer in all languages IMO. This is the single biggest vector for understanding how to write maintainable code.

Similarly learning design patterns will probably make you a worse programmer but learning the heuristics behind them (eg composition over inheritance) will make you a better programmer.

Learning DDD will make you a better programmer by understanding how to use bounded contexts to manage complexity as software grows.

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

#248

Post by srich36 »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #193
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/…

Re: i3wm I installed it a couple years ago, went whole hog, down the rabbit hole, but realized a couple of things. 1. I rarely ever use anything more than a simple L/R split. 2. When I do use something more complex, it's almost always in the terminal, in which case why not use tmux? These days I'm back to using gnome because ubuntu switched to it over unity (which had a weird multitouch bug that drove me crazy). What…

While I do use i3 for more than L/R splits with stacking etc. the largest benefit I get from it is workspace management.

I use i3 with polybar and have dedicated workspace icons (web browser, terminal, editor, to-do, email, music, etc) for quick navigation between different applications. Over time I’ve built up muscle memory (i.e $Mod+3 will bring me to my editor) that has significantly sped up my development process. While you could use another window manager for a similar purpose, I find the relatively minimalist approach of i3 + polybar in my case to be fast and highly configurable.

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

#249

Post by jaeckel »

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

I'm always puzzled how often the wheel gets re-invented ... https://git-scm.com/docs/git-config#Documentation/git-config...
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