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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?

#501

Post by month13 »

the_pwner224 wrote: post #270

TabNine: https://www.tabnine.com/blog/deep (the code are GIFs which I had to click to play) This thing is fucking magic. It's ML autocomplete, with help from 'traditional' autocomplete methods that use static analysis. Instead of just completing one token at a time like traditional completers, it can do entire sentences or multiple lines of code in one go, and is freakishly accurate. And since it parses language it h…

Disappointing to see the pricing model has changed; there used to be a license for unlimited project sizes, but now appears to be a $15/mo sub for their paid service.

Understandably, this was before they transitioned from on-device models to more complex, larger cloud models.

The free 400KB limit is quite generous, but you may need to spend time tuning the ignore if you have junk in your project folder.

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

#502

Post by anonu »

kdb/q: its a programming language more than a tool. But learning it has made me more efficient in other languages. It's vector approach to programming makes me think about how to leverage similar features in python for example. itertools library in Python is mostly inspired by APL, an ancestor of q

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

#503

Post by caseymarquis »

nickbauman wrote: post #494
caseymarquis wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I upvoted the parent and want to emphasize vim key bindings. This is not necessarily vim the editor, it's your editor of choice in vim mode. Learning to use vim is like learning to touch type: it's initially a pain, but it's hard to ever go back once you've mastered the basics. If you haven't learned to touch type (it happens, I didn't learn until I was 22), then first learn that, then learn vim. FYI: Remap your caps…

You don't need to know how to touchtype. Programmers are not a glorified typing pool. Furthermore, my father† has worked every job there is in a world class news organization since entering adulthood and never learned to touchtype. He could type 140 WPM.

Learning to touch type took roughly 10 hours over 2 weeks, and it made my life immeasurably better. Your (dad's?) mileage may vary.

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

#504

Post by Bnshsysjab »

OJFord wrote: post #338
Bnshsysjab wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> T he scratch windows (floating windows that you can toggle in/out of visibility based on a single keystroke Us the toggle an i3 concept? I’m interested in it, can you give me the function name so I can look up doco? :)

Not GP but I think it's `scratchpad toggle` - scratchpad is the keyword to lookup anyway.

Thanks, interesting concept that has some valid applications :)

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

#505

Post by kadams54 »

I wrote a blog post about this:

http://blog.testdouble.com/posts/2020-04-07-favorite-things/

Outside of that, I'd say linters and code formatters have a huge impact on my productivity and code quality. ShellCheck in particular has taught me oodles about shell scripting.

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

#506

Post by nickbauman »

caseymarquis wrote: post #503
nickbauman wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to know how to touchtype. Programmers are not a glorified typing pool. Furthermore, my father† has worked every job there is in a world class news organization since entering adulthood and never learned to touchtype. He could type 140 WPM.

Learning to touch type took roughly 10 hours over 2 weeks, and it made my life immeasurably better. Your (dad's?) mileage may vary.

What exactly improved?

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

#508

Post by soheyl »

cachestash wrote: post #153
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.

Just downloaded the GoLand 30 day trail. First impressions are I now remember how slow and stuck in goo java based IDEs feel. What cool stuff should I look at as I am willing to be sold on this.

I can compare it with VSCode. Goland is much better at working with multiple Go Versions, which is a big thing in my daily work. Other things that it does better than VS Code are auto-generating unit tests, refactoring function signatures, better package management support, easier to set-up different build/debug profiles ...

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

#509

Post by alexjm »

7kay wrote: post #348
caseymarquis wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I upvoted the parent and want to emphasize vim key bindings. This is not necessarily vim the editor, it's your editor of choice in vim mode. Learning to use vim is like learning to touch type: it's initially a pain, but it's hard to ever go back once you've mastered the basics. If you haven't learned to touch type (it happens, I didn't learn until I was 22), then first learn that, then learn vim. FYI: Remap your caps…

One other method to quickly exit insert mode if you can't remap keys is ^C. I did not know this even though I used gvim on Windows computers not under my control for years.

True and handy. However, Esc and ^C don't have exactly the same behavior -- from the documentation:

or CTRL-[ End insert or Replace mode, go back to Normal mode. Finish abbreviation.

CTRL-C Quit insert mode, go back to Normal mode. Do not check for abbreviations. Does not trigger the InsertLeave autocommand event.

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