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My Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Mac OS X (2011 Edition)

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Re: My Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Mac OS X (2011 Edition)

#61
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love TotalFinder, and also can't live without flux. I don't really understand the excitement over Alfred/Quicksilver though... what does it do that spotlight can't? Just activate spotlight by pressing Command+Space, and type in whatever you want to do (you can launch a program, do a calculation, look up a word, whatever).

For myself: With Alfred and a well-tuned Quicksilver, I can: * hotkey it open * punch in the minimum to identify the application I want (usually 1 or 2 keys, 3 for rarely-used ones) * hit enter and be done with it in well below 1/2 of a second. With Spotlight, I can: * hotkey it open * punch in the minimum to identify the application (over 2x more, almost all the time) * wait for it to update * it shows the wrong app…

Unless of course you have an SSD. With an SSD, Spotlight is easily fast enough to work well. To start XCode, I hit CMD-space, xc, enter, with a split-second pause before the enter. That is enough for Spotlight to catch up to my typing and I am about as fast as Alfred or Quicksilver for opening apps.

Re: My Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Mac OS X (2011 Edition)

#62
post #21
post #17

I am genuinely surprised at how much others spend on software. I started totaling up his list (excluding monthly services like dropbox) and stopped when I reached $500, which was right around Cornerstone.

You've already sunk money into a Computer. If you pay a little more per year on software, how much better is your computer? It's a tradeoff which depends upon how much money you have, and how much utility you will derive. For example, unlike Windows, there is no free and convenient svn utility on the Mac. If I were using svn on the Mac frequently, Cornerstone (which is quite expensive by my standards) would be a nece…

Also, in many cases an employer might pay for some of the software.

Re: My Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Mac OS X (2011 Edition)

#63

If Terminal.app feels like plastic scissors, you can try iterm2. It beats the crap out of Terminal in terms of configurability. https://github.com/gnachman/iTerm2 http://iterm2.com/

And it's broken. Screen updates are way slower, and stream redirection plain doesn't work. Terminal app is pretty good.

I thought I was the only one that witnessed slower screen updates. I don't know if it's the same thing, but for example, holding backspace to delete a few characters seems to lag (on an SSD with 2600k @ 4.5ghz and 8GB DDR3). I know I can just do C-u, but the lag is irritating nonetheless. Not to mention I actually like Terminal.app so I don't have a problem continuing to use it.

Re: My Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Mac OS X (2011 Edition)

#64

A decent starter list, but definitely not complete (for me at least). I'd add the following * TotalFinder (makes the OS X finder not terrible anymore, tabs, etc) * HandsOff/LittleSnitch (oh, you're just using the built-in firewall? that's cute.) * Transmit (everything you could ever want in an FTP app) * CommandQ (W and Q are way too close together) * Mou (free alternative to Byword) * Evernote (note-taking that sync…

I love TotalFinder, and also can't live without flux. I don't really understand the excitement over Alfred/Quicksilver though... what does it do that spotlight can't? Just activate spotlight by pressing Command+Space, and type in whatever you want to do (you can launch a program, do a calculation, look up a word, whatever).

I love being able to assign hot keys to apps in Alfred. I have 4-5 apps that I use 99% of the time and now I have hot keys to easily bring them up and jump between them.

Re: My Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Mac OS X (2011 Edition)

#66
post #23

If we're making our own lists, here's some that others haven't mentioned: * Jumpcut - http://jumpcut.sourceforge.net/ - simple and unintrusive clipboard history * dterm - http://decimus.net/DTerm - popup terminal * bwana - http://www.bruji.com/bwana/ - man pages in your browser * Grand Perspective - http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/ - disk usage program

I watched the dterm video, and it looks interesting, but the lack of an apparent scrollback (as soon as I type a different command, the previous output is gone) would bug me. (Plus, does it support history, including search, etc?) I'm using TotalTerminal - it's not context aware, but it's easier for me to launch it with Ctrl-` than to open a new virgin terminal whenever I need to do something really quick.

I can't imagine life without Guake. Nice to see that OSX has its own version. In fact, I now do all of my development in Guake with tmux and Vim.

Re: My Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Mac OS X (2011 Edition)

#67

Childish list for people who haven't learned to use the command line. Boot up Mac, install XCode to get gcc/clang etc, and install MacVim, but you don't have to, vim is there out of the box. Install perhaps additional tools like lynx, pgrep, pfind, ncat, ngrep, nmap, wget, seq (some are included in Lion but I don't use Lion) etc and you got standard UNIX toolchain to build everything, from "hello world" to world's mo…

I'm probably going to buy a MBA soon after working with Debian & Openbox on a dated netbook for too long.

I spend most of my time in side-by-side Vim/shell/ssh sessions inside tmux within the Guake terminal.

If MacVim is a standalone app, why do people use it? Isn't one of the nicest things about Vim that it lives in the terminal and can be launched from any root in the terminal?

Re: My Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Mac OS X (2011 Edition)

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Araxis Merge, especially the edit in place feature. http://www.araxis.com/merge_mac/index.html It does directory comparison. Kaleidoscope seemed pretty, but not as powerful.

£79 for a file merge tool!?!?! I don't really like FileMerge, but that's crazy. I still can't find a decent free(ish) tool that is better than FileMerge...Anyone got any other suggestions?

Yes, it costs money. I've used the Mac version for several years now, and the windows version for maybe 10 years before that. I think I've had my money's worth. Given that it works for me better than anything else, the cost is nothing. I don't mind paying for software that makes my life better.

It has a free 30 day trial, so give it a try and see if it is worth the money.

Re: My Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Mac OS X (2011 Edition)

#69
post #67

Childish list for people who haven't learned to use the command line. Boot up Mac, install XCode to get gcc/clang etc, and install MacVim, but you don't have to, vim is there out of the box. Install perhaps additional tools like lynx, pgrep, pfind, ncat, ngrep, nmap, wget, seq (some are included in Lion but I don't use Lion) etc and you got standard UNIX toolchain to build everything, from "hello world" to world's mo…

I'm probably going to buy a MBA soon after working with Debian & Openbox on a dated netbook for too long. I spend most of my time in side-by-side Vim/shell/ssh sessions inside tmux within the Guake terminal. If MacVim is a standalone app, why do people use it? Isn't one of the nicest things about Vim that it lives in the terminal and can be launched from any root in the terminal?

The only good reason to use MacVim is support for millions of colors so color schemes look nicer. It also supports full screen mode (now in Lion Terminal does too, but before this used to be a missing feature), also it's easier to launch MacVim as external editing tool for other apps like Firefox with Pentadactyl extension (this allows you to edit any text box/area with vim). Other than that, you really don't need MacVim, unless you are very anal about colors :D.

Re: My Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Mac OS X (2011 Edition)

#70
I appreciate this list, but I do wish the author would have linked to the software websites instead of to the app store. On the iPad, these app store links are useless.

(As a side note, why can't these links be a little more intelligent? If they know I'm using an iPad, why not redirect to a better fallback?)

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