I pay for JetBrains, Creative cloud, chatGpt, figma, and mid journey. I also pay for quick books. Are there any must have dev productivity tools you can recommend?
I moved from a WYSIWYG editor to Markdown files for the website I run. Sublime Text + Merge are a brilliant combo for editing text and reviewing changes before committing.
The best part is how fast Sublime feels on a 12" Macbook from 2017. This thing just flies.
Kagi Search search engine. Unless I’m doing “food near me” type searches, Kagi is 100x better than the garbage heap Google is now.
Then Jetbrains.
Then one of the ProtonMail subscriptions although I only use the mail and sometimes the VPN for streaming. I still use gmail too mostly for junk mail/signups/loyalty programs but I wanted to support an email service that’s not Google and Fastmail wasn’t doing it for me.
Beyond that, if I want cloud stuff I usually am going to put it on DigitalOcean.
I received a Kinesis keyboard in the mail today - maybe not what OP had in mind but my hand issues were to the point of contemplating leaving computer work. Not sure how much it’ll change with the new keyboard - but my response is ergonomics.
I revert back to my Magic Mouse because I love the touch gestures, but most can be recreated with vertical mouse. I use the Logitech one, it's nice, but the 1 or 2 finger gestures on the Magic Mouse are too nice and can't be replicated on any other mouse, I always revert back to it. I actually rotate the Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad and Logitech mx vertical, usually last a few weeks or a month before switching to another.
I have a trackpad on the left and a trackball on the right. I’m right handed, so I use the mouse for most, but when I need a gesture, the trackpad is there.
You have a fair point, guess people just feel really strongly about Kinesis? i like how the Kinesis keyboard can toggle between QWERTY and Dvorak on the click of a button. I’m not opposed to a different layout but have a feeling that dev/vim keystrokes wouldn’t change a whole lot. Command/control/tab/backspace for example
I don’t think my hand pain is rsi nor is a common one. The pinky tendons on my palms are enflamed and developed a hard lump. Recently saw a doctor and they didn’t have an easy diagnosis and said to only worry about it if I am inhibited - so figured a new keyboard was a small price to pay for hand health. And there’s a 60 day return policy.
The tough part with Kinesis is not being able to demo the products in person. Ironically I live in seattle which is where they are located but their sales team didn’t really help me out in this regard.
Price was one factor but I actually decided For a USB model since I switch between work stations somewhat often and pairing Bluetooth between different computers can sometimes be a pain. just figured the advantage2 was “the simplest thing that works”.
Edit:
The appealing thing to me about the 360 is the vertical/tent adjustments it seems to have.
I have an Advantage 2 (an older model - not quiet and with 2MB v-drive) but it's damaged. I was not able to repair it unfortunately. I was super happy with it. I've ordered the 360 model (also without bluetooth) now and will receive it on Monday. The reason why I chose the 360 is usb-c, - otherwise I would have ordered the advantage 2 (quiet) as well as it seems easier to have one piece of hardware. Also I actually would have like to have a dedicated function key row - especially a dedicated escape key. Let's see.
Jesus, what are you doing that you're spending $1000/mo on servers? I have a $20 server running fifteen production apps, what are you running, Netflix?
Many of productivity tools I use are free (and not always related to dev, but as a side effect, increase my development productivity as well):
* a big monitor (switching from 13" to 27" definitely had an impact)
* https://www.raycast.com/ has the biggest impact to my productivity. So much good stuff there! Just one example is resizing windows with keyboard. Good old https://www.alfredapp.com/ is another option;
I really want to like Raycast, since its plugin ecosystem is better integrated than Alfred's, but every time I try it, I keep stumbling against its multi-step wizard-style interface, when what I want is a GUI CLI.
I want to type a bunch of words (with autocomplete), and hit Return when done, and Alfred makes me hit "Return" (or something else) in the middle of some sequences, hides results until I do, and is generally slower to use than Alfred.
Off topic and late: Hi Vlad, just wanted to say I ran into your website and desktop wallpapers some years ago, and I just love them, I keep using them as wallpapers on my various machines and telling people about them. Just wanted to say thank you for your work on them.
I would add Better Touch Tool. I use it to launch apps and trigger actions in apps from a global context. I things mapped to the function keys and also presses on areas of the Trackpad. So for example, regardless of what app I'm using at the time, f19 will pop a new iterm window on my monitor that has focus. Ctrl and a numpad key will set the brightness of the monitor I'm using in 10% increments. Pressing (not touching) the top left or right corner of my Magic Trackpad will seek a few seconds backwards or forwards in Spotify. It's useful to control other apps without switching focus from the current app. I've looked into window snapping areas with it which are powerful, but I currently have it set up where a four finger swipe on the Trackpad sends the current window to the left or right half of the current monitor. I was planning something more elaborate, but it's become a reflex now.
Alfred to launch apps by just typing the first few characters. I try to keep my fingers on the keys as often as possible.
Jettison is good for ejecting and remounting removable disks when I put the machine in and out of sleep.
I use an open source utility to limit battery charge level as my MBP is always hooked up to a dock these days.
I payed for Typora (a Markdown editor). The price is very reasonable and fair and the product and support is very good. This is the only tool I ever payed for. I do support OSs initiatives through donations.
Seconded for Wallaby, as I don't often see it mentioned.
And even if you don't need instant feedback on tests whilst you're writing code, it's great during general development - set up a single test with the result you want and start doing some TDD-style coding, and Wallaby doesn't just show you the test outcome but also shows the values of all variables as hints decorating the lines in the editor itself whilst you type, making it much easier to get to working code.
Wallaby.js is a no-brainer tool for writing frontend unit tests. I see a lot of people at work struggle with unit testing. For the productivity boost it gives, it's easily worth the cost.
I bought Sublime Text + Merge. They're the backbone of my computer work.
I pay 10€ per month for Wachete. I get notified when German laws and policies change, so that I can keep my own website up to date. It's a great time saver.
I pay for Spotify, to make work a little more pleasant. YouTube Music gets me better though.
I found that I can't keep two workstations in sync. It's such a hassle that I made my tiny Macbook 12" my main machine. My bigger, faster Macbook is collecting dust.
For notes I use Notability on an iPad Mini. I bought Notability before they went with a monthly subscription model.
For what it’s worth, instead of googling random code structures or coking up with small functions, I just use chatgpt since I can prompt it for exactly what I want.
I copy it, try it, and just refine it if needed. Sometimes it’s not 100% there, but I just tell it ‘method x doesn’t exist, is there an alternative’ and it just spits out another way or method. It’s been great.
i pay a yearly sub for jetbrains (very good), but i would pay more for a modern version of visual c++ 6.0 - so fast, so simple to use, even back when. visual studio (although impressive) is just too fat for me and, along with jb a bit too slow.
Don't know what OS you're on, but these days whilst it does less the Mac OS (ARM-native) Visual Studio is massively more performant than the Windows version and largely good-enough for coding (not so much for layouts). I often switch to it when Rider (which I pay for) starts to struggle.
You already mentioned JetBrains, but more specifically I happily pay for Resharper for C# and C++, it’s such a productivity boost if you’re using Visual Studio.
I used to do this, but more recently have found that VS includes most of the same functionality and ReSharper and VS end up fighting with each other to do the same thing for you, which gets annoying.
I never tried Rider. Would you recommend it over VS + Resharper? Or do you then need both Rider and VS, to still have access to VS design mode or other visual studio features?
Support != paying FOR.
I agree with using FOSS only.
I'll tell you why: I really like the fact that anyone in the world with a PC and Internet access can be a world class developer. From Nigeria to Philippines to the remotest island in the world.
i3, fzf, nvim, Python.
I would PiHole Youtube if I had the time.
Best git client i’ve tried, even though i hate it’s tabbing system.
RemedyBG: https://remedybg.itch.io/remedybg
Excellent debugger for Windows.
Sublime Text: To this day I have not found any text editor that works better than this. 100% worth the money