There has been this trend of developers sharing there development set ups. I thought it might be cool to share the tools I use during development. Maybe even get some of my friends to share the tools they love to use during development. Hopefully, I can turn you on to some cool programs or equipment.
Hardware
I am constantly on various virtual machines both at work and home. At work we have several machines that we use for visualization the host system for those is Debian Squeeze. We use KVM for our virtualization solution, its quite awesome. The main benefit is having tight integration to the hardware is being run which gives us the biggest bang for our buck. Plus it comes with a nice dashboard for checking hard drive space and memory/cpu usage on each virtual machine. For local development I use VirtualBox and Vagrant for spinning up web development machines, this is ideal for having the same development environment as co-workers and being able to spin them up/down quickly and reliably.
My main desktop machine at home is a gaming machine; I built a few years ago. Nothing to brag about right now. I dual boot Windows 7 (gaming), and Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick the last update until they added that abomination called Unity, although I hear its getting better. I have two Samsung SME2320 23’ High Definition screens, which certainly get the job done for both work and leisure.
I recently purchased two KRK Rokit 5 studio monitors, which simultaneously brought out the sound quality snob in me.
Is this FLAC?
These speakers are awesome, you can hear every detail in every song. These will definitely get your neighbours Wub Wubin’ to the beat.
I am not usually too far away from one of my desktops, but when I am I use 13” Macbook Pro (8 GB), I really have been fighting the urge to get an SSD for now, I can see this changing quickly. I hate doing any real development on this machine, I have been babied by having two screen everywhere and being crouched over a laptop isn’t something I find comfortable or productive.
For reading I have a Kindle which is awesome for fiction, I still find myself buying hard copies of all my reference books though. They still haven’t found a good way to earmark pages like I can with a real book. No iPad, thankfully. I have an iPhone 4s and before that Google Nexus S. Its really like Coke and Pepsi to me.
I totally just lied there, I love Pepsi so much more.
Coke is just slightly ahead at the moment. There are things I love about both OSes, but I don’t claim one to be better than the other.
Software
I write code in several languages mostly bouncing between Python and Java. I hate the fact I have different coding setup for each, right tools for the job, I guess. For general file editing and Python development I use Sublime Text, it’s cross platform and awesome editor written in Python. When I am not there and writing C or Java code I am usually in Eclipse. I use git for version control, mostly hosted on Github. I keep trying to move to Vim full time, I will eventually get there.
For web development I use Django, because its awesome. I have been playing with Flask more and more, I like it, simple clean, easy to read. I am getting more into this JavaScript, starting to slowly love it. Usual suspects here, Node.js and jQuery.
I am in the terminal quite a bit I use TotalTerminal on the OS X machine, and Terminator on the Ubuntu machines. For my shell I use zsh, it changed my life.
For music, I will forever be loyal to Grooveshark, the selection is just better, the app is fairly priced, and beautiful application all round. I have tried Rdio, but it is simply lacking in selection and compensates by providing horrible covers instead, which is pure bullshit. I don’t keep a whole lot of music on my machine, I don’t really see the point EVERYTHING is on the internet.
For chat I use Empathy or Adium, mostly logged in through Gtalk. Google Chrome for browsing and Gmail for email. I have a Bamboo Connect for little webcomics.
For media, I have an jail broken Apple TV w/ Plex. I use the service that shall not be mentioned for downloading data ;). Message me if you didn’t get that last comment.
Dream Machine
If practicality and expense were thrown out the window, this would be the machine I would get.
If we are talking reasonable, I would like to get a couple 27” Apple Thunderbolt Display for pure development awesomeness. I would love to get this microphone for audio recording, I always wanted to take my shot at being a radio disk jockey.
This next song is going out to all the broken hearts out there.
I am actually not that far away from what I actually need. Little bit more desk space wouldn’t hurt either.
As long as were asking for things, a more beautiful Ubuntu, and a better development Windows.
Discussion
I have been a giant advocate for when it comes to having the right tools to do your job properly; and by big advocate I mean, bitching about it on the internet. So buying that 1000 dollar chair you will be using 8 hours a day for several years doesn’t seem that big of investment. Now flux promises the same comfort for your eyes, I don’t know about you guys but I often find myself writing code when I should be sleeping. This is probably due to the fact that the screen I have at home keep telling my brain that its still daylight outside and to keep going for fear of becoming a failure.
Enter F.lux it offers the following from the website:
Ever notice how people texting at night have that eerie blue glow?
Or wake up ready to write down the Next Great Idea, and get blinded by your computer screen?
During the day, computer screens look good—they’re designed to look like the sun. But, at 9PM, 10PM, or 3AM, you probably shouldn’t be looking at the sun.
F.lux fixes this: it makes the color of your computer’s display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day.
It’s even possible that you’re staying up too late because of your computer. You could use f.lux because it makes you sleep better, or you could just use it just because it makes your computer look better.
I find it lets me pull away from the screen when I feel tired; as supposed to walking away from my desk knowing I should sleep; and end up laying wide awake in bed. It lightens the screen temperature ( makes it look alot less like your about to be abducted by aliens) and more like your in a 70s movie. Let’s face it, its alot easier to walk away from one of those. For those of you who like hard hitting facts as supposed to my witty commentary go here. No but seriously go here.
This tool is priceless. I would recommend it if your up late working; and you have work early the next morning.
Discussion