What Tools Do You Think More People Should Use?

Question

Ignoring the obvious (version control, bugtracking, SO);

What Tools Do You Think More People Should Use as part of their development process?

Are there any utilities/methodologies that you feel should be given more attention?

Are there any tools that you just couldn't live without, but people might not have heard of?

Answer 1

The Brain. (No, it's only a joke)

I think people should use Paper and Pencil. The Cellulose format is still important in our work. I see everyday programmers that understimate this fact.

Answer 2

ANTS Profiler

Answer 3

• The Internet. When you don't know the answer, someone on t'web usually thinks they do.
• Code profiling tools (Yourkit, for example)
• Another developer (how many times have you asked for another pair of eyes, and part way through explaining the problem to them figured out what was wrong?)

Answer 4

...on windows definitely "Launchy", the missing tool on the windows platform to easily access any app by hitting alt+space. Much like Searchlight on OS X. Saves me lots of mouse-moving time. Never used Start menu again, ever...

Answer 5

I like to use tools like PMD to check the style of my code to make sure I'm not writing bug-prone software.

Answer 6

Process should be given more attention, and I do not mean after the fact (meaning, after the project is well underway).

A proper, systematic way of gathering metrics is overlooked so often in the industry it's not even fair. No wonder people are so afraid of version 1 of anything.

Bug tracking by itself is not enough. How many times have we seen projects go over schedule or over budget? Too often.

If affordable, I suggest a real suite of quality engineering tools.

Answer 7

• A decent text editor (not just the one that came with the IDE): if you learn how to use a powerful text editor, it can save many hours over the course of a project
• Lint (with MISRA rule checking)
• A large (A2-ish) sheet of paper for planning
• On Windows, Virtual Dimension or similar, for switching between editor, debugger, web, PDF datasheets and manuals, application window and (for embedded programming) RS232 terminal.
• For embedded programming: Docklight

Answer 8

Brush your teeth and shower more often than once in a month.

Answer 9

Stackoverflow. (Sorry - refusing to ignore the obvious here)

We're talking about tens of thousands of developers pouring thousands of collective-years of experience and knowledge into a single place. It doesn't get any better than that.

Answer 10

Balsmiq Mockups or some equivalent, like pencil and paper, for UI design before developing any code, even prototypes.

Answer 11

Note taking application - it may be a text file, wikilike website or standalone program - it doesn't matter, just select one and use it.

How many times were You thinking "If only I had written that..."?

Answer 12

A dual monitor setup. In my experience it increases your productivity immensely.

Answer 13

• An editor with good macro capabilities, even if you need to use it along with the development environment.
• If you use Visual Studio, a good plugin such as ReSharper.
• Scripting languages for task automation.

Answer 14

Post-it notes and white boards, think before you code

Answer 15

It's funny but I tend to use several applications to create and manipulate images. This is useful when your application needs some icon or image. Thus I would create a simple version of the image and add it to my code. I also send out a request to get a more appropriate image but this way, these requests can be collected and given as a task to a third-party graphic designer as a bunch of orders. And in the meantime, the application still looks good in design-time and the image requirements are also clearly defined before the external artists gets to do his job.

For an internal project I even used a render-engine to create a few images of a pretty CGI-girl holding signs, pointing at things and just looking at the user expecting they would replaced sooner or later. As it turns out, management liked those images, so they're going to stay! :-)

So, most important tool for developers: something to work with graphics. (Paint Shop Pro for image manipulation, Poser Pro from SmithMicro to render pretty women.)

Answer 16

I never thought I'd say this: Ms Access (or the open source alternative, Base).
(I have the feeling that someone famous said it, but I don't remember)

Ms Access is a RAD environment. I can store any kind of data, notes, images, links, and later do a search using SQL queries. No need to have todo lists or notes as separate files.

I am playing with Access 2-3 weeks now and I really enjoy it.

Answer 17

Issue tracking.

I know most people think and use issue tracking as a bug tracking. But you can do so much more:

• tasks
• feature wishlist
• ideas
• and of course defects

If you have an issue tracker that knows wiki, and it also integrates with the versioning system, then you can keep everything in one place.

• commits comments link to the issues
• issues link to commits and to wiki page discussions/specs
• wiki pages keep anything else

And.. if you are really disciplined, you can keep all your commits within an issue. Then it' s easy to do work done tracking, and even time tracking.

The issue tracking i'm now using is http://trac.edgewall.org/

Answer 18

Excel or Open Office or some kind of spreadsheet to generate throwaway code from data.

The other way to go is to get comfortable parsing CSV files with Ruby or whatever you want.

Answer 19

A computer-based notes system. (Evernote, a directory full of text files, ...)

I make a lot of notes on paper, but I notice that if I don't retype them on a computer, I almost always end up losing them or not being able to decipher them when the time comes to refer back to them.