My Software Stack (2017)

This is an update on last year’s article

This year I still spent most of my time working in Windows so this list also does not include most Linux tools. A list of changes can be found at the bottom of this page.

Development Environments & Editors

  • Visual Studio 2017: .NET projects
    • Jetbrains Resharper
  • Jetbrains Project Rider EAP: Secondary .NET editor
  • Jetbrains PHPStorm: PHP Development IDE
  • SQL Server Management Studio: Primary SQL editor
  • Jetbrains Datagrip: Alternative SQL editor
  • Visual Studio Code: Editor for scripting
  • NotePad++: Fast text editor for scripting
  • Nano: Command line editor

Developer Tools & Services

  • Bash for Windows: Command line tools
  • PowerShell: Scripting for windows
  • Terminals : GUI RDP Client
  • Cloudflare : DNS & Website Caching
  • VestaCp : Hosting Control Panel
  • Composer & packagist: PHP Package management
  • Nuget & ProGet: .NET Package management
  • NPM: JavaScript Package management
  • Github: Public Source Control
  • Gitlab: Private Source Control
  • Filezilla: FTP GUI
  • wappalyzer.com : Website Checking
  • lorempixel.com : Quick placeholder images
  • gitignore.io : Quick Gitignores
  • runscope.com : API Debugging
  • getpostman.com : API Debugging
  • punypng.com : Image compression
  • pexels.com : Stock Photos
  • puphpet.com : PuPHPet: VMs for local PHP Application dev
  • jekyllrb.com : Static Site Generator
  • regexr.com : Regex building
  • jsfiddle.net : JS Sharing
  • glot.io : Quick Debugging & code sharing
  • justbeamit.com : P2P file transfers

Web Performance

Other Productivity

  • Google Services : Keep, Calendar, Inbox, & Drive
  • Journey : For recording my thoughts
  • LastPass : Password Manager
  • ShareX : Screenshots and screen recording
  • Gimp : Open source image editing
  • Lacie : Local file backups
  • Windirstat : Disk analyzer
  • Calibre : EBook library
  • BulkRenameUtility : Rename lots of files at once
  • Feedly : RSS Feed Reader
  • Ditto Windows clipboard manager

Communication

  • Slack
  • Discord
  • Groupme
  • Telegram
  • FB Messenger
  • SMS
  • Pushbullet : SMS on pc
  • Email

Changes since last year

  • Removed Visual Studio versions 2013 & 2015, I now use 2017 for all of my .NET projects.
  • Removed Atom in favor of lighter editors, mainly Visual Studio Code and Notepad++. Atom feels as big and sluggish as an IDE but without the advantages of a full IDE. So I’ve stopped using it entirely.
  • Removed Cygwin which I have not been using
  • Added Bash for Windows which is incredibly useful since you have all of the advantages that come with the Ubuntu ecosystem.
  • Added PowerShell finally and use it pretty frequently for general operations.
  • Added Application Insights which has largely replaced New Relic for me. Though I still prefer New Relic for database server and instance monitoring.
  • Added NPM which is the defacto standard for JavaScript packages. I also now use it to start my frontend apps, run test frameworks, and initiate builds for them. It’s also very useful for random other commands like rimraf.
  • Added Discord for gaming related voice and text chat.
  • Added Project Rider which has proved itself to be faster then Visual Studio when working with large .NET projects
  • Removed Google Tasks. I’m finally used to using Google Keep and have entirely converted to it.
  • Added Feedly for RSS feed reading.
  • Added several tools which are not new to me, but were just not on this list. Gimp, Ditto and Bulk Rename Utility.
  • Added Calibre which I have finished importing my eBook library into. I keep the library synced between systems with google drive.