Ultimate Rails developer & power user tools for Mac (2011 edition) | Hacker News Reader

Ultimate Rails developer & power user tools for Mac (2011 edition)

maxmasnick.com

37 pointsmasnick31 comments

This doesn't really seem to be an "Ultimate developer & power user tool" list. It seems to be more of a "this is what I use".

According to you, your ultimate setup for Rails development includes a machine that loads the Rails stack slowly (!), a 24-inch monitor (while you say you'd love a 27-inch), and headphones that sound "ok".

You have an interesting definition of "ultimate".

The title is riffing off of the other two posts I mentioned at the top of my post.

Regardless, all of these lists are personal opinion and limited by resources and current technology. I prefer portability over speed, for example.

If you're an Emacs person, let me plug 'magit' real quick --- it turns out, a near-optimal git UI fits nicely into Emacs UX/UI idiom. One of those rare things that doesn't just nicely integrate Emacs and some-random-tool, but actually makes Emacs and the tool better in the process.

Wouldn't even consider a standalone OSX Git client, or, for that matter, using git on the commandline anymore. Magit is just so much better.

If you have a "knot" type pain in your shoulder blade area on the same side of your body as your mouse hand, I cannot strongly recommend a track ball mouse like this enough:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-det...;

I had a continual knot and painful spot in my shoulder blade from age 16 (when I started using a computer regularly) until age 35 when I tried the trackball mouse. Within a month or so of switching, the achey spot was entirely gone. I started a new job and used their mouse, and the pain came back. I brought in my mouse and it went away. Also, trackballs are faster once you get used to them.

Seconded. I've used that model and its predecessor for about 10yrs. Because my forearm and wrist remain stationary, I found I don't get any RSI like pains and I don't rub my wrist off the edge of the desk which was irritating the metal plates in my arm.

Same problem, same solution here. The magic mouse is the worse I used for my wrist. After 2-3 month I had regular pain in the wrist. Brought that same mouse you linked to I had at home and it disappeared a couple days after.

Great list. I'd like to mention I use Tower app for a Git GUI. I especially like that it shows a diff right as you're looking at changes and lets you stage chunks of code which I find very helpful.

Thanks!

I've actually tried Tower but I prefer the simplicity of Gitbox's UI.

If you like Tower, you should check out SourceTree (http://www.atlassian.com/software/sourcetree/overview). It's free from the Bitbucket people.

I've used Gitx, SourceTree, and Tower each for more than a week exclusively. So far, Tower by far comes the closest in most features. One key feature for me was being able to easily switch between commit-list view and file-browse view (the latter to get to a file and view its history). I haven't tried Gitbox, because based on their feature list, it doesn't even come close to SourceTree, which in turn had less features than Tower.

One of my biggest problems is that all of these programs seem to emphasize pushing, pulling, merging, rebasing, etc. But I don't want any of that stuff, the command line is awesome for all that. I just want to search, browse, and compare commits a bit more easily.

There are a few small things Tower is still missing, but the Tower team have been really responsive and receptive to implementing those changes when I talked to them (which I think is a benefit of actually having to pay for the app).

SourceTree is definitely an awesome value and combined with the comamnd-line, is a great way to wrap your head around git.

Some may like GitX (L) -- free and open-source. http://gitx.laullon.com/

If you are doing PHP or Ruby development on Mac you may be interested in BitNami stacks http://bitnami.org/stacks (disclaimer I am one of the BitNami developers) They allow you to have local, self-contained, pre-configured development and test environments for Rails, PHP, WordPress, Drupal, etc.

Since I spend most of my time in Vim, I moved from Chrome to Firefox just for Pentadactyl which brings Vim bindings to Firefox, and it's much more powerful than similar Chrome add-ons. Tabbing between Vim and Firefox, sharing keybindings, and never touching the mouse have boosted my productivity tremendously.

You should see how many more HN articles I can read per hour.

I'd add Guake (or whatever the Mac equiv is). Ctrl-Spacing a universal, auto-focusing, half-screen terminal window at any time is a great tool. Right now, I have my whole Tmux/Vim/RailsServer/irssi/ssh command center in the Guake terminal that can be toggled whenever. Alt-tabbing is unmanageable.

There's a chrome extension called Vimium which does the same thing.

Pentadactyl is much more feature rich than Vimium and gives a more Vim-like experience than Vimium does. (thanks to Firefox's flexibility)

Case in point: vimium only works in chrome by loading a custom javascript file (basically how all chrome extensions work). Which means if a page errors on loading, that tab doesn't get vimium bindings. Which is quite annoying when flipping through tabs, only to stop at the error'd tab and have to use the mouse to get off that tab and continue flipping.

I agree that this is annoying, so instead of using the vimium tab-switch bindings I use the standard chromium tab-switch keyboard shortcuts (no mousing is necessary)

On a mac, the a quake like drop down terminal (or as a prefer, non animated full screen) can be had with TotalTerminal, previously called Visor, but now without SIMBL, or iTerm2. I find absolutely indispensable!

First of all, nice read.

I'm a PHP developer and I work everyday on a Mac environment and I was wondering if there is any chance for you to write an article like "Ultimate PHP developer & power user tools"?

Thanks. Pretty much all the tools I listed should work for PHP as well.

Sparrow more efficient than the native Gmail interface? Either they added a lot more command keys and UI elements (list-view cursor) or you haven't yet mastered the web UI.

It also supports IMAP, which is key for those of us who like the GMail interface well enough but loathe Google.

This seems unrelated to my point, but anyway, I don't understand why you would use Gmail if you both loathe Google and prefer an IMAP client.

I don't use GMail. I like the interface of Sparrow.

I think this depends on how you use gmail. I mostly read, reply, and archive. Sparrow is really good for this, but not very good at say labeling or search.

And thanks for mentioning Greplin (https://www.greplin.com) —hadnt heard about it, but already loving it.

Just got an external monitor today to use with my MacBook snd ran into ergonomic considerations.

I like the pic of the monitor and laptop in stacked configuration. Gonna try that with mine, but I wonder if I'll get tired of moving my head upp and down. I might also put the MacBook side-by-side with the monitor, keeping that at desk level.

Nice write-up. I would just add iTerm2 (http://www.iterm2.com/), which has made using the command line all day a much nicer experience even after all of the improvements in Lion's Terminal app.

Like Rubinius, I also use RubyRegexpMachine (Mac Only, http://rubyregexp.sourceforge.net/) for regular expressions. Its pretty cool, you can describe expressions in english.

Which font are you using on your terminal ?

Another Amazon link bait post! -.-

There are no affiliate links in my post. Check before you accuse/troll.

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