Ask: Best developers tools you've used (any language) | Hacker News Reader

Ask: Best developers tools you've used (any language)

8 pointsmalandrew6 comments

I was curious to hear what the general HN community considers the best developer tools they've every used, regardless of what language the tool is specific to.

Talk about whatever, from how Lein and Clojure allow you to require a specific version of Clojure as a dependency (as opposed to the rbenv/rvm or nvm hackery seen in ruby and javascript respectively), to how npm does all dependencies locally to projects to avoid the hell that is dependency conflicts when all deps are stored in a global space, to lisp machines, the small talk developer environment, LightTable, gdb, etc.

There is a lot tools devs can learn from what is available for languages they may not be familiar with and it'd be nice to get one long thread highlighting some of the tooling you should check out for inspiration.

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- Short answer: Adobe flex as a framework and Visual Studio + .Net as an IDE.

Longer answer:

- Framework

Flex was doomed because flash sucks: constant security issues, slow, not correctly integrated in browsers. Apple accelerated it's death but it was doomed anyway.

I'm now a javascript dev and could not find any front-end framework that came close to the ease of use and consistent functionality that flex provided.

- Language

As for back-end stack, node.js all the way. Javascript has a lot of caveats but it's fun to work with (compared to other languages).

Java is too verbose and too objectish. POJOs ? come-on, it's almost 2014. Factory factory factory ? come-on... But the language is powerful. Anything needing transactions, JVM all the way... Java or Scala is another question I can't really answer.

Ruby is nowhere near lightweight as node (bundle install PITA, server start PITA). PHP is powerful but there is something wrong with the language (can't really pinpoint what the problem is). Python I have never used but now I tend to disregard non async language.

Believe it or not, I was a java dude and javascript hater. Now I'm a javascript dude and java hater.

I also think that Javascript/HTML are just waiting for a kick in the but and a replacement. Have you played with front-end frameworks/library ? What a piece of... mess. Only AngularJS seems ok-ish. The web needs fixing. Google is giving it some tries (Dart, Go).

You'll find hundredfolds the amount of opinions as there are languages or frameworks or libraries or IDEs. The most important is to stay curious and open minded. Don't forget to take a step back on the technologies you use. It allows to give the right advice and make the right technical decision. Most of us are wrong more open than not. When you realise you're wrong, you learn and can move forward.

- IDE:

My advice: if you feel like it, learn either vi or emacs. I haven't seen anyone use a higher level IDE (including me, I use Webstorm, used to use Idea) as productively as vi/emacs users do. Also, vi/emacs users love their tool with passion. That says something about these pieces of software.. When I was working with c++, emacs was awesome and eclipse wouldn't even load the project. Then I learned to be lazy and use the mouse with IntelliJ. It's ok but their vision of what an IDE should be is getting further and further from what I think it should be (ie, don't try to replace the command line). However now I got even too lazy to go back to emacs..

And you know what ? The 1990's called and want their eclipse IDE back. I hope someone with an objective view can contradict me but eclipse is what a dell is to a mac. It's good, some people use it but it feels it's been developed with no real strategic vision of what an IDE should be. Lastlym keep an eye on online IDEs. A friend thinks it's the future. I'm not so sure but he is smarter than I am... Same for Light Table, keep an eye on it or even start using it. The guys behind it seems to have an unusual vision and smart enough for it to be really worthy of our time.

Now I realise I may have overstepped the answer to the question so I'll stop here :)

Cheers !

edit: paragraphs & indentation for readability

Since you were a Flex developer and are now a javascript, I'd love to talk to you further about it. I work at famo.us in tooling and think your feedback could be pretty useful. Are you in SF? My email is in my profile.

Honestly, Xcode for iOS Development in Objective-C.

In addition to that, Parse for backend development. I'm just getting started learning backend development for iOS, and Parse is the best way to do it in my opinion.

I'm not sure if this is considered a "tool," but TeamTreehouse.com for learning. Their platform is growing everyday, looks and feels beautiful to use, has a fantastic community, and the quality of the tutorials and other content is unlike any other service.

Xcode is great, especially version 5. It's my favorite IDE I've worked with, and gets new-line tabs right every time - something I wish Rubymine would do.

MS Visual Studio - no question.

Things like eclipse are OK but when it comes to developer support Visual Studio leaves everything else in the dust.

alias.

tunnels gem, running SSL in dev+test environments is much easier with this.

ngrok for temporary serving of localhost developer environments publicly.

BrowserStack for cross-browser testing.

Heroku, and its add-ons for eliminating the need for many other tools and time I used to use when managing production environments.

Sass and LESS for making CSS maintenance sensible.

bundler for simplifying ruby dependencies.

Rails for baking tests in and the asset pipeline so JS+CSS optimization just works.

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