My preferred development setup
So the other day, I was asked “Allan what’s your setup like?” by a new colleague, and the next thing i know is, I’ve spent a good hour discussing and explaining my setup, and how it’s all configured.
For a fact, I have slightly different setups depending on the operating system I’m using.. Use the right tool for the right job.
I set very high demands for the software I chose to use, included but not limited to.
– The quality and condition of being plain or natural, easy to use and understand
– Have an intuitive set of default hotkeys,
– Should be actively maintained.
– Come with the absolutely bare minimum of features (That means no bloatware!)
– Being leightweight, have good performance, I don’t want my FTP client hogging 80% CPU just to upload 10+ GB of files.
– Must be cross-platform compatible.
– Preferably have a “dark mode” theme.
Additionally, every piece of software should come with sensible default settings configured, I don’t want to spend 2-3 hours changing every setting across all programs, everytime i switch to a new operating system installation.
Mac OS X (Sierra) preferred setup
For anything strictly work related I will always, any given time prefer OS X over windows (Linux mint if given the choice.) solely because of all my påreffered langauges have been written for a *nix environment with a lot more compatibility to everything else.
I’ll walk through the alternatives I use for windows later in this post.
FTP Client (Transmit 4)
Despite that panic decided to prematurely and utterly screw up transmit 5 with flashy icons and “features”, the older version still does a handy job of transferring my files, without too many hiccups.
The above screenshot it not my own, locally I have around 200’ish sites configured, transmit handles them all well.
I’ll admit, this one is one of the few i’m using that is not cross-platform compatible.
However one day, v4 will be discontinued, and migrating those favourites to another client with panics propriatary encryption will be a cumbersome nightmare… Guess security is a good thing after all.
Code Editor (Sublime Text 3)
Sublime Text 3 is by far my preferred software when it comes to code editing, it doesn’t do much out of the box, but what it does, it does well.
I have a few extensions and themes installed, just to make it a bit more comfortable to work with.
The theme i’m using is afterglow, blue version together with the emmet package for easier tag completion.
The colors of this theme is really relaxing for the eye to look at, while still being a bit fresh and not too old-skool looking.
With that goes a few additional syntax highlighters, for instance ST3 doesn’t support LESS or SASS as default.
Database Management (Sequel Pro)
There’s a ton of software like this, but commonly, they’re all tough to work with, like all other on this list, sequel pro doesn’t do much, view/alter the structure of tables, display import/export tables and data, do queries, apply indexes.
And that’s about all I would ever want, anything else, I’ll write my own query. I know SQL well enough to create a stored procedure, if I would ever (god forbid) want that..
Browser (Firefox 57 Quantum)
I used to be a chrome power user, but mozilla has for once actually done a pretty decent job of developing a fast browser that doesn’t come packed with bloatware enabled as default, sometimes I use nightly, just to be on the bleeding edge, not always…
That pocket thingy, might be the only thing I don’t like, and will not ever use, but oh well, even chrome has it’s bloatware
Clipboard Manager (CopyClip 2)
As a developer, I copy paste.. alot of code snippets. and keeping track of them all is next to impossible without some kind of overview. I used to use clyppan, but that ended up being discontinued.. 🙁
The biggest downside to copyclip 2, is that it only shows the top line of a snippet, and with literally all of my scripts starting wuth <?php
maintaining that overview becoming next to impossible. that’s where the ssearch feature comes in handy though.
Images (Photoshop CC or CS6)
I’m kinda using photoshop against my will, because it can only meet a few of the demands I hasve for my software, however having photoshop is more or less required as a web developer.
Literally every web designer I’ve ever met have handled me web designs in .psd do I hate .psd files, yes.. read this comment and see why .psd is such an awful file format.
Taking screenshots/notes (Lightshot)
Taking a screenshot, and uploading it to a 3rd party service, and having the link instantly saved in your clipboard, is just so much seasier than saving it locally, browse for the file and attaching it to an email.
Additionalyl i often place an arrow or two, whenever i need to show/explain a customer which button to press.
Anything else (The terminal)
If it can’t be done with a lieghtweight piece of software, it can almost certainly be done with a command or two.
Some people may say I live in the terminal, and yes even I get my daily RSS news feed fix in a terminal.
Windows preferred setup.
Ok now time for the windows alternatives, some of the above like sublime text, and firefox works on windows as well, so obviously I also use those here.
FTP (Cyberduck)
It does come packed with a lot of settings, some more confusing than others, but if the alternatives is filezilla or winSCP, this will defintily float my goat.
Database Management (None whatsoever…)
I have yet to find a leightweight version to do this for me on windows.
– MySQL workbench, just have tooo many steps to dump/export my tables.
– Navicat comes with waaayy to many buttons all over.
In the situation i’m on windows, I tend to use the really dumb and simple adminier.php or PHPMyAdmin, at least they are somewhat intuitive.
So if you know something like Sequel Pro for windows, i’m all ears… contact me, and let me know 🙂