Tools list for the mac and windows programmers
May 28, 2011
I’m a big fan of Scott Hanselman’s Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows. It’s my go-to page whenever I get a new machine. But I’m no longer a Windows guy. I’m a Macdows guy. I still code C# .Net (with Mono) on the mac, but a lot of these tools are cross-platform.
I just got a new setup to complete my indi-developer work station. I’m running the new iMac with a LED Cinema connected to it. I used to boot into Windows 7 when I needed to work on SideBox or other contracting work, and boot into OS X when I needed to code iPhone or do school or anything else. This time around I’ve gone virtual with Parallels. I run Windows 7 Pro as a VM. This way I’m running both OS X and Windows 7 at the same time. In fact, Parallels has this coherence mode where it runs your windows applications as if they were part of the OS X environment. It’s slick!
Anyway, as I was setting up my new work station, I wanted document the apps I was installing. I thought my list would be massive, like Scott’s, but it turns out I use two applications about 99% of the time and don’t really screw around with much else.
Here is the breakdown of what I installed for OS X, Windows 7, and both:
OS X
Sparrow - I hate email and that’s why I love Sparrow. Simple minimal design, works with iMap, Mac look & feel.
Parallels - Let’s me run Windows 7 & Ubuntu VM’s. Better than VMWare Fusion.
Mono (MonoDevelop, MonoTouch, MonoTouch.Dialog) - Build iPhone and iPad apps with C#. Nuff said.
HttpClient - Simple HTTP tester
Twitter for Mac - Clean, simple, minimal, my favorite Twitter client
Textmate - Started to dabble with Ruby on Rails, heard Textmate would get me there without having Visual Studio withdrawls
TextExpander - It’s like intellisense for everything
Gitbox - If you want to leave the terminal, this is the best GUI for Git on the mac
Ruby On Rails - I like to dabble with other non- Microsoft technologies
Windows 7
Visual Studio - MVC, WPF, and Windows Phone 7 stuff
NuGet - Ruby Gems for the .NET world
Beyond Compare - Best compare and FTP tool on this planet
SQL 2008 Dev - Datebase, duh
Web Matrix - New Microsoft tool for building basic websites, fast. Razor + MVC + Templates
MVC3 + Razor - Leave web forms in the dust
Notepad ++ - Because notepad and textpad suck
Storm - Best tool for testing web services
Both
Chrome - Best browser. Debugging not as good as Firebug, but it’s good
DropBox - Can’t live without it. Love the folder sharing
LastPass + XMarks - Sick of typing in passwords?
Git + GitHub - Contribute to open-source. Also great for just backing-up side projects
Mercurial + BitBucket - Another DVCS like Git
JSONViewer - JSON is nasty to look at in big chunks
Evernote - Brain in the cloud
Pixlr - Awesome cloud image editor
Skype - Must have for collaboration
AgileZen - I visualize projects in kanban
Basecamp & Campfire - Must have if you work on a team
I’ll try to keep this list fresh for OS X and Windows devs as I find new tools.