Below I share the tools and technologies that make life as a software engineer a little easier.
Take a look, you might just discover something new that could help streamline your workflow.
Table of Contents
Hardware
- Computer
- Monitors
- Keyboard - Macally Ergonomic Keyboard - Once you get used to an ergonomic keyboard, you can code for hours in pure comfort. They're amazing.
- Mouse - Logitech MX Master 3S - Hands down the best mouse I've ever used. Logitech knows what's up.
MacOS Software & Tools
- Dropbox - Cloud storage. Team uses this on occasion to share files.
- Fira Code Font - Free monospaced font with programming ligatures. If you aren't using ligatures in your editor, you're missing out!
- Homebrew - Package Manager for macOS.
- iTerm2 - iTerm2 is a replacement for Terminal and the successor to iTerm. I use the
Fira Code
font with ligatures enabled in preferences. Game changer.
- Kap - An open-source screen recorder built with web technology.
- Node.js - JavaScript runtime built on Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine.
- nvm - Node Version Manager. Make switching node versions a breeze.
- Oh My Zsh - A delightful, open source, community-driven framework for managing your Zsh configuration. I use the
agnoster
theme.
- Shottr - Small, fast screenshot app with quick OCR and color picker support.
- Spectacle - Move and resize windows with ease.
- VLC - Free and open source cross-platform media player that supports literally everything.
- VS Code - Code editor redefined and optimized for building and debugging modern web and cloud applications. It's amazing.
- Xcode Command Line Tools - For Git. Try running
git
in the terminal, it should prompt to install.
- Zsh - Unix shell that can be used as an interactive login shell and as a command interpreter for shell scripting.
VS Code Extensions
General Extensions
- Better Comments - Improve your code commenting by annotating with alert, informational, TODOs, and more!
- Code Spell Checker - Spelling checker for source code.
- Even Better TOML - Fully-featured TOML support.
- GitLens — Git supercharged - Supercharge the Git capabilities built into Visual Studio Code.
- Gremlins tracker - Reveals some characters that can be harmful because they are invisible or looking like legitimate ones.
- IntelliCode - AI-assisted development.
- Markdown All in One - All you need to write Markdown (keyboard shortcuts, table of contents, auto preview and more).
- Prettier - Code formatter using prettier.
- YAML - YAML Language Support by Red Hat, with built-in Kubernetes syntax support.
Web Dev Extensions
- Apollo GraphQL - Rich editor support for GraphQL client and server development that seamlessly integrates with the Apollo platform.
- ESLint - Integrates ESLint JavaScript into VS Code.
- Firebase - Firestore Security Rules syntax highlighting.
- Import Cost - Display import/require package size in the editor.
- IntelliSense for CSS class names in HTML - CSS class name completion for the HTML class attribute based on the definitions found in your workspace.
- MDX - Language support for MDX.
- npm Intellisense - Visual Studio Code plugin that autocompletes npm modules in import statements.
- npm - npm support for VS Code.
- Path Intellisense - Visual Studio Code plugin that autocompletes filenames.
- React-Bootstrap Snippets - Code snippets for React-Bootstrap, authored by yours truly!
- vscode-styled-components - Syntax highlighting for styled-components.
Technologies & Frameworks
- Bootstrap - World's most popular front-end component library.
- Bootswatch - Free themes for Bootstrap.
- ESLint - ESLint statically analyzes your code to quickly find problems.
- Gatsby - React-based, GraphQL powered, static site generator.
- Google Firebase - Backend-as-a-service.
- Jamstack - Decouple the web experience layer from data and business logic.
- Markdown - Simple markup language for formatting documents in plain text.
- Netlify - All-in-one platform for modern web projects. Build, test, and deploy globally.
- Prettier - An opinionated code formatter that supports many languages and formats code on save.
- PWAs - Progressive web apps are cross-platform, can be installed on mobile devices, and share a single codebase.
- React-Bootstrap - The most popular front-end framework rebuilt for React.
- React - A JavaScript library for building user interfaces.
- Sentry.io - Full-stack error tracking system for web applications.
- Storybook - Frontend workshop for building UI components in isolation. Great for documentation, too.
- Styled Components - Write CSS in your JavaScript.
- TypeScript - TypeScript extends JavaScript by adding types to the language.
Productivity & Communication
- Brave Browser - Privacy-first Chromium web browser with built-in ad blocking on desktop and mobile (yes, mobile!). Supports syncing and Chrome extensions, too.
- Google Forms - Create, share, and integrate forms.
- Notion - Productivity and note-taking app.
- ProtonMail - End-to-end encrypted email service located in a secure facility 1 km under a mountain in Geneva, Switzerland.
- Slack - Place for team to communicate.
- TickTick - Task management app that helps you stay organized.
Artificial Intelligence
- ChatGPT - Famous AI chatbot that can compose written content, code, and more.
- Midjourney - Generate images from natural language text prompts. Mindblowingly cool and ahead of other AI image generators.
- Poe - Platform for creating, testing, and using AI chatbots. See the bots I've created.
Starters
- React Kindling - 🔥 A template to build, test, and share React components and hooks easily. I use this for all of my npm packages.
Content Creation
- BlackHole - Virtual audio driver used for capturing internal computer audio.
- Canva - Graphic design made easy, with tons of templates to choose from.
- ConvertKit - Mailing list and lead capture, with free plan.
- Envato Elements - Massive resource of stock media and editor add-ons.
- Final Cut Pro - Professional video editing application from Apple.
- FlatIcon - An icon for everything in various styles.
- Gear - Spreadsheet of all studio gear I use, with cost estimates.
- Namecheap - Affordable domain registrar.
- Pexels, Unsplash, Pixabay - Royalty-free stock images, videos, and sounds.
- Photopea - Free web-based clone of Photoshop.
- Presentation Assistant - Highlight your mouse pointer and clicks.
- QuickTime - Apple's built-in screen recorder, works great.
Learning
- 😎 Awesome lists about all kinds of interesting topics.
- Skillshare - Online learning community with thousands of classes.
- uses.tech - A list of
/uses
pages (like this one) detailing developer setups, gear, software and configs.
Want to see what I've built? Check out the projects I've proudly published.