Software Engineering Stack Exchange
Software Engineering Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [developer-tools]

Developer tools refer to set of software that are frequently used during the software development process. Note that questions for finding a specific tool are off-topic for softwareengineering.SE, those should be asked on https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/ instead.

18 questions
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Must a programmer learn text editors like Emacs and Vim? How important are they?

I have been writing code so far in conventional text editors that come with the OS so far or use an IDE in some cases. I know there are some advanced text editors like Emacs and Vim available solely for the purpose of coders. How important are they…
user22662
35
votes
32 answers

Most underestimated programming tool

We have many great tools which helps a lot when programming, such as good programmers text editors, IDEs, debuggers, version control systems etc. Some of the tools are more or less "must have" tools for getting the job done (e.g. compilers). There…
Anto
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28 answers

Does over-reliance on tools imply that you are lazy?

I started programming in C++ at uni and loved it. In the next term we changed to VB6 and I hated it. I could not tell what was going on, you drag a button to a form and the ide writes the code for you. While I hated the way VB functioned I cannot…
Skeith
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27
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7 answers

Should I be worried about overengineering programming assignments given during interview process?

I recently had a phone interview with a company. After that phone interview, I was told to complete a short programming assignment (a small program; shouldn't take more than three hours). I'm only directly instructed to complete the assignment and…
DormoTheNord
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10 answers

Good resources and tools for modern, heavy JavaScript development?

I am interested in doing some projects that involve heavy use of JavaScript. Namely HTML5 based canvas games, potentially using node.js as well. I am interested in learning modern best practices, tools and resources for JavaScript. JavaScript is…
Matt Greer
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10
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9 answers

What is a dedicated Linux box used for?

So this is probably a very basic and obvious question for most people, but my google-fu is failing me and it just seems something is going over my head. I've heard numerous people refer to having a 'dedicated linux box' as a central part of a…
DanLeaningphp
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8
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4 answers

What are linkers and loaders? How do they work?

I am trying to understand things like linkers and loaders better. What area of computer science do they belong to? Compiler, Operating System, Computer Architecture? Where do linkers and loaders come into play during development?
Nishant
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7
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8 answers

Choosing a particular stack because of the IDE, tools and ease setting up the dev env

I almost always choose the Microsoft stack over anything else because of Visual Studio, the available tools and how easily I can get started programming with a particular new framework. Please, that was only an example; it may be other stacks for…
user19224
7
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4 answers

Is the market of small-scale development/production tools that difficult?

I was wondering, is there an economic rationale in developing and marketing a small tool (standalone or rather plugin)? Of course, let's assume that the tool does indeed solve a real problem from the production process. And by small, I mean an…
user467799
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4
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3 answers

How do I know what tools I can download in my country?

I've seen a spate of questions on Stack Overflow and elsewhere about downloading programming tools and where to find them. Sometimes developers can't find a download link or availability in their country. Rather than encouraging them to violate…
jcolebrand
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4
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3 answers

When is it ever ok to write your own development tools? (editor into IDE)

So I'm foremost using a text editor for coding. It's a very bare bones editor; provides mostly just syntax highlighting. But on rare occasions I also need to debug something. And that's when I have to resort to an IDE (mostly Netbeans, but got…
mario
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3
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1 answer

Tool to identify (and remove) unnecessary website files?

Inevitably I'll stop using an antiquated css, script, or image file. Especially when a separate designer is tinkering with things and testing out a few versions of images. Before I build one myself, are there any tools out there that will drill…
xanadont
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2 answers

What is the best way to maintain software tool chains?

Short Question What is the best way to create, maintain, and distribute software development tool chains? Background I am trying to develop a workflow / process to create an isolated environment in install and deploy software tool chains for…
Adam Lewis
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Visual Web Developer 2010 Express, automated testing, and SVN

We have an HTML designer who is not a developer but needs to modify .aspx files from our ASP.NET 2.0 projects from time to time in order to get CSS to work properly with them. Currently, this involves giving her the .aspx page by itself, which she…
Mr. Jefferson
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How to provide clang-format config for IDE and build system of multiple projects?

We have several C++ projects that use clang-format and clang-tidy and other similar tools. Currently the config files for these tools are stored in each project's Git repository. Now I'm trying to put these files into a separate repository so that…
oliver
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