My Development Setup
January 15, 2020
The following is a my current development setup. Updated for January 2020.
🖋️ Editor
- Visual Studio Code has been my go-to editor for a few years now. It’s cross-platform so whether I’m working on my own Surface Pro or a client-issued MacBook Pro, my setup is going to be pretty much the same.
- This week’s theme of choice is One Dark Pro Vivid. I change theme pretty regularly.
- Extension-wise, my setup is fairly light and typical. Prettier, ESLint and Bracket Pair Colorizer are a few favourites worth mentioning.
- The font I code in is Fira Code with ligatures enabled. It took me a short time to get used to them but now definitely I’m a fan.
⌨ Terminal
- I’ll use VS Code’s terminal panel 90% of the time. When I only need a terminal window I’ll reach for the new Windows Terminal.
- I’m back using git-bash as my default shell. WSL is an incredible leap forward for developers on Windows. However, v1 is just too slow for me but with WSL 2 on the horizon, I’m looking forward to making the switch back.
- NPM packages I install globally.
📁 Desktop Apps
- Chrome is my main browser. The dev tools are #1 and React Developer Tools is pretty essential.
- Microsoft OneNote is the best I’ve tried so far for noting taking on the Surface Pen.
- Slack is my preferences for team chat but I don’t mind Teams. Skype is 🤮
- I use Postman to test and debug APIs.
- Figma when I need to personally do some UI design work.
- Zeplin for exploring Sketch files from the design team.
- Affinity Photo is my Photoshop/Lightroom.
- Local - I’ve been experimenting with Wordpress as a headless CMS recently and this makes spinning up a new site and local environment easy peas.
- Spotify for music. VLC for video.
🕸️ Web Apps & Services
- G Suite give me the best of GMail, Drive and co for my business.
- Trello for simple to do lists and planning small project.
- Since GitHub began offering free private repos I’ve found myself slowly migrating across my projects from BitBucket.
- Netlify hosts this very website.
- SVGOMG - UI for optimising SVGs
🔩 Hardware
- Surface Pro 6 which I connect to the dock when I’m at my desk.
- Logitech MX Master mouse.
- Corsair K55 keyboard is nice and quiet.
- A 24-inch Samsung curved monitor. It’s only 1920 by 1080 but it’ll do me a couple more years. Was the curved thing a fad? Eye-saver mode it a nice feature I flick on at night.
- Bose QuietComfort 35 II noise-cancelling headphones. The open-plan offices I’ve worked in recently have made these puppies worth every penny.
- Google Pixel 2 XL is in my pocket. The camera is 🔥
- There’s a Raspberry Pi Zero W hidden in some drawer for the odd side-project.
uses.tech is a cool new site to see other developer’s setups.
