Dev environment 2016. Windows.

I’ve changed a job last month and had to build up my dev environment from scratch again. While doing that I decided to write down some thoughts about it.

I guess it might be interesting to look back at some point and see how does it evolve.

Background #

At my previous employer, we were very into Virtual Machines. We had different base VMs which every developer can download.

That’s extremely handy when a new hire has nothing to do, but to install just a couple of tools that are not standard, and enter some credentials.

You remember those dialogs:

— I can’t build the project. Packages are missing…

— Oh, yep, you need to add this private NuGet feed.

…

— I can’t run the project locally.

— Yeah, I think you need so put these lines into your hosts file.

Well, now it’s all gone.

It’s not only limited to this scenario. You want to experiment with a new unstable version of the framework (yes, .NET Core RC-final-almost-stable, I’m talking about you) and you don’t want to mess up with your dev machine?

Just fire a new VM up.

Got a neat idea for a hackathon, but you think that JDK is not what you need on your computer? Giving a tech demo on the local meetup?

A VM comes to the rescue.

Got a new computer? Just copy the VM over and you’re up to speed in 20 minutes.

Back to the topic #

So, what do I have on my base VM?

Frameworks #

I’m a .NET web developer, so nothing special here:

• .NET framework 4.5.2 and 4.6
• Node.js (npm, gulp)

IDE and editors #

• VS 2015 with a set of extensions
  • NoGit.
  • PVS Studio. A static analysis tool for C#.
  • ReSharper. A developer productiviy tool.
  • OzCode. A debugging addon for VS. Makes my life much easier.
  • SpecFlow. A port of Cucumber.
• ReSharper goes with a handfull of extensions as well
  • ConfigureAwaitChecker
  • ReSpeller
  • Mnemonics Live Templates
  • Enhanced Tooltip
  • Heap Allocations Viewer
  • Shaolinq.ReSharper
  • AsyncSuffix
  • Mr. Eric
• Rider. A cross-platform C# IDE based on the IntelliJ platform and ReSharper.
• Visual Studio Code with extensions
  • C#
  • Markdown preview
  • Spelling and Grammar checker (being the only non-native speaker in a team is hard :) )

File Managers and command line shell #

• Far manager. An old school two panels file manager.
• ConEmu. A powerful and advanced console window.
• Chocolatey package manager. A package manager for Windows.

Source control #

• GitBash
• GitKraken A cross-platform UI tool for Git.

GitKraken is quite heavy and not super fast as most of the electron.js based tools are, but I find it’s history tree view very readable. The merge tool is not bad at all.

I do most of the git related operations in git bash, though.

Debugging and profiling #

• DotPeek. A free .NET decompiler.
• DotMemory .NET memory profiler.
• WinDbg.
• Fiddler. A free web debugging proxy.
• REST and Http clients. I use two, can’t decide which one I prefer over an other.
  • ARC
  • Postman
• LINQPad A .NET programmer’s playground.

Communication #

• Slack
• Skype

Other tools #

• FoxitReader. A PDF reader.
• ScreenToGif.
• Paint.NET. A free image and photo editing software.
• IIS and SQL Express

Web tools and services #

Besides all the tools above which I have installed locally there are web services I use on a pretty much daily basis.

• requestb.in. An easy to use HTTP request inspector.
• AppVeyor. A free CI/CD service for my open source projects.
• regex101.com. A super awesome regular expressions builder and debugger.
• Toggl. A time tracker.

Batch install #

Most of the tools could be installed from Chocolatey gallery.

choco install dotnet4.5.2 linqpad -y

I prefer to have all the tools grouped into .config files:

<!-- commandline-tools.config -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<packages>
  <package id="git" />
  <package id="far" />
  <package id="nuget.commandline" />
  <package id="conemu" />
</packages>

and they could be installed all together.

A call to action #

Are there any tools around which are worth to try?

Please share in comments. I’m always keen on trying new things.