What dev tools do you rely on that nobody talks about?

Question

Curious to find those hidden gems that boost productivity or make dev work more efficient. Mired in my own processes and need a change/shift. I'm hoping there's still some non-AI stuff out there that's delightful to use (in a nerdy sense).

kentich · Accepted Answer

A VS Code/Visual Studio extension for creating mind maps with nodes linked to code called Code Mind Map.

strict9 · Answer

I've been using ack for a very long time, maybe 15 years.It's like grep but faster and easier to use. I still use it all the time, even in the era of Claude.https://beyondgrep.com/

rep_movsd · Answer

gitk and git gui

verdverm · Answer

CUE and Dagger, though they are talked about by more than nobodyThey are central to my personal dev toolhttps://github.com/hofstadter-io/hof

markus_zhang · Answer

Tilix + shell scripts to create a Tilix session, open windows inside Tilix and run commands, so that I can immediately create a session to debug say Linux kernel development -- 3 windows, one for gdb, one for compiling and running, and one for minicom.I'm sure Tmux can do it, but I really hate the Ctrl+B thing. Alt + Arrow keys are way more intuitive.

What dev tools do you rely on that nobody talks about?

Curious to find those hidden gems that boost productivity or make dev work more efficient. Mired in my own processes and need a change/shift. I'm hoping there's still some non-AI stuff out there that's delightful to use (in a nerdy sense).

A VS Code/Visual Studio extension for creating mind maps with nodes linked to code called Code Mind Map.

I've been using ack for a very long time, maybe 15 years.
It's like grep but faster and easier to use. I still use it all the time, even in the era of Claude.
https://beyondgrep.com/

gitk and git gui

CUE and Dagger, though they are talked about by more than nobody
They are central to my personal dev tool
https://github.com/hofstadter-io/hof