I don't know why people have such a blind spot in this regard, but Visual Studio's non-support for word-wrapping comments is obviously shameful. It's utterly ridiculous that you have to press Return while writing comments, and then more ridiculous yet that you have to go back and re-wrap them by hand when they change! - and the end result of course is that people usually don't bother, with the wrapping becoming steadily more ragged over time. Which looks shit.
So, I'll recommend this addin, that fixes it pretty nicely:
Though, you know... I've recommended this to numerous people over the years. And all of them have gone and ignored me. So perhaps I'm just unusual, and people like the raggedy look. Still, Comment Reflower gets my vote.
To be honest it's not a problem I have, I like to keep my comments short and punchy. If I'm writing war and peace, it will only ever be for the class comment at the top, for some reason I manually do my own line breaks then as I feel it can be used to break up thought and provide emphasis.
Even if it's a problem you'd have, you really have a luxury problem if having to press enter when writing comments is the thngs you worry about when delivering code.
That's very dismissive of a very real problem. When you add friction to comments, people either
a) Don't write them in the first place.
b) Don't keep them up to date (as to3m mentioned, it is utterly ridiculous when you need to update a comment and then need to reflow every following sentence. Many developers will simply not do it).
Additionally another counterpoint seems to be "my comments are short anyways", which would make me question why comment in the first place? In most cases where I've seen short comments, they were completely unnecessary redundant restating of exactly what the code already tells you.
The comments that really add real value don't try to pseudo-code the code, but instead tell you the why of the code. It is extremely hard to describe why in 80 characters or less.
Yes, I've found this too. Comments that are useful to more than just the original author tend to be at least 2-3 sentences long. It's hard to fit that many sentences into 80 characters, a total which is already being eaten away by indentation and comment prefix. (For example, your average C# function will be indented 2 stops. C++ member function declarations will be indented 1 or 2 stops. In both these cases you also lose 2 or 3 chars from the leading "//" or "// ".)
Before I used Comment Reflower, I used one of the example VBA macros that comes with Visual Studio. It was rather slow, and somewhat buggy (you're much, much better of with Comment Reflower) but it would - usually - word wrap your comments without making too much of a mess. But I noticed my comments improving in quality pretty much the moment I started using it, because finally I could say as much as needed to be said without it being a bother to keep things nicely formatted, or having to even think about the effort of keeping it up to date later.
Not evil/lazy - after all, what could be less lazy than spending all that time pressing return and reformatting your comments? Just, to my mind, a bit unusual.
Manual word wrapping reminds me of the days before copy and paste and undo, which (due to my age) thankfully didn't last all that long for me. I personally do not want ever to go back to that time, though I suppose for some the idea might seem attractively quaint ;)
I agree having Paint.NET on this list, it is pretty good. I used paint shop pro 6 (yes, the one made in 1999) and switched to Paint.NET last year. It has really expanded my capabilities with regard to art for game development.
Another vote of confidence for Paint.NET from me. It's gotten to a point where I know the shortcuts by heart and can cut, resize, apply tweaks to images very very quickly and it integrates perfectly with windows.
It doesn't look horrible like GIMP. Please donate if you can, even $5 helps!
IMO it has a different place than GIMP, and they actually co-exist on my system. GIMP is more of a PhotoShop clone, whereas Paint.NET is more of a PSP clone and/or MSPaint on steroids. I've found that PS/GIMP are usually best for creating a production-quality image from scratch or for touching up full-color photos, but Paint.NET is best for doing informal graphical work (mock-ups, screenshot annotations, etc.)
Yeah, good bit of software, usually end up installing it. However....
As I currently dont have it installed I thought I would do so having been reminded by this. Highlighted paint.net and right clicked. Of course chrome wanted to go to paint.net, rather than search for it. Far enough, but absent mindedly I clicked in "go to", and my AV software went mental. The site paint.net seems to be highly dodgy.
So, yes, great bit of software, people should use and support it. Just be careful about where you go to get it. As should be obvious by this thread people need http://www.getpaint.net/
A great list overall. One alternative I'd offer: he recommends Github for Windows and Tortoise as Git clients. I've been using SourceTree for Windows (http://www.sourcetreeapp.com/) and it's excellent. They've done a great job maintaining and keeping it up to date.
SourceTree is such a great program. It's also very intuitive and nooby friendly, as opposed to Github for Windows which never seized to confuse me and I've been using Git for years.
With SourceTree, people completely new to Git and version control can get things done.
uTorrent got iffy once it was bought out. IIRC, you want version 0.6 This was very small, fast and unmolested.
VLC. For years used to be absolutely fantastic. When it came out, a god send. I'd tell anyone listening to use it. Sadly, recently its caused me loads of sync problems, and various other minor niggles. As a result, I have had to reverted to CCCP. When VLC works for me, it is the best, but when it doesn't, CCCP fills the gap. In fairness, maybe a recent VLC update will cure my problems. Dunno.
Foobar2000 needs a mention, especially with Winamp going. My PC is connected to my amp directly via USB, and FLAC files sound incredibly good. (These days, hifi wise, MP3 is, to me, awful. They kinda sound dead. You lose so much detail and depth. But that's a whole new discussion) You can also get a great little app for Android that you can remote control foobar2000 with over your lan.
Foobar2000 is a great project, it's tremendously efficient (I think it uses 10-20mb when running), and the plugin feature allows you to extend it however you wish.
I dont understand why repackaging is bad for Cmder. I was desperately looking for cmd alternative and found Console 2 a few years back. Then heard about ConEmu but it didn't made me even to try but Cmder did.
My theory: cmder is more palpable to the HN crowd because it fits several hipster criteria:
* The name, while not as cool as these examples -- cmdr, cmd.io, cmd.ly, cmdhub -- is much more hip than ConEmu.
* Design snob approved website, complete with almost Apple marketing levels of condescension: you won't see those other projects talking about "amazing software" or how you can "carry it with you ... anywhere you go".
In all seriousness though, if I hadn't seen cmder mentioned on HN I probably wouldn't have heard of the interesting stuff it is based on, so I give them some credit. (Though I looked at some source code, and cringed a little bit on how these things work: injecting foreign code into the existing cmd.exe process... Yikes.)
Oh that looks nice! I've been looking for something like this and I have been using MobaXterm, but it's a bit clunky from time to time. Will definitely check it out! Thanks.
Even though I barely touch windows these days, when I do, I invariably use "everything" (http://www.voidtools.com/) to find where everything is. So fast, so minimalistic. It's like locate on crack (because it shows you stuff as you type and it automatically updatedb's).
Actually not really if you set up an index on C:\ it is quite fast, which is basically the main difference. But there is not one by default so you need to add it.
Another upvote for Everything. The first thing I install.
I could never understand why MS didnt just purchase Everything and embed it within Windows. I've not tried win 8.1 search, but Everything is far faster/lighter/better than WinXP+7+8 search.
My only feature request for Everything is the ability to search inside Outlook msgs and Office docs.
CryptSync (open source). This keeps a folder in sync with another one but encrypts the content of the destination folder. It's extremely useful to use with Dropbox where I keep everything encrypted.
http://stefanstools.sourceforge.net/CryptSync.html
Greenshot (open source). I use this to get screenshots of a particular area of the screen like I would do on OSX with CTRL+SHIFT+4.
http://getgreenshot.org/
I prefer Greenshot because I can do some magic like autosaving each shot in a particular format and folder. It also allows me to save and copy to clipboard so I can with just one click have it available to paste into a new Gmail message while keeping it saved on the disk. I use this a lot every day.
No idea why he would use Notepad2, ST3 loads up just as fast and provides way more features for text editing. Plus it is good with markdown syntax highlighting thus eliminating the need for MarkdownPad
Also Github for windows or just Git bash covers the need for Gow
Jabbr is ok, but I havent been able to give up mIRC
What?? I don't have access to a Windows install right now, but the last time I used ST3 on Windows, it took a heck of a lot longer (~2-3 seconds) to start up than Notepad2.
It takes a few seconds to start up for me too. And if it's already running, unrelated tabs appearing are annoying. I use Sublime usually, but Notepad2 when I just want to edit something quickly or have a scratch pad. (I actually replaced Windows' notepad with it.)
Using ST3b3059 on Windows 8.1 pro x64, 2.5Ghz Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, 7200RPM Platter and the ST console logs "startup time: 0.0931221", it loaded as fast as vanilla Notepad.
Agreed Notepad2 is pretty much perfect. I have been meaning to try out Notepad2-mod for a while as I would quite like the code folding.
One thing I would like (and might change myself if I ever get around to setting up my own build of it) is for it to remember its last position. At the moment you can save the location but it is annoying and should be automatic (IMHO).
AutoHotkey is a great way to get your kids coding. Not sure if there's anything like it for what kids use most nowadays, iOS and Android tablets, but having them make macros and letting them manipulate their favorite piece of software in ways they didn't think possible is usually an eye opener.
Tasked is like an Android version of AutoHotKey. You can even use it to create APKs, which you can distribute in the Play store. I've used it to do loads of things, like unlock my phone based on WiFi, send automatic responses, and log the GPS coordinates when I leave the car.
* 7+ Taskbar Tweaker ( http://rammichael.com/7-taskbar-tweaker ): allows you to configure various aspects of the Windows taskbar, for example reorder and regroup the programs in the taskbar.
* Network Activity Indicator (http://www.itsamples.com/network-activity-indicator.html ): displays the old 'two monitors' icon in Windows 7 that flashed blue to show network activity. (Well, this don’t belong to the OP list because the only purpouse is to clutter the systray, but I like it.)
Great list of suggestions. While many of us on HN prefer Linux or OS X for any development work, it doesn't mean we don't at least occasionally work on Windows machines. Knowing how to make that experience more smooth definitely helps.
Going through the list of suggestions there was one particular item that stopped me to think. Living close to the arctic circle where sun never rises with the winter solstice approaching, trying F.lux (http://justgetflux.com/) felt at first a bit depressing with the app interpreting it's night even though it was noon. But then again, I guess most things have a tendency to feel depressing at this time of year.
I used F.lux for a long time, but now prefer Redshift[1][2] on OS X and Linux. (I think it has Windows support too, although I haven't tried it.) F.lux seemed to use a lot of CPU considering what it was doing.
I haven't touched it in a few years, but back then, when Notepad++ was already getting a lot of praise, I found that it started to fail pretty badly for me as soon as I waded into its more "advanced" functionality. Regex pattern matching, I seem to recall for one, but also other behaviour I've since forgotten the details of. Indentation, even, I seem to recall, such as in more involved cases of combinations of indenting commands and outdenting commands.
For a couple of years, I spent a fair amount of my time doing some fairly heavy text manipulation in TextPad. At this later time, Notepad++ had some other features I was interested in that the somewhat languishing TextPad was not adding, but its inconsistencies in the points I'm recalling were eventually a gamestopper for me.
TextPad is paid, and they borked their initial version 5 releases in some significant fashions, but it was very good and consistent at swallowing and processing large swaths of text on moderate resources. Good for e.g. beating mammoth print-to-file-d TPS reports into something useable in downstream steps.
P.S. TextPad also implemented "persist indent upon wordwrap" in an effective fashion I've not found elsewhere.
I don't mean to sound particularly like I'm pushing TextPad. And I was particularly unhappy with some of what happened with their v 5 release. But the features/behaviour I've described I found very useful and somewhat unique to it.
I haven't been an environment where I've need of heavy use of it in some time, so I can't really speak to its current state, anyway. But I wish that combination of features and performance was more prevalent in the marketplace (free or paid).
If you like windows snipping tool, http://getgreenshot.org/ is an open source software that does all the things that snipper does, and more (like a snagit replacement).
Window, region, freeform windows.
Uploads to various services.
Configuration to allow automatic save locations and types.
big fan of greenshot here. They've added good features over time. Now it captures transparent rounded corners and you can add shadows, ripping effects. I still with their text feature was stronger but it's certainly does the job. You can also share to a dozen different sources.
- TreeSize ( and/or SequoiaView ) -- see where the big files/directories are on your harddrives
- Piriform CrapCleaner -- deletes unwanted/unneeded files after booting; configure all of it, then add folders and log files manually (find good candidates with Treesize ;) I like all Piriform tools, they're small, quick and slick. I wish they made more things.
- any SysInternals stuff you have a use for (Autoruns is a must have)
- DirectoryOpus -- the best file manager I know
- FreeFileSync -- backup/synchronize directories (locally, that is). Can also monitor directories for changed stuff (also for Mac and Linux)
And this is why I still read every utilities/tools thread.
Another cool one that needs a new maintainer is SelfImage: it can make a disc image of a running Windows system and even connect to a Linux network block device.
I suggested the author to review my company product SpyStudio that has a free version and is being used by Microsoft MVPs and VMware to troubleshoot Windows issues.
Somehow the way you stated "used by Microsoft..." seemed disconnected from this fact, and just in case you didn't know I wanted to point it out. Since you know, no problem anywhere :)
A word of warning about TerraCopy- it can cause annoying errors when copying. I transferred many gigs of data from one computer to another over a LAN, some files transferred fine, others looked like they copied ok, but were actually 0kb in size on closer look.
I'm not sure if it was a bug in that particular version or with the setup being used, but once I uninstalled TerraCopy the errors ceased.
TC occasionally bombs out if you queue too much stuff - i.e. it just closes ... and thus looks like its done when really its not. Maybe thats why you got 0kb files.
Win7 + copying is decent enough for most non-lan purposes though.
Speaking on copying failing - I stopped using TotalCommander for that reason. It just says disk full (not true) out of the blue. Messaged the author & got some bullshit response.
> Win7 + copying is decent enough for most non-lan purposes though.
It's not. If a single file fails on Win7 it cancels the whole operation (how is that possible on an OS released in 2009?! Fixed in Win8 though, that will never be used in corporations though), it fails if the path becomes longer than 255 characters etc.
Robocopy works but I'd much rather use rsync which is not available on Windows unless you use hacked up versions with cygwin.
A good reliable copying tool is sorely missing. Sure, there's all sorts of alternatives but I'm not willing to use it unless it's open source. The other comment on this thread talking about FastCopy got me curious, I'll have to try that (it's open source!).
You would think that queuing lots of files would be where TerraCopy really shines- faster copying combined with a nice view of the copy queue, with percentages and so on.
I was disappointed to uninstall it because it worked well for normal copying on the same pc and the UI is very informative, but the bog-standard windows copying functionality can handle as much stuff as you can throw at it which is the whole point of a copy tool in the first place.
The only time I had Total Commander stop a copy like that was with bad usb hubs/drives that can't sustain fast writes and need to be down throttled. This is the reason why tcmd has option to change how it handles drives, the size of the chunks it reads and writes, and the speed at which it does it.
On XP - perhaps, but on Windows 7 and up FastCopy and TeraCopy are both slower than or marginally comparable to robocopy, which is a built-in bulk copying tool. Microsoft did an amazing job with it in W7, robocopy is really damn fast.
Scott Hanselman's list is amazing! A must-have for everyone in the tech industry. A decade worth of work at your fingertips. These are all well loved and often used utilities. I have curated my own list of utilities out of this humongous list. I truly appreciate the amount of hard work and many hours of research put together in making this list by Scott Hanselman.
I often copy code from my IDE to my blog or other Markdown formatters. I always have to add four spaces or convert tabs to spaces so that it gets formatted as code block. This extremely fast and simply site just brings a simple and easy solution to my problem.
Although he mentions Hyper-V Virtual Machines, the real winner for me is VMware Player (http://www.vmware.com/in/products/player/). Its just like a audio/video player but for Virtual Machines.
Great list. I'd add one more program: Agent Ransack at http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/ . It's a file search utility that is orders of magnitude better than the utility built into Windows.
Yes, the problem i have with the built-in windows search is that I never really know what it's searching and therefore i don't know how exhaustive its results are. Agent ransack has a very precise ui, you know exactly what you're searching for and which folders you're searching in. It's great for when you have to trawl through millions of lines of code across dozens of projects to find the references to a database column to be migrated. I use it depressingly often for that, but it does it really well.
IMDisk, a virtual disk driver and disk image mount utility that is lightweight, ad-free, and actually supports Windows 2000 to 8.1 [1]. It's also open-source.
There's a lot about asking people not to copy the list to their own blogs which kind of spoils the first impression to me - especially that the note is before the fold.
Does the HN crowd have an opinion on this? Did you find the note a bit weird ?
A day or two before he posted the list, he had to go through a run-around with some dude who apparently had copied a whole bunch of his (10 years+) blog content to their own, no attribution, nothing. I believe he deals with this type of thing frequently. I also think this tools list is a popular item for such "re-blogging,"
In this particular case, it appeared the offender simply didn't understand proper "nettiquette" and once pointed out, promptly removed the content (although he appears to still have a whole bunch of OTHER people's stuff copied up there, so who knows?).
I don't see any issues with it. He's trying to preserve credit for a work he created. Yes, even a blog post like this one is work. In the past, some of Scott Hanselman's has been ripped off. I think it was a talk or post about working from home, or something related to how to be productive.
No - copy and pasting is endemic, and if he wants to keep a list that's his (rather than have it shared on 50+ 'latest might-get-ad-clicks content' websites), then good for him.
Thank you for mention of this wonderful software. I tried to do the same with Autohotkey, but it is much simpler with TouchCursor. So I have been working with it for 2 days, it is unusual for the first time, but not so hard. Now I have fast text navigation tool, much better than Home, End etc. keys.
My favorite tool on the list is Everything search, which instantly finds all files. It has completely changed the way I use the file system, to the point where I will rarely even open the Windows Explorer.
For python development, I'd also add Python(x,y) and/or Anaconda distributions for windows. They're binary installers that give you cpython interpreters + the kitchen sink when it comes to third party libraries and development tools.
Also, I have to disagree with the author about recommending µTorrent. It's become more and more adware ridden with each new update. Deluge is pretty good though.
I tried both, why do you prefer PyCharm? Personally I like the Visual Studio IDE. The main concern I found with the VS extension is that is using 1/4 of the CPU all the time but with PyCharm I saw a similar behavior.
[ptvs proj lead here] - thanks wslh!
is the cpu really going at 25% the entire time? this should definitely /not/ happen. what will happen is that when you 1st install PTVS the analyzer will run in the background for a while until the completion database is ready for pkgs you've installed. after that it should be incremental as you add new pkgs. the initial analysis may take a while if you have a very large distro (15-45m) & run up the cpu. but after that it should be pretty flat. if you could file an issue w the list of your pkgs (if possible) we can look into it. bugs: http://pytools.codeplex.com/workitem/list/basic
NLTK itself shouldnt take thaaat long, but if you have a large distro that includes the kitchen sink, it could take ~ an hour +/- depending on your machine. the reward is you get really deep intellisense, not just basic completion. the bug you linked is fixed btw.
I'll have to checkout Deluge. Got real sick of µTorrent's shit after Chrome and IE were hijacked in multiple places to use Yahoo Search as the default search/homepage, with a Spigot affiliate code. Nowhere was I asked if this was OK, or allowed to opt out, and I spent 2 hours having to make sure there wasn't anything else going on with my system.
I heard from a friend at the time that Tixati was another decent BT client.
And for Python development, a Vagrant installation works wonders, as does PyCharm, which I was telling to shut up and take my money after 3 minutes.
For Python development, I'd strongly suggest Cygwin. Unless you plan to run your Python code on Windows, it'll give you an environment much closer to the server the code will run on.
My Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for OS X (2013 Edition)
> The idea for this list was shamelessly ripped off from Windows developer Scott Hanselman whose list has long been an enjoyable read when he updates it.
> "NimbleText - Regular Expressions are hard and I'm not very smart. NimbleText lets me do crazy stuff with large amounts of text with it hurting so much [sic]."
In case it's unclear from the description, NimbleText is a simple code generator. It's saved me a ton of time and keystrokes. Well worth the $20.
> "NimbleText - Regular Expressions are hard and I'm not very smart. NimbleText lets me do crazy stuff with large amounts of text with it hurting so much [sic]."
I couldn't even read this part without laughing, all I hear is: "I'm too lazy to spend a few hours learning the free, extremely powerful tools available to me, so I'll use this weaker substitute instead. And it's only 20 bucks!"
I overcame my eye rolling, and checked out the tool. It looks fine, but it seems like just a GUI over regex, right? Am I missing anything?
If buying a tool for $20 gets the job done just as well and saves the "few hours" of learning how to do it so-called "properly", it seems like the correct decision to me.
Based purely on this one single comment (which isn't much to go on to be fair) I wouldn't be giving someone like you too much broad authority on a project because you lack wise judgement skills in my opinion.
Since you mention laughing at people, you may not be aware of it, or care, but people ("idiot" managers and "idiot" users) might very well laugh at you behind their backs as well. If you lack perspective, the ability to consider issues from the point of view of different stakeholders, you're going to see a lot of idiots around you.
You sound quite offended, that was not my intention.
If you consider it wise judgment to pay money to spend a few hours to learn a less flexible, leakier abstraction rather than just spending the few hours, and gaining a lifetime skill, learning the high powered, free tool available, that is where we differ.
I don't laugh at people who don't know something, quite the contrary, there is little I love more than helping someone grow in knowledge. I laugh at a worldview that celebrates ignorance as if it were a virtue.
I have no doubt people laugh at me too, probably because I believe anyone can be better than they are, anyone can improve. I have high expectations for myself and those around me. And that, for a person who chooses a worldview that celebrates ignorance, can only be met with derisive laughter and ad hominem attacks.
Not offended, just tired of, in my perception, the air of absolute certainty among so many technical people.
A bit beyond the scope of this particular discussion, what does offend me is when people (not you perhaps) are constantly learning these life long skills on the client's dime. Some things it is fair/correct/righteous to learn and bill as part of a project, but when it isn't, I'll take the $20 approach every time.
It offends me when technical people are dishonest and insist that the "technically correct and proper" way is the path that must be taken, not the approach that should be taken. Or, they don't even inform the client of the option and just secretly make the decision to take the more expensive route. Again, not saying this is you, but it sure as hell happens.
By the way, who here is celebrating ignorance? Scott Hanselman?
I agree, stealing from a client, that's still stealing. When I learn new tools/skills, I learn them on my own time unless there is an explicit understanding, $20 or not. I consider such things a "sharpen your saws" sort of activity, and that is best done in isolation from the crunch of deadlines anyway.
As to Scott's writings, yes, that is what I was referring to. I get a distinct vibe from some of his writings that goes like: "we are mediocre, and that's okay, let's laugh it off!" Which is odd, considering some of his other writings which strongly imply that is not really what he thinks. Perhaps he just has sharp sense of self-deprecating humor. Perhaps he is just trying to be relatable to a community not known for exploration. Either way, I feel like it confuses his message. Mountains out of molehills, perhaps, but lately I have been trying to read text more carefully, looking for worldviews, which has added a new layer of depth to even development blogs.
> I consider such things a "sharpen your saws" sort of activity, and that is best done in isolation from the crunch of deadlines anyway.
Kudos to you for that attitude, and I wish it was more widespread. Too many developers lose that attitude develop a sense of entitlement not very far into their career.
> As to Scott's writings, yes, that is what I was referring to. I get a distinct vibe from some of his writings that goes like: "we are mediocre, and that's okay, let's laugh it off!"
I'd attribute that moreso to self-deprecating humor. You may also notice Jeff Atwood of StackOverflow fame is very modest abut his capabilities, despite affecting the technical world far more than 90% of the self-impressed people you may encounter online.
However, I'd also wager that "Windows guys" don't take themselves nearly as serious as "Unix guys", at least in part because Unix guys tend to in fact be smarter, because you have to be. I mean that as a genuine compliment. But I will follow up with an "insult" - I've met a lot of too smart people (in both camps I suppose) who let their brilliance and devotion to technical correctness and purity blind out any consideration of both economics and plain common sense, which is fine if you're running your own startup I suppose, but when you're playing with other people's money it's a different story.
>"we are mediocre, and that's okay, let's laugh it off!"
Given Scott has been involved in such things as Tekpub (excellent tutorials site, now bought by Pluralsight) and lots of developer outreach, I don't think this is the right thing to read into his writing.
>Perhaps he is just trying to be relatable to a community not known for exploration
What?
>lately I have been trying to read text more carefully, looking for worldviews, which has added a new layer of depth to even development blogs.
I suspect you (and I) introduce our own biases when trying to gain extra context - remember text loses a lot of meaning we'd otherwise get through vocal tones and body language. Maybe try the Hanselminutes podcast?
Regex can be painful in cases which go beyond the low-lying, easy ones. Also, people have different innate skills. I am one who does not do so well remembering esoteric character combinations. I use regex frequently enough to understand how it works, and what I need, but without fail, I lack the "muscle memory" to just know what to type when doing much more complex than a simple match. This usually leads me to Google, or to a tool like this.
I have similar trouble with odd terminal commands and flags. I am not afraid of them, but it simply not part of my mental make-up to remember them all. The ones I use frequently - no problem. Those I use only occasionally - Google. :-)
Let's face it - regex IS HARD if you are not a regex "power user" or if you are the sort, like myself, whose mental map is not optimized for such things.
Yeah, I end up using more a tool called vim macros found in vsvim. They are very powerful. There are only really two commands to remember: record and play. I highly recommend them to anyone who doesn't use regex enough to remember them.
If you're missing something, perhaps it is the use of literary license. The article is written for an audience not as a therapeutic journal. Sure regular expressions can be learned as quickly as one can type
del *.*
but a few hours of study isn't going to make much of their syntax stick two weeks later, and two weeks between uses is a lot more frequent than most computer users use them. Everyone ain't a programmer.
Well it's also a regexp: It's "del" followed by zero or more spaces followed by zero or more of any char. :)
Although I feel competent with moderately complex regexps, I'm not sure I'd want to use them instead of globs while slinging my valuable files at the command line.
Which I think goes back to the ancestor point -- is it crazy to use a GUI to make regexps for you? Although I too can get snooty about that, I think it's smart for someone who doesn't use regexps frequently in their work -- but on the rare occasions they need to, they need to get it right.
It's literary license. There's no reason that 'splat' cannot represent zero or more printable characters or 'dot' be a reference to the literal character within a syntax for expressing regular expressions. There is no single correct isomorphism.
Though the point about Regex's being distinct from wildcards just reinforces the idea that regex's are not an obvious concept.
Nice list! I see a few things I already have, and a bunch more that I'll check out.
A question for those who spend more time doing front-end web development: What do all of these much-touted Firefox development plugins like Firebug do that Chrome developer tools doesn't do?
I've used both and for some reason on another the Firefox ones just seem more user friendly. Maybe its because I started with Firebug in some ways but the Firefox tools seem better implemented from a usability perspective.
I recommend far manager - http://www.farmanager.com/
It looks and acts like Norton commander for windows - in text mode; it has many plugins, can't live without it.
So has anyone found a decent Windows text/XML editor for large files? Notepad++ is great but I've noticed it a bit unwieldy with 50MB+ XML files. I find myself using svndiff if I need to compare large XML files. The performance is much better.
One question: why would I bother installing all that when I can simply use a UNIX clone which on top of that is absolutely free? And as always with Windows: oh you got PowerShell, so adorable... Here, check bash/zsh
What's the best hex editor on Windows these days? I'm rarely on it but when I am I usually use the Notepad++ plugin for it but love to hear about something better
So, I'll recommend this addin, that fixes it pretty nicely:
http://kynosarges.org/CommentReflower.html
Though, you know... I've recommended this to numerous people over the years. And all of them have gone and ignored me. So perhaps I'm just unusual, and people like the raggedy look. Still, Comment Reflower gets my vote.