To become a wizard, one must master tools which are always at hand. It is however difficult to decide which tools to invest in, because there are so many good ones. I think I have finally found some gems worth learning, which I’d like to discuss here.
I have chosen to work under Linux rather than Windows or Mac, because I am confident that in the long run, the open source paradigm will overtake and outlive the proprietary one. Of the many flavors of Linux, I am using Ubuntu, because it is easy to set up and use, and embodies in it’s principles what should be the basis of how people and computers exist together. All the tools mentioned going forward are open source.
On the issue of platforms, C/C++, Java, Python, and Perl seem to have withstood the test of time, and together can serve most needs. All code needs documentation, and it seems that Doxygen has become the standard tool for that. For building large projects, I think CMake is emerging at the top.
For user interfaces in Linux, it always seems to come down to QT(KDE) or GTK(GNOME). I think these two will battle it out for years to come. For graphics the standard is definitely OpenGL. On my desktop I have been alternating between Gnome (rock solid, buntu), the latest KDE (beautifully done, lovely to use, the bleeding edge), and Fluxbox (zen).
When it comes to writing code, I am constantly debating between Vim and Eclipse. Eclipse is a really wonderful tool, it’s very quick to get started with, incredibly capable, and rock solid. On the other hand, Vim is just more efficient for editing text. This is a very representative question – Vim is extremely painful to learn, but it is a tool for wizards – it has almost magical powers which command respect. Here’s a quote which inspired contemplation:
Not long ago I read this phrase: programmers treat human input as computer input. Then I also had to think about VI magic directly. VI + Unix + Perl is a very powerful tool. I came relatively late to this (only one year ago) after trying several editors. I am now a second year informatics student and use vim (with Unix and Perl) to do my everyday coding. It feels being in between two worlds now that there are good alternatives like Eclipse which offer a very different set of tools. Being a bit fluent in VI means being very agile (if you find the corrects keys in time!) and this is the most important. These hints belong to my daily survival guide….– Martin, from this thread
Please comment! I’m interested to hear what people think of my observations.
