Episode 69: Nice Tools We Like

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There are so many tools out there that can make your life as a developer easier or more fun. In today’s episode, Alex, Tessa, and Ari sit down to share some of their favorite tools. We hear about why everyone loves VSCode and find out the story of how each panelist came to use this editor for their work. We also dive into themes, terminals, and font choices, where there are some seriously hot takes. In fact, Alex has such hot takes, we are not even sure he will be a host anymore! Our conversation even gets into mouse selection, keyboard choice, where you hear about what a hot-swappable keyboard is, and some of the best extensions for typos. Ultimately, you have to decide what makes your life better and improves your workflow. We are just here to share what works for us. Tune in to hear it all!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Hear what editor everyone is currently using and the story behind their decisions. 
• What makes VSCode so powerful: all of its plugins. 
• Everyone’s VSCode theme of choice at the moment. 
• Hear about some of the instances when Alex uses light themes. 
• Find out what a ligature is and when you should and should not use them. 
• Fonts that Alex, Tessa, and Ari use in their editors. 
• The panel’s terminal decisions; there are some seriously hot takes! 
• Insights into why Alex doesn’t really use git commands. 
• Hear about Mac’s productivity app, Alfred, and how it works. 
• Some extensions that help with typos in the terminal. 
• Why Ari uses a gaming mouse and how this has helped her. 
• Ari, Tessa, and Alex’s keyboard habits and which fingers they use for what. 
• Some of the mouses Tessa, Ari, and Alex have used and currently use. 
• A look at the panel’s keyboard preferences. 
• What a hot-swappable keyboard is and the benefits of using one. 
• Final tools and tricks from everyone to end the show. 
• Hear what the panel’s picks for this week are.

Tweetables:

“What makes VS Code so powerful is its plugins. You can turn VS Code into an IDE, which is an integrated development environment. That allows you to have your debugging built-in.” —@fimion [0:04:40]

“My random, other extra dev thing is that I use a gaming mouse.” — @GloomyLumi [0:31:41]

“I feel like, if you have a mouse you take that opportunity to try a new mouse, because usually, you don't really have that option.” — Tessa [0:37:07]

“Hot swappable boards are solderless. You just pop the switches up, pop in new ones, but you have to have something in the board to hold the switch in place.” —@fimion [0:40:54]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

• Enjoy the Vue listener survey
• Sublime Text
• VS Code
• PyCharm
• Nyan Progress Bar plugin
• Yoncé
• VSCodeThemes
• Dank Mono
• Cartograph
• Comic Mono
• Logitech K380 Multi-Device Bluetooth Keyboard
• Logitech MX Master 3
• Keycool KC-87 RGB
• WASD Keyboard
• Logitech G604
• Penn and Teller: Fool Us, CW
• Horizon Zero Dawn (Playstation 4, PC)
• Sanditon, BBC (PBS, Amazon Prime)
• Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts, Netflix

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