This is just a simple list of tools I use for development. In no way is this meant to be strongly opinionated or a how-to for the best developer setup. This post is a work in progress and will be updated from time to time.
Browser: Firefox
I was on Chromium (the OSS version) for the longest time, mainly due to the ability to natively switch user profiles. However, more recently, watching videos on youtube has become almost impossible for me on Chromium due to the aggressive response against ad-blockers (also against the extension DF Youtube for some reason). Brave might have been an alternative option
Extensions I recommend for Firefox include,
- uBlock Origin - Ad Blocker
- Privacy Badger, Don't Track me Google - Privacy Extensions
- DF Youtube, YouTube Nonstop, Video Speed Controller, SponsorBlock for YouTube - Better YouTube Experience
- Old Reddit Redirect - Better Reddit Experience
Editor: NeoVim
I used vim mode in VSCode for the longest time, but I must admit the native experience in NeoVim is something else. There are a lot of packages available today that you almost never have to leave your terminal for anything (eg, lsp protocol is native to nvim). I still have VSCode for debugging purposes and for some refactoring issues (eg, find and replace in multiple files is something I haven't figured out in NeoVim).
Checkout my config files at pranjalpokharel7/dotfiles/nvim.
Note Taker: Obsidian
Enough said. There isn't a better note taking app which is available offline. Even this blog post is being written in Obsidian (I have a workflow to export the markdown to html page). There is no need to use Notion, unless it's some sort of company policy.
You might want to install the following community extensions to make the Obsidian experience just that better.
- Natural Language Dates - Shortcut to add date/time while typing
- Pandoc Plugin - Access pandoc exports through command palette (you can directly use the terminal though)
- Omnisearch - Better search throughout your vault
- Paste URL Into Selection - Paste URLs directly into text (instead of manually typing square brackets and parenthesis in markdown)
- Typewriter Mode - Keep the current line in the middle of the screen (other options are available too)
- Obsidian Reading Time, Hider, Outliner - Better UI/UX
- Settings Search, Janitor - Utilities
Video Player: mpv
Lightweight and it just works. I can see someone making a strong case for vlc, but my requirements never really exceed everything provided by mpv.