There are tools and utilities software developers use to write, test and deploy code. These are some of them to make our life easier.

Commonly used applications

Text Editor

Visual Studio Code

• Install and configure Visual Studio Code

Atom

1. Download it from https://atom.io/
2. Double click the downloaded ZIP file to extract the application,
3. Drag the Atom application into Applications

Configure Atom

See Atom text editor configuration

Terminal Window

iTerm2

Install iTerm2, a smart terminal emulator to issue Bash commands and log into Linux servers.

See Install and configure iTerm2

Git

See Install Git on Macintosh

Install JQ

JQ is a JSON command line tool to read, write and convert data to an from JSON.

brew install jq

JSON in the browser

To automatically pretty print JSON responses in Chrome

• Install the JSON Formatter Chrome extension by: callumlocke.co.uk from https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/json-formatter/bcjindcccaagfpapjjmafapmmgkkhgoa?hl=en

Docker Desktop

Kubernetes cluster management

OpenLens

OpenLens is the open source (free) version of the Lens application. Muhammed Kalkan provides binary builds and installation instructions on his GitHub page at ttps://github.com/MuhammedKalkan/OpenLens

The simplest is to install OpenLens with Brew using his builds:

brew install --cask openlens

Nice to have utilities

Window Manager

Rectangle

Rectangle is a window management app based on Spectacle, written in Swift.
Installation instructions are at https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle

1. Install Rectangle with
   brew install --cask rectangle
2. Configure iTerm for better resizing behavior with
   defaults write com.googlecode.iterm2 DisableWindowSizeSnap -integer 1

Comparison tools

diff-so-fancy

Smart diff visualizer that highlights the parts of the line that changed

1. Install it
   brew install diff-so-fancy
2. Configure Git to use it as the default diff tool

   git config --global core.pager "diff-so-fancy | less --tabs=4 -RFX"

Install the database management tools

• PostgreSQL management tools

Working with Windows servers from the Mac

If you want to work with Windows servers, you may need to remote into them.

Remote Desktop Client

Download the Windows App from the Apple App Store

1. Open the App Store
2. Search for “Windows App”
   
3. Click the Windows App icon
4. Click the blue Get button
5. Click the green Install App button