Text Editor

Notepad ++

Install a good text editor. If you do not have a favorite, I recommend Notepad ++

• Download it from https://notepad-plus-plus.org/

Configure Notepad ++

Tab settings

• In the Settings menu select Preferences
• In the Indentation section set the Indent size to 2 and select Space character(s)

Visual Studio Code

Configure Visual Studio Code

To work with Dev Containers, install the Dev Containers extension by Microsoft and Docker Desktop.

Git

For GitHub

For Git installation and configuration see Install Git on Windows

For BitBucket

Install Atlassian SourceTree

Install Atlassian SourceTree, the free Bitbucket UI from https://www.sourcetreeapp.com/

Configure Visual Studio Code Git extension

The Git extension is a part of Visual Studio Code. If there is no Git executable installed on the system, set the portable Git executable installed by SourceTree.

Open the C:\Users\YOUR_USER_NAME\AppData\Roaming\Code\User\settings.json and set

"git.path": "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Atlassian\SourceTree\git_local\bin\git.exe"

Add Git to the Path

Add the directory path of the git.exe file to the System path environment variable:
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Atlassian\SourceTree\git_local\bin

Restart any open PowerShell or Terminal for the change to take effect.

JSON

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

Make

To install Make to be able to run it in the Git Bash (MINGW64) window

1. Navigate the ezwinports at https://sourceforge.net/projects/ezwinports/files/
2. Download the make-4.4.1-without-guile-w32-bin.zip or newer archive (make sure you select the version “without-guile”),
3. Extract the zip archive in a temporary location,
4. Copy the contents to the C:\Program Files\Git\mingw64 directory, merging into the existing folders, but do NOT overwrite or replace any existing files.

Docker Desktop

Modern software development revolves around Docker containers. Install the Docker Desktop to be able to work with Docker and Kubernetes clusters.

• Create a Docker account at docker.com
• Download the Docker Desktop installer

• Follow the instructions at the right side of the page
  • On windows
    • Install WSL with
      wsl.exe --install Ubuntu
    • Install Docker Desktop

AWS CLI

To be able to work with Amazon Web Services install the AWS CLI

• Navigate to https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/getting-started-install.html
• Expand the Windows section
• Download and install the recommended .msi file
• Restart the terminal for the PATH change to take effect

Configure the AWS CLI

This process with create the ~/.aws/credentials and ~/.aws/config files

• In the terminal execute
  aws configure
• Enter the aws key, aws secret key, and specify the default region and response format (usually json is used)