Development Tools

More than once I've had someone ask me what I've got in my tool box, what apps and utilities do I use for programming applications. I thought it would be a good idea to post these. Maybe someone will find something interesting, or useful. Maybe I'll look back on it in a dozen years and laugh. Here's the listing. How does yours compare?

• Internet Explorer -
  Yes, I know. We hate it. But 88% of the users of the sites I develop use it, so I must test in it.
• FireFox -
  Browser of choice (and champions), along with a few extensions:
  • All-In-One Sidebar
  • ColorZilla
  • DOM Inspector
  • FireBug
  • HTML Validator
  • Tabbrowser Preferences
  • View Formatted Source
  • View Source Chart
  • Web Developer
• Eclipse + Callisto + CFEclipse
• Photoshop CS2 or Fireworks (just depends)
• Thunderbird (yes, email counts in development)
• ColdFusion (6.1 converting to 7 at work, 7 on most side work)

But my most important tools? Books and Blogs. Here is some current reading:

• The Bible (classic King James, with italics)
• CFMX7 Certified Developer Study Guide
• MySQL Tutorial
• Teach Yourself XSLT in 21 Days
• JavaScript for the World Wide Web: Visual QuickStart Guide
• DHTML and CSS for the World Wide Web: Visual QuickStart Guide
• Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 for Server Geeks
• Many CF (and more) blogs (Ray, Sean, Aaron, Mark, others)

Somewhere down the line I hope to throw the Flex Builder into that Eclipse. At work I use MSSQL, but on most side work I use MySQL. I use BlogCFC for this blog). I love Model-Glue, though I've worked with Mach-II, and I hope to look at Fusebox 5 real soon (never really liked the earlier implementations much, though).

Pretty simple. I throw some other things in when I need to. I like the "find" functionality of Dreamweaver better than that of CFEclipse (note to self: drop Mark a ticket in the bug tracker). I use Flash at the office, but mostly to troubleshoot issues (we have a bang up Flash designer who is also learning ColdFusion).