Writer, editor and executive coach; co-founder and editor of A Book Apart and a former contributing editor at A List Apart.

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Safari

  Their words

  I spend a lot of my time in a browser; usually Safari. Chrome is arguably a better browser, but I seem to be sticking with Safari out of inertia and appreciation for its stronger visual polish.

  usesthis.com

• Likedrcmnd.app

  Things

  Their words

  Things remains my to-do app, especially now that the cloud sync is in public beta. I like the way it lets me organize to-dos into different projects; when you have a lot of projects, that bit of separation is key.

  usesthis.com

Irish independent game developer, maker of VVVVVV, Super Hexagon and Dicey Dungeons.

• Likedrcmnd.app

  Dark Room

  Their words

  I really like the fullscreen text editor Dark Room for taking notes, and I've found I find it a lot easier to get to sleep since I started using F.lux.

  usesthis.com

• Usesrcmnd.app

  FlashDevelop

  Their words

  For coding: I mostly use FlashDevelop, with the Adobe Flex compiler.

  usesthis.com

Mac and iOS developer; created NetNewsWire and MarsEdit, co-created the JSON Feed format, and blogs at inessential.com.

• Lovedrcmnd.app

  ack

  Their words

  I use the wonderful and better-than-grep ack on the command line.

  usesthis.com

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Mercurial

  Their words

  For SCM I mostly use Mercurial (on the command line usually, though sometimes I use SourceTree).

  usesthis.com

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Vim

  Their words

  Most of this is just about switching to one text editor - Vim - for everything, including writing email, blog posts, notes, HTML, style sheets, and code.

  usesthis.com

Technologist and entrepreneur; former CTO of Threadless and chief technology officer of the 2012 Obama re-election campaign.

• Lovedrcmnd.app

  partychat

  Their words

  One of my favorite killer apps is partychat. It is an open source Jabber-based persistent chat room. It works with Google Talk and is VERY simple.

  usesthis.com

Programmer known online as technomancy; author of Leiningen, the Clojure build tool, and a maintainer of the Fennel programming language.

• Dislikedrcmnd.app

  Skype

  Their words

  I would like a fully-functional web browser inside Emacs, but the biggest pain point in the software I use now is definitely Skype.

  usesthis.com

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Conkeror

  Their words

  There are still a few things that aren't feasible to be implemented in Emacs Lisp yet, but Conkeror lets me maintain the runtime-modifiable paradigm in the browser.

  usesthis.com

• Usesrcmnd.app

  pair.io

  Their words

  I don't pair as much as I used to, but I've started using pair.io, a service for spinning up ephemeral collaborative programming nodes.

  usesthis.com

Web developer and musician; co-creator of the Django web framework, founder of EveryBlock and of the music-notation site Soundslice.

• Usesrcmnd.app

  1Password

  Their words

  Other software I use almost daily: Dropbox for commonly accessed files. Git for my work and personal projects. Audacity for quick clean up of audio files. 1password for password management.

  usesthis.com

Computer scientist and professor; author of The Illustrated Guide to a Ph.D. and of a long-running blog on programming languages, research and academia.

• Usesrcmnd.app

  OmniFocus

  Their words

  For task management, I use OmniFocus on my MacBook Air, my iPhone and my iPad. The shared database lives on my linode and syncs over WebDAV.

  usesthis.com

• Likedrcmnd.app

  ShiftIt

  Their words

  My only regret in switching from Linux to OS X is giving up the raw efficiency of tiling window managers like ion. ShiftIt makes up some of the difference.

  usesthis.com

Programmer known for LiveJournal, memcached, OpenID and gearman; worked on the Go programming language at Google and later joined Tailscale.

• Usesrcmnd.app

  GIMP

  Their words

  Linux (Ubuntu and Debian), Chrome, emacs, screen, Go, Perl, gcc, Gimp, tcpdump, wireshark, Xen, KVM, libvirt.

  usesthis.com

• Usesrcmnd.app

  WireShark

  Their words

  Linux (Ubuntu and Debian), Chrome, emacs, screen, Go, Perl, gcc, Gimp, tcpdump, wireshark, Xen, KVM, libvirt.

  usesthis.com

• Usesrcmnd.app

  screen

  Their words

  Linux (Ubuntu and Debian), Chrome, emacs, screen, Go, Perl, gcc, Gimp, tcpdump, wireshark, Xen, KVM, libvirt.

  usesthis.com

Mac developer and writer at brettterpstra.com; makes the apps Marked and nvALT and writes extensively about Markdown and automation.

• Likedrcmnd.app

  Espresso 2

  Their words

  Espresso 2 is rapidly becoming a favorite for me when it comes to HTML/CSS editing.

  usesthis.com

Cyborg anthropologist and UX designer; author of Calm Technology and co-founder of the geolocation startup Geoloqi.

• Likedrcmnd.app

  Omnigraffle

  Their words

  When I was at Vertigo Software I was quite tied to Visio, but at Geoloqi I'm predominately on a Mac, so I've switched over to Omnigraffle for wireframing.

  usesthis.com

Writer on the intersection of technology and finance. Author of the Bits about Money newsletter and host of the Complex Systems podcast; previously at Stripe.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Calling yourself a programmer marks you as a cost to be eliminated; describe yourself instead by the revenue you raised or the costs you cut.

  Their words

  If you call yourself a programmer, someone is already working on a way to get you fired.

  kalzumeus.com

Programmer, writer and musician; author of the Learn Code the Hard Way books and of Mongrel, the Ruby web server.

• Usesrcmnd.app

  MacVim

  Their words

  For programming I use mostly vim with MacVim on the mac.

  usesthis.com

• Usesrcmnd.app

  awesome

  Their words

  I use awesome for my window manager on Linux since it's mostly keyboard based.

  usesthis.com

Founder and CEO of the search engine DuckDuckGo, and co-author of the books Traction and Super Thinking.

• Mixed onrcmnd.app

  Chrome

  Their words

  I use all the Web browsers a lot since I'm constantly chasing browser bugs, and don't currently really like any of them though I lean towards Chrome (but currently am annoyed at it because it keeps crashing on me).

  usesthis.com

Data scientist and machine-learning researcher; chief scientist at bitly, founder of Fast Forward Labs and Hidden Door.

• Lovedrcmnd.app

  Python

  Their words

  Programming languages aren't strictly software, but I'm a huge fan of Python along with the numeric computing libraries.

  usesthis.com

Analyst of the business of technology; writes Asymco on Apple, disruption and, latterly, micromobility.

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Air Display

  Their words

  I sometimes use Air Display software to also include an old 20" iMac as a third display.

  usesthis.com

Librarian, technology instructor and writer in rural Vermont; longtime community manager at MetaFilter and author of a book on the digital divide.

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Firefox

  Their words

  Firefox is my main browser but I sometimes teach classes in how to use Safari.

  usesthis.com

Writer and technology executive; blogs at anildash.com, was CEO of Glitch, and helped build Movable Type and ThinkUp.

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Google Chrome

  Their words

  Well, I spend all day in Google Chrome, and that's where I do a ton of work, never really touching other browsers unless I'm testing something.

  usesthis.com

Programmer and entrepreneur; co-founded GitHub and created Jekyll, Gravatar and the Semantic Versioning spec.

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Propane

  Their words

  Still, we have several remote workers, so to stay in sync with everyone else, I use Propane as a native frontend for 37signals' Campfire web app.

  usesthis.com

Swedish designer and programmer. Designed early Spotify, worked at Facebook and Figma, and created the Inter typeface.

• Lovedrcmnd.app

  GitHub

  Their words

  GitHub is an amazing place, product and breeding ground for ideas revolving around software development, created by the ever so humble Chris Wanstrath (and Tom Preston-Werner).

  usesthis.com

• Likedrcmnd.app

  TextMate

  Their words

  TextMate has been my companion in all weathers during many years, but when I quit Spotify to join Facebook and had a long vacation in between, I decided to put some effort into writing a "better" programmer's text editor which I call Kod, released in December 2010.

  usesthis.com

Web standards author and speaker; wrote the CSS: The Definitive Guide series and co-founded the An Event Apart conference.

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Photoshop

  Their words

  Adobe Photoshop gets some use, mostly when my business partner sends me designs and buttons and such to turn into markup and CSS, but also when I want to goof around a bit with images or process screenshots for my writing.

  usesthis.com

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Camino 2

  Their words

  Camino 2 is my personal-surfing browser, whereas Firefox plus Firebug and the Web Developer Toolbar is my development environment.

  usesthis.com

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Firebug

  Their words

  Firefox plus Firebug and the Web Developer Toolbar is my development environment.

  usesthis.com

Interactive fiction author and hacker; wrote Spider and Web and Hadean Lands, and designed the Glulx virtual machine.

• Likedrcmnd.app

  Lynx

  Their words

  I use Lynx for moment-to-moment browsing. It's all-text, fixed font, black-on-white, no JavaScript or Flash or blinking or borders… it's just more comfortable to read blogs and news articles this way.

  usesthis.com

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Inform 7

  Their words

  Programming? Xcode for the iPhone work; Inform 7 for text adventures; everything else is Emacs and a command line.

  usesthis.com

• Likedrcmnd.app

  iCab

  Their words

  But when I do want to see a full web site, design and all, I fire up iCab or Safari. Both are perfectly nice web browsers.

  usesthis.com

Programmer; co-founded GitHub and was its CEO, and created the Mustache templating language and Resque.

• Lovedrcmnd.app

  Dropbox

  Their words

  Right now I'm obsessed with software that transparently syncs between my devices. Kindle, Dropbox, and Simplenote bring me great joy.

  usesthis.com

• Lovedrcmnd.app

  Magit

  Their words

  For version control I use git on the command line and through magit, which is perhaps the greatest of all Emacs modes.

  usesthis.com

• Usesrcmnd.app

  LaunchBar

  Their words

  The very first piece of non-Apple software I bought for OS X was LaunchBar back in 2005 and I haven't stopped using it since.

  usesthis.com

British programmer and video maker whose YouTube channel ran weekly educational videos on technology, language and geography from 2014 to 2023.

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Notepad++

  Their words

  I also spend a lot of time in Notepad++, which I use both as a code editor and my note-taking application; my file of ideas is literally just a text file that remains permanently open in a background tab.

  usesthis.com

Software engineer best known as the originator of the Java programming language.

• Usesrcmnd.app

  NetBeans

  Their words

  I do most of my programming in NetBeans, although I use vi a fair amount.

  usesthis.com

Sociologist at Duke University writing on markets, exchange and moral order, and on plain-text and data-visualisation tools for social science.

• Lovedrcmnd.app

  Keynote

  Their words

  I use Keynote for lectures and presentations. It's one of the best pieces of software Apple makes.

  usesthis.com

Developer and podcaster; created Instapaper and Overcast, co-founded Tumblr, and co-hosts the Accidental Tech Podcast.

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000

  Their words

  My home and work setups are identical: early-2008 octocore Mac Pros, each with two 24" Dell monitors, 6 GB of RAM, two-disk software RAID-0 with a third disk as an internal Time Machine, the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000, and the Magic Mouse.

  usesthis.com

FreeBSD developer and former FreeBSD Security Officer; founder of the Tarsnap online backup service and author of the scrypt key derivation function.

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Konqueror

  Their words

  I use Konqueror as a web browser whenever possible, but have Firefox 3.6 installed for websites where Konqueror doesn't work.

  usesthis.com

Programmer and essayist who has worked at Amazon, Google, Grab and Sourcegraph. Best known for the long-form essays collected as Stevey's Drunken Blog Rants and Stevey's Blog Rants.

• Lovedrcmnd.app

  Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code

  Their words

  and there aren't many books like it. None, maybe. They don't typically teach you how to write good code in school, and you may never learn on the job.

  sites.google.com

• Mixed onrcmnd.app

  The C Programming Language

  Their words

  This is an odd little book. It's frequently mistaken for an introductory programming book, which inevitably leads to frustration.

  sites.google.com

• Lovedrcmnd.app

  The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

  Their words

  This is one of my favorite books on programming, although I burned through it in about 3 or 4 hours, and didn't learn a huge amount from it.

  sites.google.com

Software developer and writer; co-founder of Fog Creek Software and Stack Overflow, and author of the Joel on Software blog since 2000.

• Recommendsrcmnd.app

  Rocket Surgery Made Easy

  Their words

  The sequel, Rocket Surgery Made Easy, is a terrific, short, concise, fun guide to running simple "hallway" usability tests to improve the usability of your software and websites. Highly recommended.

  joelonsoftware.com

Founder of the Free Software Movement and the GNU Project, original author of GNU Emacs and the GNU General Public License, and long-time president of the Free Software Foundation.

• Usesrcmnd.app

  PMON

  Their words

  To initialize the machine and boot, it uses PMON. Above that, it uses gNewSense, one of the totally free GNU/Linux distros.

  usesthis.com

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Lemote Yeelong

  Their words

  I am using a Lemote Yeelong, a netbook with a Loongson chip and a 9-inch display. This is my only computer, and I use it all the time. I chose it because I can run it with 100% free software even at the BIOS level.

  usesthis.com

• Usesrcmnd.app

  gNewSense

  Their words

  To initialize the machine and boot, it uses PMON. Above that, it uses gNewSense, one of the totally free GNU/Linux distros.

  usesthis.com

Web developer; former head of engineering at Flickr, author of Building Scalable Web Sites, and co-founder and CTO of Slack.

• Recommendsrcmnd.app

  phpMyAdmin

  Their words

  One of the best pieces of software in a web developer's toolbox is phpMyAdmin, which no LAMP developer should be without.

  usesthis.com

Web designer and writer; founded A List Apart and Happy Cog, co-founded the An Event Apart conference, and wrote Designing With Web Standards.

• Likedrcmnd.app

  PageSpinner

  Their words

  PageSpinner is from 1996 (although it's continually updated), and it has convenient features no other HTML or text editor offers.

  usesthis.com

Programmer and technology writer known for his long Mac OS X reviews at Ars Technica; co-hosts the Accidental Tech Podcast and Hypercritical.

• Lovedrcmnd.app

  Quicksilver

  Their words

  I've tried LaunchBar and a few others, but I always come back to Quicksilver. I want my launcher to appear, react to my input, and disappear instantly. Quicksilver has always felt the snappiest to me.

  usesthis.com

• Usesrcmnd.app

  BBEdit

  Their words

  I do all of my programming and writing in BBEdit, which I've been using since version 2.1 (despite a brief dalliance with emacs when I was in college).

  usesthis.com

• Usesrcmnd.app

  NetNewsWire

  Their words

  Despite having all those web browsers, I do most of my web browsing indirectly via RSS/Atom feeds inside NetNewsWire.

  usesthis.com

Software developer; created Firebug, helped create Firefox on the Netscape browser team, and built the original Facebook iPhone app.

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Photoshop CS3

  Their words

  I design and mock up all of my software in Photoshop CS3.

  usesthis.com

• Lovedrcmnd.app

  Cinema Display

  Their words

  I use a 3.2ghz 8-core Mac Pro with two 30" cinema displays. I can't say enough good things about having two 30" cinema displays. I use every pixel of each when I am programming and designing.

  usesthis.com

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Safari 4

  Their words

  Safari 4 is my web browser. I used to use Firefox, but I got tired of its Mac OS X weirdness, and I don't use any extensions other than Firebug.

  usesthis.com

Writer and web developer; founding editor of Lifehacker, co-creator of ThinkUp and of the todo.txt format.

• Usesrcmnd.app

  SnagIt

  Their words

  I use SnagIt and Camtasia Studio to take screenshots and produce screencasts; I use SyncBack Free to back up my files to an external drive, and I use Cygwin to do command line work.

  usesthis.com

Co-founder of Panic, the Portland software company behind Transmit, Coda, Nova and the Playdate handheld console.

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Xcode

  Their words

  Most of my actual work is done in Xcode (maintaining our software) and Coda or Transmit (maintaining aspects of our web site and intranet).

  usesthis.com

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Subversion

  Their words

  All of our source code is managed with Subversion, so that's available wherever I go.

  usesthis.com

• Usestheir ownrcmnd.app

  Coda

  Their words

  Most of my actual work is done in Xcode (maintaining our software) and Coda or Transmit (maintaining aspects of our web site and intranet).

  usesthis.com

Co-founder and CTO of Oxide Computer Company. Created DTrace at Sun Microsystems and was CTO of Joyent; blogs about systems software, open source and engineering culture.

• Dislikedrcmnd.app

  Dreaming in Code

  Their words

  And amazingly enough, if you insist on looking at the world through a bucket of shit, the world starts to look an awful lot like a bucket of shit: by the end of the book, Rosenberg has left the lay reader with the sense that we are careering towards some sort of software heat-death, after which meetings-about-meetings and stickies-on-whiteboards will prevent all future progress.

  bcantrill.dtrace.org

Interface designer and researcher, known for the talks Inventing on Principle and Media for Thinking the Unthinkable and for essays on dynamic representations of ideas. Founder of Dynamicland, where he is building a communal computer.

From one piece Magic Ink: Information Software and the Graphical Interface 2 beliefs · worrydream.com

• Our readingkorrents.com

  For most software, interactivity is a curse for users and a crutch for designers.

  Their words

  For a majority subset of software, called “information software,” I argue that interactivity is actually a curse for users and a crutch for designers, and users’ goals can be better satisfied through other means.

  worrydream.com

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Information software design is graphic design: a software designer who decides what the user will see is doing graphic design whether she realizes it or not.

  Their words

  When the software designer defines the visual representation of her program, when she describes the pictures that the user will interpret, she is doing graphic design, whether she realizes this or not.

  worrydream.com

Programmer and writer; co-founder of Stack Overflow and Discourse, and author of the Coding Horror blog, which he has written since 2004.

From one piece Recommended Reading for Developers 2 beliefs · blog.codinghorror.com

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Computers change but people do not, so understanding people is how you make better software

  Their words

  Why are updates to my reading list so rare? Because computers change a lot in 10 years, but people don't. To make better software, you need to understand how people work, and that is what the books I recommend tend to focus on.

  Recommended Reading for Developersblog.codinghorror.com

• Our readingkorrents.com

  The vast majority of software development projects fail

  Their words

  The vast majority of software development projects will fail: they will overrun their schedules, produce substandard results, or sometimes not even finish at all. This isn't an argument; it's a statistical fact.

  Recommended Reading for Developersblog.codinghorror.com

Programmer and writer; co-founder of Stack Overflow and Discourse, and author of the Coding Horror blog, which he has written since 2004.

• Recommendsrcmnd.app

  The Mythical Man-Month

  Their words

  I challenge any developer to pick up a copy of The Mythical Man Month and not find this tale of a long-defunct OS, and the long-defunct team that developed it, startlingly relevant.

  blog.codinghorror.com

• Recommendsrcmnd.app

  The Design of Everyday Things

  Their words

  Designing software is difficult, to be sure, but designing a door is difficult too. The nuances of design extend into every object you touch, whether it's some hot new SQL engine, or a humble shoe.

  blog.codinghorror.com

• Recommendsrcmnd.app

  Code Complete 2

  Their words

  Steve McConnell's Code Complete 2 is the Joy of Cooking for software developers. Reading it means that you enjoy your work, you're serious about what you do, and you want to keep improving.

  blog.codinghorror.com

Software design writer and chief scientist at Thoughtworks; wrote Refactoring and Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture.

From one piece CannotMeasureProductivity 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Software productivity cannot be measured, because there is no way to measure a development team's output.

  Their words

  the reason we can't measure productivity is because we can't measure output

  CannotMeasureProductivitymartinfowler.com

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Lines of code cannot measure productivity, because better-designed code is shorter.

  Their words

  Any good developer knows that they can code the same stuff with huge variations in lines of code, furthermore code that's well designed and factored will be shorter because it eliminates the duplication.

  CannotMeasureProductivitymartinfowler.com