Friday, September 03, 2010

What's in a RIA Software Engineer's Tool Chest

Major Power Tools
  • Microsoft Visual Studio
  • Adobe Flex Builder, Flash Builder
  • Adobe Coldfusion Builder
  • SQL Server Management Studio
Browsers
  • IE
  • FireFox
  • Google Chrome
Eclipse Plugins

Firefox Plugins
  • Firebug
  • Html Validator
  • Screengrab: take screenshots of browser content (including Flash)
  • YSlow
  • Web Developer

Free or really affordable utilities
  • Data Dictionary Creator: manage and generate data dictionary
  • Service Capture: capture HTTP traffic in/out of local computer, with built-in parser of Flash Remoting content
  • Fiddler: capture HTTP traffic, well known in .NET community
  • JSON Viewer: all you can ask for to navigate, search, format JSON data string
  • VNC: remote desktop
  • Tortois SVN, CVS, GIT: version control with Windows Explorer integration
  • Tour De Flex: Air application showcasing Flex controls and sample code
  • Skype: IM, talk, video conference, share desktop, ...
  • Google Desktop: search code, design document with ease
  • GIMP: free replacement for Photoshop
  • Sysinternals: a group of Windows Utilities now owned by Microsoft. Here are a few of my favorites:
    • Process Explorer: advance task manager, mostly used to search for locked resources
    • Port Mon: serial port traffic analyzer
    • Autoruns: manage autorun programs that can start through various mechanisms
  • Depends: Dependency Walker
  • WinMerge: graphical diff, can be easily integrated with Tortoise clients

Online Resources in Browser Bookmarks
  • Google Code Search: search open source code
  • Google Analytics: keep tab on web site usage
  • Stackoverflow: ask questions, search for answers, and answer some questions. Occasionally get job offers due to your answers here
  • EETimes: resource on embedded, semiconductor development
  • TechCrunch
  • DZONE: daily digest of tech blogs similar to TechCrunch
  • ScottGu's Blog: MSFT VP of several .NET products
  • MIX: Video, PPT of past conference
  • PDC: Video, PPT of past conference
  • GOOGLE IO: Video of past conference
  • BeanStalk: online SVN server
  • Github: onlien GIT server
  • Gist: code snippet management
  • CFLib.org: Coldfusion library

Open Source Software
  • FlexLib: Flex controls
  • AS3Core: Actionscript 3 utilities
  • PureMVC: MVC framework, popular in Flex community
  • Cairngorm: official MVC framework in Flex community
  • Report.NET: .NET PDF library
  • ZedGraph: .NET chart library
  • SQLite: light-weight database, popular in embedded community
  • NUnit: .NET unit testing framework
  • FlexUnit: Flex unit testing framework
Icons
  • Java Look and Feel Graphics Repository: official JAVA icon set
  • Visual Studio Image Library: came with Visual Studio Installation
  • Web Application Icons from WebAppers.com
  • famfamfam.com

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