Ask HN: What's the best piece of software you use every day?

Divvy by Mizage. A simple app for sizing windows on macOS. Bought it ~7 years ago (I think), and it's so ingrained in how I use my computer, I don't even remember to install it.

Honestly, it should be a built-in feature of macOS.

The bash shell. It just fits the way I think. I only-somewhat-jokingly say that bash is my native land.

Software: BrainOS Device: Brain Reason: Can do really awesome stuff with it. But in this era, a lot of people are lacking this essential software. That makes me sad.

Bekon Idealist (I32 - Version 3.0 Jan99) [0]

Sold as a personal bibliographic database, it is fully portable (on USB Stick) and works as a database, knowlegde store, document templating and generation tool. Much loved by users [1]

Features:

- Rock solid since 1995.

- Text based configuration with GUI tools.

- Simple model just define fields,records.

- Each record can have multiple parents/children.

- Automatic data entry forms with validation/spellchecking.

- Optional hand coded forms.

- Save part filled forms as templates.

- Every record full text indexed.

- Advanced search capabilities.

- Scripting - limited but functional.

- Multiple export formats, including "merge using text file" which can reference fields from parent(s) and children.

- Help file and manual.

The only weakness is the lack of basic language constructs within the scripting commands (I often have to create scripts on the fly to embed variables - then run them).

If the scripting commands could be exposed as an API, then this software would benefit greatly from retro-fitting Lua or Luajit.

[0] https://lhosborn.com/2019/06/11/idealist-still-going-strong/

[1] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/idealistdb

gcc

It tells me what's wrong with my code, it's fast enough, it gives me these wonderful programs out of nowhere.