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Ask HN: How does look like your OS X development environment?

6 points by goshakkk ↗ HN
And not only development. How do you organize Desktops/apps in Launchpad? What apps do you use for self organization and productivity? What just cool apps do you use?

Do you use Automator and how if so? What shell/text editor/etc do you use?

What's your typical workflow?

Maybe screenshots of your desktop and Dock?

6 comments

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rachelbythebay
Push Mac to side, grab rxvt on nearby Linux box, ssh back to Mac, write code. There's something funky about actually using the Mac terminal which doesn't work for me.

bash, nano, make, g++, git.

ynoclo
iTerm2 and MacVim are now my primary tools (IMO, Xcode 4 has lost the plot as a useful IDE.) You can define the behaviour of :make in vim, plus there are a variety of vim plugins that turn it into a complete development environment.

git for source code management; gdb for debugging. bash can do anything I need it to; never really got into zsh.

Dock seems more customizable and immediate than Launchpad. The way Launchpad takes you completely out of your current context is really distracting to me.

BTW, the Dock should always go on the left or right edge, rather than the bottom of the screen, so windows use the maximum vertical height.

rpwilcox 

  * iTerm with the Hotkey Window profile (so iTerm is hidden until I hit a function key, then it comes down like the Quake Terminal)

  * BBEdit (available on Mac App Store)
  * Divvy (available on Mac App Store)
  * Keymando (available on Mac App Store)
  * zsh (with oh-my-zsh)
  * Launchbar. For application launching and clipboard history, mostly
  * nvALT for keeping notes
  * PathFinder
I don't use LaunchPad, nor Automator. I have a few Applescripts I've written for BBEdit, and a few for Launchbar, but I'm not tricked out that way.

I use Unison (http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/) to sync my current project to a VM, which I have hosted on another machine (CentOS based). Using Vagrant (http://www.vagrantup.com) to manage the VMs.

I prefer to keep all of my projects on their own isolated VMs, because they all have different dependancies. (different versions of databases, different supporting frameworks etc etc). The CentOS based VM host is a tricked out Dell machine I got for about $800.

I keep my desktop clean, and my dock filled with only the most essential apps (like my mail client and Skype).

When I sit down to work I fire up OmniOutliner on my iPad to keep notes about what I'm doing.

yarpa
Xcode4, Quicksilver, BBedit, Terminal, Finder, Versions (svn) or MacHg (hg)

Then... iCal, Adium, Chrome, Dropbox

I don't use Launchpad, though I can't honestly say I've given it a fair chance. I can't live without Quicksilver, this may have something to do with it.

I do my work on my main display (27"), and have Adium/Mail/Chrome on my smaller second display, to keep a nice separation between work and meta-work

Things I always do on a new Mac for development: 1) Reduce the key repeat delay, increase the key repeat speed (way too slow in Terminal by default, imo) 2) Dock hiding automatically 3) Install all apps listed above 4) Give the machine a clever host name