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📃 Productive Dev Setup 2020

In this post I walk through my personal developer setup and the tools I use to increase productivity.

You’ll get the most value out of this post if you are a JavaScript developer working with Windows 10, but most info in this post translates to macOS and Linux, as well as other languages.

📂 Directory Structure

Keep all developer related work under C:/dev/ and then pin the subfolders to Quick Access.

C:/dev/
  │
  ├── apps/         // installed programs go here
  │
  ├── installers/   // downloaded installer files, so you can uninstall later
  │
  ├── repos/        // git repositories
  │
  └── shortcuts/    // shortcuts to deep paths that you frequently visit
                    // E.g. C:\WINDOWS\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

🔗 Quick Access

Make the windows file explorer Quick Access more useful by removing the cruft

  1. Create the above directory structure
  2. On Windows 10 go to File -> Change folder and search options in an explorer window
  3. Under Privacy, untick Show recently used files in Quick Access
  4. Unpin any unwanted items from Quick Access
  5. Pin the above folders from C:/dev/ to Quick Access by right clicking them

💾 Git

https://git-scm.com/downloads

Industry standard source code management. Never lose your work, and never make an un-correctable mistake in your source code.

Download it to C:/dev/installers, and install it to C:/dev/apps

✈️ Terminal

Navigating a GUI is slow, and when working with remote deployments in many cases, a GUI is not available.

Every developer should be familiar with the basics of using a terminal.

Don’t use the subpar terminal that comes bundled with Git. For a clean and satisfying experience, I recommend installing Cmder Mini and then integrating Cmder with Windows Terminal or Hyper depending on your OS.

Cmder’s guide for integrating with Windows Terminal
Cmder’s guide for integrating with Hyper
Cmder’s wiki

💻 Editor

You want your code editor to start quickly and be as responsive as possible, but still provide essential features like syntax highlighting.

I recommend these 2 editors:

Currently I use VS Code and recommend installing these extensions:

🐢 Node version manager (NVM)

Windows | macOS/Linux

When working with Node, you might occasionally want to change versions in order to debug issues or get certain features. It’s a pain to uninstall and reinstall node each time you want to do this.

NVM allows you to easily switch node versions by entering nvm use <desired version> in your terminal

👁️ Instant Eyedropper

http://instant-eyedropper.com/

Allows you to get the hex code of any colour on your screen using Alt + ` (backtick)

🥽 PowerToys

https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys

Microsoft PowerToys is a set of utilities for power users to tune and streamline their Windows experience for greater productivity.

Sometimes I find that using Win + Arrow Key to position my windows is not sufficient.

The Fancy Zones utility allows you to snap windows in a variety of configurations with a nice gutter simply by holding Shift while dragging a window

📖 Notion

https://www.notion.so/

I’ve tried many productivity apps, and Notion covers many of their use cases.

It’s easy to create documentation, ToDo lists, journal entries etc. and it’s free for personal use.



Thanks for reading 😃
I hope you find some value in these tools

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