My Tools of Choice
1 February 2007Every seasoned developer has a list of tools that they love to use. This is meant to be a ‘living’ list of my favorite tools. As I find new tools and expand my range I’ll be sure to update this list.
Editing:
ReSharper: ReSharper is a Visual Studio Add In that, at the surface adds quality refactoring support. But, as one uses this tool you find that it has much more depth. For instance it allows you to quickly insert code templates and properties with just a keyboard shortcut. Additionally, it has a nicely integrates unit testing frameworks such as NUnit into Visual Studio.
Automated Builds:
CruiseControl.net: CC.net as it is often referred to is a continious intergration server for .net development. The upside to using this tool is that you can keep a solid handle on the state of you build. You can set it up to do a complete compile of a product/project whenever someone checks something into your source control system and on a nightly basis.
Version Control:
SVN: SVN is a high quality open source control system. It was developed as a replacement for CVS.
Perforce: Perforce is a fantastic commercial source control system. It runs on a slew of operating systems and has free version available for a single developer. If you are allergic to command lines this may be a good choice for you.
Testing:
NUnit: From their site “NUnit is a unit-testing framework for all .Net languages. Initially ported from JUnit” This tool and other like it are immensely useful. If used correctly, you can develop confidence in the quality of your code as well as the reliability.
