Things to install on a new machine

Roy Osherove has posted a list of things he installs on any new developer machine, including links so you can find out more.

Tools from his list that I would highlight - tools you need to know more about …

1. FileZilla - FTP tool

2. Reflector - Pure magic. Time saver. See source code of any compiled assembly.

3. Resharper - Great for productivity and navigation across your source code

4. TeamCity – a great visual and friendly server to manage continuous integration. powerful features.

5. PostSharp 2.0 – for adding system wide concepts into your code (tracing, exception management).

6. TestDriven.NET – a great test runner for vs 2008 and 2010 with some powerful features.

Things I think he missed …

1. Tortoise SVN - Windows explorer integration for SVN.

2. AnkhSVN - Visual Studio integration for SVN.

3. SQL Server Management Studio - If your applications use a SQL Server back end, you need the best tools to work with the database. In my experience, Visual Studio does’t quite make it.

4. Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer - If you’re building web applications, you need to see how it looks in the lastest versions of all the browsers; there are still enough differences to cause you difficulties.

5. fxCop and Gendarme - Static assembly analysis tools highlighting potential problems in your codebase.

Things I’m going to investigate further …

1. SmartInspect – a powerful framework and viewer for tracing for your application.

My hope is that these lists lead you to finding at least one thing you can improve about your own development processes.