Motley says: "The only tool I need is the debugger (Part 2)" - Progressive Development - Site Home

Summary

Motley: The debugger is my most valuable tool as a developer.

Maven: Check out other tools that will give you the big picture of the current state of your system, including .NET Reflector, NotePad++, Regulator, TestDriven.NET, and Fiddler.

______________________________

[Context: A couple days after the initial conversation about developer tools, Maven and Motley are back at it]

Motley: Hey Mave! I've been experimenting and researching various other development tools since the last time we chatted. The debugger is still the tool I cannot live without, but I found some other cool tools that really help out.

Maven: Oh yeah? What have you discovered?

Motley: A super-duper-fantastic tool I discovered is Lutz Roeder's .NET Reflector. It's a great free tool that provides a class browser and documentation viewer for .NET assemblies AND it decompiles the assembly's intermediate language into C# or Visual Basic. Plus, it has an add-in model that allows you to extend functionality. There are some really useful .NET Reflector Add-ins available as open source at CodePlex, Microsoft's open source repository. Some of the interesting add-ins include one for generating code metrics like number of methods and code complexity, one for generating dependency graphs, and drawing class diagrams.

Pasted from <http://www.aisto.com/roeder/dotnet/>

Maven: Yeah, .NET Reflector is really useful - I use it all the time.

Motley: You mean you already knew about this tool? Sometimes, you really piss me off.

Maven: I just stumbled across it one day and started playing with it. You know Mark, the architect across the hall? He actually views all of the source code for all of our assemblies using .NET Reflector because it gives him a consistent view of the code regardless of who wrote it. What else did you find?

Motley: You seem to know everything - maybe I shouldn't even bother sharing?

Maven: I hardly know EVERYTHING. I just have happened to stumble across that tool. C'mon - what did you find?

Motley: Ok, ok. NotePad frustrates me from time because it's missing some basic functionality, such as code syntax highlighting. There are times when I want to view code or HTML source from a web page without the overhead of loading Visual Studio. For that, I found NotePad++.

Pasted from <http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/commun/screenshots/scrsh_multiView.gif>

Maven: NotePad++? I haven't heard of that one. What does it do over NotePad?

Motley: Something you haven't heard of?? I'm shocked! Anyway, NotePad++ is a free editor that loads super quickly and has syntax highlighting for several languages. It also gives you tabbed editing, an explorer window right next to you to load other files, tidy formatting of several file types, multiple character encodings, flexible search, and a host of other options. Definitely worthwhile having on your box.

Maven: I'll definitely have to check that out. Thanks for the pointer. What else?

Motley: You know how I love regular expressions? Well, I find myself having to relearn the syntax every time I pull them out of my toolbox. And even then, no guarantees I'll get it right until I run it and try it. Regulator to the rescue! It provides syntax highlighting, a testing environment for regular expressions, snippets, and performance analysis of your expressions. Once you are happy with the expression for your needs, it will even generate the code for you. And if that wasn't enough, the same author also includes a tool for beginners that allows point-and-click design of regular expressions called Regulazy.

Pasted from <http://tools.osherove.com/Default.aspx?tabid=182>

Maven: I am lazy with my regular expressions, so that looks like a good find. I know exactly what you mean with relearning them every time. Yikes. Any others?

Motley: You know I've been getting into this Test-Driven Development thing as of late. I came across another fabulous tool called TestDriven.NET. It is a nice add-in for Visual Studio that allows you to run tests for a class, method, etc. with a single click. It supports multiple unit test frameworks, and just makes me more productive.

Pasted from <http://www.testdriven.net/Screenshots.aspx>

Maven: That one sounds a lot like the NUnitAddin I used to play with.

Motley: Yeah, it morphed from just NUnit to support other test frameworks as well. Last on my list for this week is a tool called Fiddler. Fiddler is a free tool that allows you to get a very detailed look at the traffic to and from your computer. It contains a nice event-based scripting language that you can use to hook some of the inbound or outbound traffic. If you're at all interested in knowing exactly what is happening with your HTTP traffic, this is a great application.

Pasted from <http://www.fiddlertool.com/fiddler/images/fiddler98.png>

Maven: I've played with Fiddler a bit, and you can do some real interesting and creative things with it. The scripting language is definitely worth playing with. Thanks for all the suggestions, Mot! You've really been doing your research. Let's go share these with the team, shall we?

Motley: What do you mean "let's" and "we"? I did all the work, I'll go do it. Why don't you go find us some more tools to enhance our productivity. Don't worry, I'll give you credit where credit is due.

______________________________

Maven's and Motley's Pointer: Maven and Motley would love to hear about what tools make you a better developer. Please add some of your favorites to the comments below.

Maven's and Motley's Resources: