Santa's Got a Brand New Bag
In the spirit of the season, here's hoping that Santa comes bearing some good programmer support tools, like
JetBrain's ReSharper or Developer Express' CodeRush. A computer with enough CPU and memory to ensure that Visual Studio stays snappy with these add-ons would be a nice gift, as well. Personally I like ReSharper, but really it's a lifestyle choice.
For those out there building and managing database changes, a copy of Red Gate's SQL Compare and SQL Source Management will save you many a night's sleep.
Of course, Windows and ASP.NET developers always like to have a big bag of controls to draw from. While DevExpress and Infragistics keep winning our Readers Choice Awards, I have a soft spot for Telerik even if their documentation makes me wish for more. Office developers should make sure that Santa didn't leave without dropping off a copy of Add-In Express. SharePoint developers, on the other hand, probably had visions of ComponentOne's Studio for SharePoint dancing in their heads.
And, when it comes time to deploy, if your complex application is going to be installed on multiple computers without your supervision, perhaps you found a copy of InstallShield 2011 under your tree. But keep in mind: Just because you didn't find it under your tree doesn't mean that you can't have more. There are lots of free tools out there.
But, mostly, I hope that you have lots of interesting apps to build... and an understanding family.
Posted by Peter Vogel on 12/21/2010