Here's a list of stuff that I find useful:

• Editors

• Emacs :: Forced indentation, Org-mode, lisp programming, useful minor modes
• Vim :: Fast, easy to use despite the slightly steeper learning curve at the start, good plugins
• IntelliJ :: Quick to use for bigger projects with lots of parts, by default suitable for a lot of languages in comparison to other IDE's

• Operating system specific

• strace :: OS call debugging tool for if you're running linux
• chocolatey :: The best package manager for Windows
• ConEmu :: Best terminal emulator for Windows
• foobar2000 :: Really nice and light music player after configuring to your liking. Windows only
• Selfcontrol :: Block domains on Mac computers. More solid alternative to editing your hosts file
• PowerShell :: It's worth it to know (at least) the basics when you're running Windows 24/7

• Documenting tools

• LaTeX :: Best way to design your printed/PDF documents, beautiful output if done right
• Org mode :: Best syntactically light markup language, can be converted into LaTeX/HTML. You need Emacs for this. Also great for keeping todo-lists or personal agenda's

• Programming tools

• Git :: Just use version control. Git is the default and picking the default in this case is good.
• Make/Rake :: Simplifies so much of that specific compiling guff.
• Kanban/scrum board :: Just get one you like. Great for teamwork. I (we) use Trello for now.

• Browser plugins

• NoScript :: Javascript is nice, but it's awful. Block as much of it as you can.
• uBlock :: You want less ads? Get this.
• Privacy Badger :: Less extreme then NoScript, more of an automated blacklist then a custom whitelist in comparison
• Ghostery :: Want someone else to decide what to block? Get Ghostery.

• Browser

• Firefox :: More stable on my previous hardware, so I kept to it. Great Dev tools, especially the visual CSS Grid feature.

Please realize that this is all personal opinion. There's a lot more that I use, but this should already be a relatively large list.

• OneNote

I love OneNote these days and use it for all my note taking. For tabs i have General Notes, Daily Notes and a tab per major project/client. I make sure to make a new daily note each day with a TODO list and use it to dump my thoughts. It's really handy to be able to slip back into my thought stream from two weeks ago. If I use a ton of tabs I save the session with Chrome extension Session Buddy and drop the link in the note.

• Chocolatey

It's really handy to have an apt-get equivalent on Windows. Here's how I get shit installed -

Start > type 'cmd' > Ctrl+Shift+Enter > right, enter > choco install spotify -y > Spotify installed in a minute with temp files cleaned up. Lots of programs such as node have really handy install scripts that save some messing about.

• Chrome/Firefox

Firefox is always trying to catch up and I give them a go every few years, but Chrome just wins most times either on speed or features. That said, Firefox has some pretty cool dev tools right now and the two browsers are bouncing off each other. No matter what you use, press Ctrl+Shift+B to bring up the bookmarks bar. Make a Work folder and subfolders for any common work topics (eg front end, back end, database, framework)

• Visual Studio obviously for .NET/C#/C++ devs

• Visual Studio Code for everything else with the right extensions

If VS Code doesn't do it for you for some reason, you must be either:

• A Java dev, use IntelliJ

• A Python dev, use PyCharm

• A Vim user, go feel bad

I honestly don't think there's any "must have" beyond something to write code on.

Different people like different tools, and as you get better you'll start to form your own opinions on what works for you.

This is a very open ended question, considering that you’re basically just asking what software people use. As a software engineer, here is what I like:

IntelliJ , Alfred, iTerm 2, VS code, Chrome, and Spotify. All of those applications I have opened at work 100% of the time.

vim

VS Code, ask ChatGPT to give you a step by step on set up and the best extensions.

Visual Studio Code is a good light weight place to start IMO

Congratulations 🎉 Vs code is a great choice

https://code.visualstudio.com/

Visual Studio Code is a really good IDE (integrated development environment, basically the software that you code on) to start with.

You could also use an online IDE like Replit. This will make it so you don’t have to worry about configuring anything or getting anything setup, you can just worry about learning to code. If you do use an online IDE, I wouldn’t stay on it too long though as you have to stay on their platform.

VS Code for IDE, git and GitHub for version control, Figma for UI design (free trial)

I believe beginners should learn git from the command line, but it is easier to use directly via VS Code.

In my experience its best to choose an IDE based on the language. If you have (or know someone who has) a .edu email address, I'd recommend signing up for a Jetbrains student license to try out IntelliJ (Java) and WebStorm (web based languages). VS Code is a good catchall and has some great extensions, but it's really a glorified code editor.

For version control, some flavor of Git. GitHub provides free hosting but you can also self host with the community edition of Gitlab. As a note, VS Code has a great extension called Git Graph which helps visualize various aspects of Git (modified files, staged files, commit history) and may help getting up to speed.

Look into Docker sooner than later. You'll find (especially in web development) it will be handy to utilize a container instead of installing some sort of web or application server.

Start with strongly typed languages. Typescript is great for frontend and Java is great for backend. Loose (or weak) typed languages give you too many opportunities to shoot yourself in the foot. Also, stick to non web-based languages for the backend, you'll find there is a much larger selection of 3rd party libraries (check out Apache Maven).

Finally, get away from Windows based development as soon as you can. If you dont want to install a Linux OS, look into WSL2 with a Linux distribution (Ubuntu is default). Both Docker and VS Code are fully integrated with WSL2 and provide good-enough performance for local development. If you ever plan on pursuing a career in the field, get comfortable on the Linux command line as it will be present in any sort of enterprise environment.

I studied computer science and worked as a dev in the early 2000s. Moved into client-facing roles and leadership. Became a suit, forgot about coding. Over the years I completely lost touch, would occasionally try to dabble but each time I tried to pick up the old hammer and tongs I found things way too complicated, too many barriers to entry (the hellscape that is the AWS admin console is absolute hell), etc.

In other words, I am a complete noob these days.

I recently discovered the absolute joy that is Ruby on Rails programming. Exceptionally easy to get started, and everything makes a lot of sense. It's so easy to create web apps with this framework, it reminds me of what programming was like in the 2000s, but it's also supercharged by all the additional resources out there.

Highly recommend any newbie wanting to get into web development check out rails.

Just 3 things:

- a code editor (vs code)
- a roadmap (front, back, devops, etc) roadmap(.)sh could be nice to check out
- a course if you wanna get up and running faster and better at first with some guidance (youtube, udemy, freecodecamp or even fullstackopen)

But you must always try to read and feel comfortable with official documentation, you must develop that skill progressively and in the near future you won't need a course or someone else to understand and master a technology. Peace

For web dev, VS Code is a solid choice for an editor, super popular and lots of extensions. For version control, definitely get familiar with Git and GitHub, it's a must-have. On the design side, Figma is great for UI stuff, and if you're looking to speed up prototyping or generate designs with AI, something like Magic Patterns could be interesting to check out. Also, just using browser dev tools a lot helps a ton with debugging and understanding layouts.

Instance.so lovable.dev are the ones I most used.

!RemindMe 2 days

I’m old school, I use StackOverflow

surprised no one has said cursor

Best free setup currently: VSCode + Roo + Gemini 2.5 Pro Exp -> On call JR dev.

Replace Gemini for o3 and you’ve got a scalpel— thinks a lot before doing the bare minimum. Good for quick fixes/changes/small refactors.

Replace Gemini for Claude 3.7 and you’ve got a sledgehammer — goes to town on everything. Good if you want a debugging challenge, new direction or lots done quickly. Note: If asked too much it may just forget to finish some things putting you in weird spots.

But once Roo gives me what I needed, I go to NVIM to do my part. That’s not to say the AI help ends:

Pieces for Developers -> Context copilot (“What was I doing? What am I forgetting?” Like that thing Microsoft tried to sneak into windows) great if juggling a lot and can be helpful in staying focused/organized/ picking work back up. They have these “work streams” which are lots of work sessions that you can re-visit when coming back to a project.

Lastly, for my chats, AnythingLLM -> Organized chats and great offline client, good for testing models from oLlama and HuggingFace with effectively no setup + built-in agentic capabilities.

Not affiliated in any way to AnythingLLM it’s just what’s been blowing my mind lately:

Yesterday I was generating code and having a philosophy chat under the shade of a tree by a stream 100% offline with:

Deepseek Coder

And

Veritas-12B

On anythingLLM

After that, once back to society, I was testing the agent mode which can google and web scrape.

As an honorable mention, I reccomend setting up an instance of n8n to anyone looking to leverage AI and take repetitive tasks off their shoulders. It’s a no-code tool, once set up you can get your own — personal— AI agent with any AI you want in control of anything you want to trust it/integratte it to (like your email, your Notion, your GitHub…) but that’s not terribly convenient on localhost, can’t stop you won’t stop you tho.

I don't usually like using anything Apple and wouldn't plan on buying one. I was gifted a Macbook pro and it was a lifesaver.

Almost everything you do in classes will work easily on any Macbook with no real hassle. They are also not heavy which actually does matter when you are carrying it about all day.

If you are staying in student halls, having a big/cheap 2nd monitor will help. Alt tabbing endlessly is miserable.

Macbooks are almost silent and have much better battery life at least in my experience.

The only software that people couldn't run well or at all was Unity in the Extended Reality masters course. They have dedicated high spec PCs in the labs for this, but unless you live nearby it would be a pain to take that course and have to do all the coursework in the labs. Usually each course will have instructions to set up programs on both mac/windows.

P.S I am not sponsored. Apple smell.

Go get any laptop you can afford and throw Linux on it.
or macbook.

Get a decent spec laptop and stick Linux on it. I run Manjaro Linux and can vouch for that, parrot is good for low spec, Debian is nice.

oh i’m also going to be doing computer science this year! :)

Python has 'won' as the programming language of science/maths. It simple enough for those who programming is means to an end, and has ended up with the largest ecosystem of libraries for just about anything.

Related to that is Jypter notebooks. I've never spent the time to learn them, but it's for producing something that combines "word processing/note taking" and interactive code (python, R or Julia).

https://jupyter.org/

A video that explains better than I can

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW29067qVWk

Example of a linear algebra guide that was put together using Juptyer (then exported to static html for publication. )

https://www.reddit.com/r/Physics/comments/nzlpyx/second_year_calculus_done_entirely_in_python_no/

Video of someone doing university calculus using JN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Teb28OFMVFc&t=2080s

Xournal++ for note taking if your laptop has a touch screen and stylus

GNU Octave. It's like an open source MATLAB, and is largely compatible though there are some differences.

R for statistics and charts

Octave is good for numerical analysis and computations.

R is good for statistics

Python is what people use when they want to do both. (It's also what they use for many, many other things)

You already have texmaker, which is cool. Consider trying xemacs and learn the markup by hand. If you care about layout sufficiently down the road, knowing what's going on underneath the hood is a good idea.

Somebody already said Maxima (for symbolic stuff).

If you want cheap copies of certain classical references, international editions on ebay or used book stores are always a good idea. Then you just use a decent pdf viewer on your workstation.

I may be a minority but I recommend setting up the free one drive.

Great for document storage.

Uninstall all the bloatware first.

Nanazip & PeaZip, both open-source

Wym? I'm running it on Firefox

what does this do?

The goat. I also recommend Stands AdBlocker to anyone reading this

Oh I didn't know it. I've read something about the new manifest blocking adblock extensions but I wasn't expecting that it was true. Are there alternatives for chrome users?

Thank you for your suggestion

7zip, libre office, kodi, firefox + add-ons, sumatra pdf, and some emulator

Git

Easy one we’ve missed so far: computer with an operating system.

Coffee mug

The compiler and command line

• A way to quickly set up a test environment. A REPL for instance or something for creating a container environment like in Nix OS or Guix. Vagrant and Docker are fine but can be a bit tedious to set up. I also sometimes use online compiler env for C++ when I want to quickly test something.
• Analysis and measurement tools. Be it performance or whatever your domain requires.
• Regardless of your choice of editor is, something to help you manage your TODO list. In Emacs for instance org-mode is insanely useful. If you're in VSCode ...I'm sure there is something.
• Anything that enables you to utilize git better. It could be something as simple as git command aliases you or others maintain. Or something more fancy like Magit in Emacs. But make sure the tool you end up picking does not obscure the underlying git command too much. So stay away from most Windows or GUI based git tools.
• SSH and man commands.... don't forget these.
• tool for searching a codebase. The Silver Searcher (ag) is my favorite here
• timer to force you to move away from your desk. Probably more important than all the other tools.

Avoid Opera GX at all costs. It's a literal RAM hog, uses way too much CPU, is slow and not secure, extension and plug-in support is luck of the draw, and suffers from serious lag with video playback. You want Firefox with the BetterFox mod added.

As for MSI Afterburner, there's nothing wrong with it, but if you don't plan on overclocking you might want to go with FanControl, just so you can monitor temps and adjust fan speeds on not just the GPU but all fans.

I would suggest a VPN for public safety when browsing the Internet to hide your searches from your ISP and prevent any issues if you decide to pirate. ProtonVPN is currently my favorite and worth the money.

If you're only doing web coding, VS Code is fine, but if you need something that's all around for everything and for programming specifically, regular VS is the best.

If you frequently play videos on your PC, I'd suggest installing the K-LITE CODEC PACK with MPC-HC. Many swear by VLC but it's not as good, as long as your system has the proper codecs.

If you're on Nvidia, I suggest getting the Nvidia App, just to overclock the GPU safely. It'll do it on its own and can make your GPU much more powerful. It also makes recording your games and your desktop very easy.

ShareX is the best screenshot, video recording, gif making, and photo editing all-in-one program. I use it for screenshots and to do OCR copies. If you don't need all of that, Windows Snipping Tool will do just fine!

ScreenToGif is a great powerful program that turns acting on the screen into a high quality, yet highly compressed gif, easy for sharing on social media.

Everything. Weird name, but Everything is a program that creates a search box to use on your system that finds literally everything on the system across all drives. Nothing is hidden or obscured like in Windows Search. Everything should be everyone's search program on Windows. It's so much more powerful with so many more options.

StartIsBack is a great tool to give you a nice old school quality and customizable taskbar, explorer windows, and start menu. There's a free activator for it on GitHub.

Do you torrent? qBittorrent. That's all.

Windows PowerToys is as absolute MUST for productivity and enhanced Windows features. You'll be blown away by all the things you can do for free.

I'd also suggest LocalSend. It's a program that allows you to quickly share files from PC to other devices on the same network. Great for transferring over pictures or sending something from a computer to another person's phone.

Do you enjoy decorating your desktop with cool wallpapers? Look into Wallpaper Engine. You'll never look for wallpapers the same way again.

There used to be a stickied topic in this sub for this question, but it's gone now?

So here's my list -> https://www.reddit.com/r/pcapps/comments/1joravi/looking_for_useful_software_for_your_windows_pc/

• Everything by Voidtools for quick & easy file search

• Greenshot for more versatile screenshot tool

• AutoHotkey for a lot of extra shortcuts and automation

• SumatraPDF for an ultra lightweight pdf reader (not editing).

• IrfanView for ultra lightweight image viewer.

• Obsidian for jotting down personal thoughts and my worldbuilding hobby

• BitWarden for password keeping, I don't like using the extension lol

• Internet Download Manager (PAID), been using it for so long, I find browsers built-in download manager kinda unreliable especially for big files.

• AIMP for my offline mp3 collection.

• PotPlayer for my offline videos collection.

Please avoid Opera GX. It's Chinese spyware

IIRC quite a few YouTubers (some quite reputed) have elaborately proved that Opera GX is spyware. I'm definitely not against all Chinese products (literally use a Lenovo Legion myself), but their software isn't sth one should easily trust.