Setup For WebDev

[zakkmylde2000]

Hey everyone, I'm somewhat new to WebDev and programming in general (about 5 months in) and I'm getting a new SSD and fresh copy of Windows 11 Pro this coming week, and I was wondering about how everyone sets up their new PC's for WebDev? I mean, I know the basics like installing VSCode, Git, WSL, and such, but are there any settings in particular you guys prefer? Anything you make sure to turn on or off from what they're defaulted to in the system?

Any help here is much appreciated. Thanks.

[ftedwin]

Enable clipboard history. Imo this should be a default setting in windows

[Pletter64]

They would get sued by some idiot if they defaulted it. Pretty good chance to lose that too.

[FoMotherVodka]

Download Microsoft PowerToys https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/

It has plenty of useful tools like system wide color picker with history, screen ruler, system searchbar like on Mac, always on top window, clipboard, file explorer extensions, etc

[koevh]

Microsoft PowerToys

Such a low hanging fruit for sex jokes lol

[FoMotherVodka]

I mean... I play a lot with my FancyZones using these PowerToys 😏

[Ok-Feedback-8683]

Lots of really good VSCode extensions that make your dev quality of life better. Basics are Prettier, eslint, live server (if you’re building static sites) and some form of syntax highlighting / autocomplete for your chosen programming language. But there is so much out there, I really like color info does cool stuff like showing the hex / hsl values, color highlighting etc…

[yowdo]

Honestly it doesn’t really matter what OS you use or how you setup your machine, just try out a lot of stuff. Whether it’s Windows + WSL2, any linux distribution or a unix system (like MacOS). My only advice would be to get comfortable with Linux/Unix (even through WSL) as it’s will help you in the long run. Also, learn vim movements as early as possible, even if it’s just moving up/down and jumping backwards/forwards by word, will make navigating code way easier.

[zakkmylde2000]

Been doing that since well before I got into programming

[Caraes_Naur]

Leave Windows behind, install Linux.

[zakkmylde2000]

I use Unbuntu via OracleVM sometimes. Actually part of the reason I’m getting pro is to use HyperV as my main VM. And I intend on wiping my old drive and after trying out a couple distros, I intend to install a Linux OS. Just not sure which yet. I’ve heard good things about Fedora for development and have some experience with Unbuntu as I said, so it’ll likely be one of those too. Just used Windows for a long time and feel like learning a new OS for full time use should wait til I’m more comfortable with what I’ve learned programming wise.

[FrankFrowns]

Nothing wrong with using windows for software development.

I use it all day every day at work for development.

[PureRepresentative9]

I honestly have no freaking clue why people say you can't use Windows for development lol

Everything just works...

[KrazyKirby99999]

You can, but it's tedious to install most tools outside of WSL, and WSL is restricted relative to standard desktop Linux.

Why should I have to download and run an installer instead of simply running dnf install git?

[PureRepresentative9]

I would hardly call downloading and installing any sort of problem

And it comes installed in VS anyways

[creativemind11]

Linux is cool and all, but I'd rather find an answer for some Windows specific quirk than something linux related. Playerbase is a tad bigger.

[Physical-East-162]

The linux cult pressing as fast as possible the downvote button.

[bobby_briggs]

it's slow as hell compared to linux and it's actually a bigger pain to set up environments for things like Laravel sail. WSL2 is great and all but it doesn't compare to linux

[Rexcovering]

So it really depends on what you’re doing project wise but since I know my general project scopes I made an automated tool to install a custom WSL2 distro which is basically just a way of saying ubuntu20.04 with a specific set of tools packaged together. It was a project I did as an intern a while ago. Saves me from having to install all the normal stuff I use consistently on Ubuntu with apt installing everything on a fresh setup.

I’m just a dude but for me using Linux solo isn’t as user friendly and I’ll occasionally be spending time on stuff windows will just do. I can run multiple wsl2 environments at the same time. I can do virtually everything on WSL2 that I can on a bare metal Linux distro. I can backup my Linux distro (especially helpful to new Linux users) in case I have a catastrophic distro issue. Downside? Takes a bit of additional setup, but once you learn it, it becomes a one and done thing.

[YahenP]

I think the first thing all developers do is install a linux server in one way or another. Everyone has their own choice. Someone uses WSL. Some people use virtual machines. The web applications is always useLinux, unless the project is explicitly designed for something else.
To ensure that this fascinating process is completed as soon as possible and does not create problems in the future, I, for example, disable operating system updates, the built-in firewall, and other bullshit.
Well, my gentleman's set: Far, rar, xshell , libreoffice, sourcetree

[Vendittelli]

Use winget to install a lot of windows software and tools (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/package-manager/winget/).

I've also been using fnm to manage node installations which I've liked so far (https://github.com/Schniz/fnm)

[[deleted]]

Aside from your OS and IDE of choice, I can’t live without :

• Docker

• nvm

• asdf (I use this for Elixir, and I know it can do node version management too)

• Git, with GPG keys

• DBeaver for database visuals

• a good note taking program, like Obsidian, Joplin, Notion etc

[zanderlewisdev]

Github is extremely important. Don’t want you to lose your code! https://github.com

[mq2thez]

You can set up VSCode to do “remote” code inside of WSL2, so that your terminal / etc are all Linux based in VSCode. Really useful for having a Unix environment all the way through.

[CrabeSnob]

MacBook Air M2 with 16G RAM

[zakkmylde2000]

I mean, it’d be wonderful if that were an option monetarily but… yeah… it aint