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"People think that computer science is the art of geniuses but the actual reality is the opposite,  just many people doing things that build on each other, like a wall of mini stones."

- Donald Knuth

Tools

Everyone has their favorite programming languages, operating systems, database technologies, hardware, etc. This is just a list of some of the tools I like to work with.

Languages

  • Julia

    Anytime I need to do a some data analysis or build a custom model I tend to start a Julia REPL. Yeah, I know, R exists and Python has libraries that usually do what I need, but it just ticks all the boxes for these problems. Pretty good AD and stats packages along with syntax that makes porting an academic paper over really intuitive.

  • Python

    It's just a good general purpose scripting language that's installed on most Linux distros. There's usually a package to do whatever you need and it's hard to write completely unreadable code. That being said, it isn't particular good at anything (e.g., performance, package management, web dev)

  • Rust

    This is still a new one for me, but I'm really enjoying Rust. It feels like a blend of C++ and Haskell, but with a good package manager and a strict compiler. I've heard the learning curve goes in waves, so I might have a different opinion in a bit :)

  • Shell

    I don't know if this counts as a language, but I'd say I'm writing some kind of shell script most days. Typically, for projects in flux it isn't worth writing a proper Python script or ansible playbook, but I'm also too lazy to rerun the same commands every time.

  • Typescript

    The necessary evil for any frontend work nowadays. I've heard rumours that some folks use it for backend work too, but apart from not wanting to learn another language I can't see why :) I'm also gonna lump things like React/Nextjs, CSS/Tailwind and HTML in with this.

  • ...

    I've also been known to use a variety of other languages including: C/C++, Java, Lisp, MATLAB, Perl, Prolog, and R. That being said, I wouldn't describe these languages as my go-to tools for most projects and my experience is largely tied to maintaining existing codebases.

Databases

  • DuckDB

    My go to in-memory OLAP database for prototyping and analysis projects. The fact that it's still just a relational database means it has largely replaced my uses of SQLite.

  • PostgreSQL

    Good old Postgres. It always seems like the Fedora of database... Reliable read-write performance, but still flexible enough to cover different applications (e.g., JSON objects, GIS support).

  • SQLite

    For years, this was my go-to database for prototyping and testing. More recently this has been replaced by duckdb for my proof-of-concept projects, which tends to be more analysis heavy. Still, if someone asked me for a stable in-memory SQL database to use for testing I'd probably still recommend this. It's just a more mature project.

  • ...

    While I have some experience working with NoSQL databases like Mongo, Dynamo or Redis, each of these tools seemed rather niche to a very specific dataset or use case. In my experience, SQL is a pretty universal query language among developers, data scientists and research, so using something else would require a pretty significant justification.

Hardware

  • Fedora Workstation, i7, 128GM RAM, 32TB Storage, RTX 4090

    For running all my personal services and a gaming VM, I've been pretty happy with my Fedora Linux box. Having a full size box has made upgrading parts over the years super easy. I'm pretty sure the case is almost 15 years old. When it comes to running a bunch of docker containers, VMs and doing a GPU PCIe passthrough it's really hard to beat the versatility of linux. I'll probably continue distro hopping at some point, but I've been pretty happy with Fedora's rolling release schedule.

  • M1 MacBook Pro, 64GB RAM (2021)

    For most of my day-to-day tasks that I might want to take on the go. Jumping to M1 from Intel was like night and day, even for code running with Rosetta. Compute heavy workloads completed in half the time and without my laptop into a space heater :)

  • Dual Monitors (1080p)

    I'm not a big display geek, as long as the text is clear and it has the right ports. However, I have found that a dual monitor setup is almost required at this point.

  • Keychron K8 Keyboard

    I know some folks have strong opinions about mechanical keyboards. I don't think the keychron is anything to write home about, but

    • it has decent switch feel
      seems to be holding up for the past couple years
      can connect to 3 different computers (4 if you include wired connections)
      it wasn't pretty cost effective at the time

  • MX Master 2S

    It's just the go-to ergonomic mouse. Like the keychron it can connect to 3 different computers. Being able to use the same keyboard and mouse for my macbook, linux box and windows gaming VM without a dedicated KVM switch is really nice.

  • Apple Magic Trackpad

    It's just nice alternative to a mouse when I need it.

  • Secretlab Sit-to-Stand Desk

    I wanted a sit-to-stand desk for years, but was always worried about build quality. I'd read about wobbly desks in the standing position or failed leg motors. After a few months of daily use, the secretlab desk seems to be holding up well and feels very sturdy. Given how heavy it is I'd hope so :)

Development tools

  • Zed

    I've been through a lot of editors over the years. `vim` is still my(the) default for modifying files on remote linux servers, but it's also the 21st century and it's okay to want a GUI. Also, if I'm actively developing software on a remote linux server then I've done something wrong. If I'm forced to write software on Windows then I can't recommend Visual Studio enough. It's arguably the be piece of software that Microsoft has produced, since GitHub was technical just aquired :) For everything else, I've tried `kate`, `gedit`, `sublime`, `vscode`, `atom`, etc and either found them lacking on features or just slow. So far, `zed` seems to hit that nice middle ground of being fast, but also including all the basic features I want like a file manager, git integration, formatting, etc. I honestly couldn't care about the AI assistant, but the collab features seem interesting.

  • WezTerm

    I'm still in testing mode, but having a modern terminal configuration that works on all platforms is pretty nice.