A new workstation means it’s time to install lots of stuff, and we’re still a long way from DropSteam. Here’s my log from fresh Windows 7 install in a new VM image to a functional development environment:
First, I hit Ninite and install:
- All Browsers (I use Chrome as default)
- Adobe Air
- Adobe flash
- VLC Player
- IrfanView
- Inkscape
- Paint.NET
- Foxit Reader
- PDFCreator
- CutePDF (yes, you need both PDF printers, as it’s fairly common for one of them to have a problem with a particular job)
- CCleaner (tweak settings before running so you don’t nuke more than you want to, like browser history)
- 7-Zip
- Notepad++
- WinSCP
- JDK
Then I grab the ZIP of all of the Putty programs. I put installer-less programs like this in C:\bin
Cloudberry Freeware for Amazon S3 buckets.
Download JavaDoc and install in JDK folder.
Download Eclipse (3.4, not impressed with 4.X so far) and then:
- Set text font to 8pt Lucida Console
- Most companies and many open source projects are still using SVN so I install the Subclipse plugin for Eclipse.
- I’m not a huge fan of m2eclipse but I find that doing eclipse:eclipse from the command line costs you too much integration, so I use it.
- Turn on all compiler warnings except:
- Non-Externalized Strings – Enable as-needed
- serialVersionUID – Not useful for most projects
- Method can potentially be static – False positives on unit tests
- Turn on line numbers
- Install CheckStyle.
- Install FindBugs.
Maven 3 seems a little rough around the edges so I still use Maven 2.X
Install Cygwin and add git, svn, curl, and ssh packages.
Install MySQL Community Edition. During the installer I:
- Change the charset to utf8
- Fix the windows service name to something like MYSQL5
- Add to windows path
- Add a password
JRebel. You’re using this, right? If not, slap yourself and then go get it. Pay for the license out of your own pocket if you need to.
Lombok. I have finally used this on a real project and can say it’s ready for prime-time. It does not work with IntelliJ IDEA but I haven’t really seen any reasons to use IntelliJ that outweigh the benefits of Lombok.
Photoshop Elements because while IrfanView is great for viewing and Paint.NET is great for simple edits, you will at some point need a more powerful editor. Also most designers work in Photoshop so this let’s you open those files directly.
Photoshop Elements+ is basically a $12 unlock of some of Elements’ crippled features. For me it’s worth it for tracking alone.
LastPass is useful even if you don’t store anything sensitive in it, it’s great for testing webapps with multiple users.
I use Git for my own work so we’ll need that. Don’t forget to set your name!
I also make some Windows tweaks:
- Set desktop background to black.
- Check “Show hidden files, folder and drives”.
- Uncheck “Hide extensions for known file types”.
- Set %JAVA_HOME to JDK directory.
- Add Maven’s bin directory to %PATH
- Add C:\bin to %PATH
I will obviously add more over time, but this is the stuff I know I will need. What’s great is that almost all of it is free, and it can all be downloaded (except the original Windows install), so no disks required like the old days
You might think this is an incomplete list, where is my email client, my MS/Open office, my music player? I don’t use those unless I have to. Keep in mind that this is a VM so some of this software is installed on the Host OS, while the rest of it I prefer to use web-based solutions (Meebo, Google docs, webmail) so there’s no issues of having to keep updating settings.