Attention software developers, programmers, all around code geeks! I decided to compile a list of useful development tools that will make the development life cycle easier and fun. I try very hard to list open source tools since most are free. I do however encourage you to click the “Donate” button on the developers site if you decide to use their tool. We all need to pitch in and make sure these tools stay available. I will also list standard software when I think it warrants the list. I have purchased several software tools myself when I knew the tool would help me in some way. Enough babble…
The list:
IDE’s/Code Editors
SharpDevelop – [FREE] – [OPEN SOURCE].
Develop C#, VB.NET, and BOO applications on Microsoft .NET for Windows
MonoDevelop – [FREE] – [OPEN SOURCE].
Develop Cross Platform C# applications for Windows, Linux, and MAC.
Visual Studio Express C# – [FREE] – [CLOSED SOURCE].
Develop C# applications on Microsoft .NET for Windows.
Visual Studio Express C++ – [FREE] – [CLOSED SOURCE].
Develop C++ applications on Microsoft .NET for Windows.
Visual Studio Express VB.NET – [FREE] – [CLOSED SOURCE].
Develop Visual Basic applications on Microsoft .NET for Windows.
jEdit – [FREE] – [OPEN SOURCE].
Programmers text Editor. Use it to develop in several languages.
NotePad++ – [FREE] – [OPEN SOURCE].
Programmers text Editor. Use it to develop in several languages. Great for file cleaning, text searching and replacing, database conversions, etc.
Eclipse – [FREE] – [OPEN SOURCE].
A development platform that uses plugins to offer development in just about all major languages.
MinGW – [FREE] – [OPEN SOURCE].
Excerpt from site developer: “A minimalist development environment for native Microsoft Windows applications; A port of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), including C, C++, ADA and Fortran compilers”
FreePascal – [FREE] – [OPEN SOURCE].
Excerpt from site developer: “Free Pascal (aka FPK Pascal) is a 32 and 64 bit professional Pascal compiler. It can target multiple processor architectures: Intel x86, AMD64/x86-64, PowerPC, PowerPC64, SPARC, and ARM. Supported operating systems include Linux, FreeBSD, Haiku, Mac OS X/iOS/Darwin, DOS, Win32, Win64, WinCE, OS/2, MorphOS, Nintendo GBA, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo Wii”
Code::Blocks – [FREE] – [OPEN SOURCE].
Powerful and free C++ IDE.
Dev-C++ – [FREE] – [OPEN SOURCE].
Excerpt from site developer: “Bloodshed Dev-C++ is a full-featured Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for the C/C++ programming language”
Anjuta – [FREE] – [OPEN SOURCE].
Excerpt from site developer: “Anjuta DevStudio is a versatile software development studio featuring a number of advanced programming facilities including project management, application wizard, interactive debugger, source editor, version control, GUI designer, profiler and many more tools. It focuses on providing simple and usable user interface, yet powerful for efficient development”
CodeLite – [FREE] – [OPEN SOURCE].
Excerpt from site developer: “codelite is an open-source, cross platform IDE for the C/C++ programming languages”
IDEOne.com – [FREE] – [WEB BASED IDE].
This is a great online IDE. Supports numerous languages. It’s free to use.
Code Protection/Optimization
EazFuscator.NET – [PAID] – [CLOSED SOURCE].
Obfuscate your .NET platform code. Makes it impossible to use .NET reflectors, or dis-assemblers from revealing your code.
ActiveLock – [FREE] – [OPEN SOURCE].
Very powerful software copy protection.
ProGuard – [FREE] – [OPEN SOURCE].
Excerpt from site developer: “ProGuard is a free Java class file shrinker, optimizer, obfuscator, and preverifier. It detects and removes unused classes, fields, methods, and attributes. It optimizes bytecode and removes unused instructions. It renames the remaining classes, fields, and methods using short meaningless names. Finally, it preverifies the processed code for Java 6 or for Java Micro Edition.”
AsPack – [PAID] – [CLOSED SOURCE].
EXE file compressor. Compress your projects final .EXE release so it loads faster and is easier to distribute.
UPX – [FREE] – [OPEN SOURCE].
EXE file compressor. Compress your projects final .EXE release so it loads faster and is easier to distribute.
Microsoft Debuggers – [FREE] – [CLOSED SOURCE].
Debugging tools provided by Microsoft.
Install Systems
InnoSetup – [FREE] – [OPEN SOURCE].
Build custom application installers/un-installers. Scriptable with Pascal Script.
NSIS – [FREE] – [OPEN SOURCE].
Build custom application installers/un-installers. Scriptable with DLL calls.
InstallShield – [PAID] – [CLOSED SOURCE].
Build custom application installers/un-installers. Scriptable with its own scripting language.
Help Generators
Doxygen – [FREE] – [OPEN SOURCE].
Generates a help system by using XML formatted comments placed throughout your source code. It can generate output in HTML, PDF, RTF, and many more.
DoxyS – [FREE] – [OPEN SOURCE].
Based on Doxygen but optimized for C++.
VBDoxygen – [FREE] – [OPEN SOURCE].
Based on Doxygen but optimized for Visual Basic.
Microsoft Sandcastle – [FREE] – [CLOSED SOURCE].
Generates MSDN style help systems for your applications
Graphics/Icons
The Gimp – [FREE] – [OPEN SOURCE].
Very powerful Painting/Image editor.
Adobe PhotoShop – [PAID] – [CLOSED SOURCE].
Expensive but very powerful Painting/Image editor.
Paint.NET – [FREE] – [OPEN SOURCE].
Really easy to use Painting/Image editor.
IcoFX – [PAID] – [CLOSED SOURCE].
Very powerful and easy to use Icon Generator.
Inkscape – [FREE] – [OPEN SOURCE].
Excerpt from site developer: “An Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.”
Pixlr.com – [FREE] – [WEB BASED].
Excerpt from site developer: “Welcome to the most popular online photo editor in the world.”
Special admin Tools
Orca – [FREE] – [CLOSED SOURCE].
.MSI file editor. Sometimes you just need to edit the .MSI table entries manually.
7Zip – [FREE] – [OPEN SOURCE].
File archive and compression system based on LZMA compression. Also supports, .ZIP, .TGZ, .TAR, .GZ, and more. LZMA API also available.
pkZip – [PAID] – [CLOSED SOURCE].
File archive and compression system
WinRar – [PAID] – [CLOSED SOURCE].
File archive and compression system
Please post a comment for any useful software that I missed that should be on the list. I will be adding more as I think of them.
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