Hey everyone! I'm an accountant from Brazil and I'm tackling some small-scale automation projects, like scripting to rename PDFs based on their content, creating file structures from those renamed PDFs, and automating document delivery to clients. I'm a self-taught developer, but I feel like I might be missing out on some important development tools and practices. Currently, I have a simple setup with a main folder for production scripts and a testing folder for new additions. I usually code in VS Code with Rocode and the Gemini API, and while I have Git installed, I haven't figured out how to make use of it yet. I've seen some self-hosted tools like Gitea and would love to hear from those experienced in development: What tools do you use that you find essential? Am I overlooking anything obvious? Are there any self-hosted tools that could enhance my development process?
2 Answers
If you're using Git, you might want to initialize a repository in your main scripts folder with `git init`. That way, you can track changes directly from there without needing a separate testing folder. Just use `git add` and `git commit` to save your stable versions. Also, check out tools like Fish for a more pleasant shell experience compared to Bash. It's pretty nice! It's not mind-blowing, but it's definitely a nice change.
As a Ruby on Rails developer, I mainly use Neovim along with tmux as my session manager. I focus on testing my APIs with curl, and I use Docker for the services I need in my projects. For beginners, I suggest sticking to straightforward tools and not diving into self-hosted solutions right away. Experiment with different tools to gain experience first before considering self-hosting.
I actually self-host quite a bit, including my own website and a Proxmox cluster. I just want to know what development-related tools might be worth self-hosting.