Software we use
Software
These are the software we use as a team. The decisions for why we chose many of these options can be found in our decisions website.
- VS Code: A lightweight but powerful source code editor that comes with built-in support for multiple languages and has a rich ecosystem of extensions for all types of purposes and uses.
- Discord: Our main communication software for messaging and having meetings.
- Docker: This handles the containerization of our products.
- Git: We use Git for version control and we host all our content on GitHub.
- Justfile: Just is a command runner that we use to manage many workflow and build tasks, such as creating or re-generating diagrams that were created with PlantUML, running tests on code, and building the software apps.
- Python 3: We use Python to build our software.
- Quarto: We use Quarto to build the website and write general documentation.
These are the recommended helper or workflow type software:
- GitHub CLI: GitHub CLI (command line interface) is a command-line tool that brings pull requests, issues, GitHub Actions, and other features specific to GitHub to the terminal.
- Homebrew: If you work on a Macbook, Homebrew can ease the installation process of some of the software listed above by enabling you to install software directly in the Terminal by using the
brew install [package_name]
command. E.g., Git can be installed by writingbrew install git
in the terminal. Easy!
Recommended VS Code Extensions
If you use VS Code, but are not familiar with extensions, they are add-ons or plugins that enhance the functionality of VS Code. They can be installed to customise and extend the capabilities of VS Code to support a wide range of programming languages, frameworks, and development tasks.
Inside each of our repositories is a .vscode/extensions.json
file that lists all the extensions we recommend for working in that repository with VS Code. When you clone any of our repositories and open the local repository folder in VS Code, a pop-up message will recommend the extensions in this file. We recommend that you install these to help you set up smoother workflows.