Software I use, gadgets I love, and other things I recommend.

I get asked a lot about the things I use to build software, stay productive, or buy to fool myself into thinking I'm being productive when I'm really just procrastinating. Here's a big list of all of my favorite stuff.

Development Environment

  • Cursor

    60% of the time it work all of the time.

  • Grok

    Helpful to discuss wide ranges of ideas.

  • Soul Power

    Nothing beats it.

  • Git

    Essential for version control and collaboration. I use it for everything from personal projects to team development.

  • GitHub

    The perfect platform for hosting Git repositories, managing projects, and collaborating with other developers. GitHub Actions has revolutionized my CI/CD workflow.

Frontend Development

  • React

    My go-to frontend framework for building interactive user interfaces. The component-based architecture and rich ecosystem make it perfect for modern web applications.

  • Next.js

    Dev Ops was solved with Next.js. The perfect framework for building React applications with server-side rendering and static site generation.

  • Tailwind

    The best CSS framework ever made. Utility-first approach that makes styling components a breeze.

Backend & Infrastructure

  • Node.js

    The foundation of my backend development. Its non-blocking I/O and vast npm ecosystem make it ideal for building scalable server-side applications.

  • Firebase

    For the price, we get real time databases, auth, firestores, and so much more. I always seem to end up with a firestore.

E-commerce & Payments

  • Shopify

    The most comprehensive e-commerce platform I've worked with. Its API and theme system make it incredibly flexible for custom storefronts.

  • Stripe

    The gold standard for payment processing. Their API is incredibly well-designed, and the documentation is second to none. Perfect for handling complex payment flows.

  • Square

    Great for in-person payments and small businesses. Their developer platform makes it easy to integrate payments into custom applications.

Design & Prototyping

  • Figma

    Sometimes I draw in figma, but almost always as rough prototypes.

  • Code

    I like to do most of my design work as I write the code to build out features, designs naturally arise.

Blockchain Development

  • Aiken

    Recent fascination has been with functional programming, writing smart contracts on UTxO based blockchains.

  • Mesh

    A powerful SDK for building Cardano dApps. Its comprehensive API makes it easy to interact with the Cardano blockchain, handle transactions, and manage wallets.

More Tools & Technologies

  • Docker

    Essential for containerization and deployment. Makes it easy to package and run applications consistently across different environments.

  • PostgreSQL

    My preferred relational database. Its reliability, performance, and rich feature set make it perfect for most applications.

  • Redis

    In-memory data structure store that's perfect for caching, session management, and real-time features.

  • TypeScript

    Adds static typing to JavaScript, making it more maintainable and helping catch errors early in development.

  • Jest

    My go-to testing framework for JavaScript applications. Great for unit testing and integration testing.