Everywhere I've gone, one of my first steps is to document every single thing I'm told to do to setup the machine for development. Not a single one of the shops where did I this, was it appreciated or possibly even used as far as I can tell. Even in the many that had badly outdated instructions for new developers, I updated them to no avail or interest.
So here's my generic procedure for a machine (mostly independent of target platform/ui)
- Ask about getting a 2nd monitor if there isn't one.
- evaluate provided keyboard/mouse
- evaluate if using a git layer over top of the solution would be helpful
- branching in git is cake
- branching in TFS is very painful
- document and do all solution/job/domain specific setup
- ask around about pain points in setup
- ensure the work solution actually runs
- installs
- setup Chrome (or Firefox)
- install git or git-extensions (even if the shop doesn't use git)
- Linqpad
- download (4 and 5)
- register it
- set it to point to the script repository created in 2
- SublimeText
- Telerik JustDecompile
- Windows Grep - I am considering trying out this one
- pull down my script repository (this has all my most reusable/interesting scripting code)
- write some scripting code
- to help verify and/or do step 3.
- to help with any manual work done in switching contexts (ie. Dev/QA/Prod debugging)
- Consider (but not necessarily do, creating a git repo over my user profile folder)
- this lets me watch changes to those folders for important settings or files that I might want to keep
- also allows settings to roam between machines/domains
- Run VS code metrics analysis of work solution(s) -
- ask for approval to clean the methods with any of the following criteria:
- over 30 cyclomatic complexity
- under 30 maintainability
- evaluate build/CI process
- evaluate deploy process
Additional very wise steps I need to start doing:
- Install sonar
- install the C# plugin
- test run current/latest code
- customize violation rules and re-run
- document metrics (lines of code, number of projects, violations)
- setup a build process that would iterate from the beginning of solution all check-ins for code trending
VS Extensions to install:
- VsVim
- Web Essentials
- Visual F# Power Tools
Other tools I might install depending on platform/ui type:
Tools wishlist:
- TypeMock - Isolator
- NDepend
- Rubber Ducky
- https://github.com/hak5darren/USB-Rubber-Ducky/
Thank you Brandon. Considering your 1-12, Looks like we have a lot of overlap there. I've been pondering the last two steps, CI and CD. Some readings advocate starting new projects by setting up CI/CD before writing any tests or code. It's an idea I'd like to try because you're then showing helpful results from the beginning. As far as tools, SysInternals is the first thing I set up (and add to path) on a new Windows box, before even patching.
ReplyDeleteLOL @ Robot references in Rubber Ducky video. Great books.