We have an amazing team here at Collective Idea. Our staff comes from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences, and has a similarly wide range of tool preferences.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of what we use to build amazing applications:

The Non-Negotiables

These are the company standards we all use to do our jobs - those tools that either have no credible alternative, or that the company has settled on for its day-to-day operation on all or most projects.

• Slack - Text communication among and between product and client teams.
• Harvest - Time tracking. We track our time on client projects, as well as the time we spend on internal projects, travel, writing, professional development, etc.
• 1Password - Centralized storage for credentials we all need to have access to.
• Highfive - Our technology choice for video conferencing.
• Git - Repo storage, version control, document storage - even our handbook is housed on Github, and pull requests from employees are encouraged.
• Travis - Continuous integration server, to make sure our test suites remain healthy.
• Rubocop - Allows us to work within the Ruby Style Guide guidelines, to promote consistency.
• Google Search - Nobody knows all. Like developers everywhere, we rely on our community’s collective knowledge to solve problems.

IDEs / Text Editors

Few things set developers’ hair on fire like a good argument about which is the best IDE or text editor to use. So rather than strike a match, I’ll just list those editors our developers report using, roughly in order of popularity*.

• vim/tmux
• Atom
• Sublime Text
• RubyMine
• BBEdit
• MacVIM
• Textmate
• Marked
• iA Writer

Development Gems and Tools

• Chrome DevTools - Useful for running commands against a live page, experimenting with style changes, evaluating JavaScript errors, and plenty more.
• Homebrew - Mac package manager.
• Ruby Version Manager (rvm) - Manages your gems for different environments.
• RSpec - Much of the work we do is in Rails, and we favor rspec-rails as our testing framework.
• Postman - GUI platform for API development.
• ack - Search tool for very large codebases.
• sass-lint - Checks SASS and SCSS syntax in node modules.
• Rested - Firefox add-on tool that functions as a REST client.
• Guard - Runs custom tasks when files or directories are changed.
• hookup - Runs migrations and bundles whenever you switch branches in a Rails application.

Productivity

• OmniFocus and Todoist - To-do list applications.
• Alfred and TextExpander - Leverage hotkeys and shortcuts to boost productivity.
• Spotify - A music app.
• A bullet journal - Methodology for rapid journaling, that functions as a combination diary and to-do list.

Ticket Management

• Pivotal Tracker
• Basecamp
• Trello
• get_to_work - Tags Harvest time entries with Pivotal Tracker ticket information.

Remote Pairing

• ScreenHero - Lots of apps enable screensharing, but ScreenHero is one that also allows for shared control of a computer. This makes collaborative programming much more effective.
• HipChat - A group chat, video chat, screenshare application.

Version Control

• SourceTree
• Tower

Command Line

• Terminal - Native Mac command-line tool.
• iTerm2 - Replacement tool for Mac’s Terminal app.
• zsh - An interactive shell.
• oh-my-zsh - Framework for managing your zsh configuration
• hub - A command line tool for interacting with Github.

Utility

• Mail - Native MacOS mail app.
• Licecap and Gifox - Animated screenshot grabs - produces animated GIF’s, useful to add to pull requests.
• Monosnap - A screenshot tool.
• Apple Notes - Virtual Post-It notes app native to MacOS.
• Magnet - Window manager.
• MailMate - IMAP email client for Mac.
• OneNote and Evernote - Cloud-based apps that store notes, images, and more. It can be used collaboratively by team members to storyboard features, especially if one or more team member is remote.
• Cinch - For easy resizing of windows.
• Airmail - A mail app for Mac and iOS.
• BusyCal - Calendar app for MacOS.
• LastPass - Password management tool.
• Google Drive, Dropbox, and Resilio Sync - Cloud storage and file backup/syncing across multiple devices.

Design

• Affinity Designer - Graphic design software.
• Sketch - Design software specifically geared to web professionals.
• Sip - A color-picker tool.
• Right Font - A font manager.
• ImageOptim - Optimizes images so their file size is smaller and they load faster.

Database GUI

• Navicat
• Postico
• SquirrelSQL
• Sequel Pro

Miscellaneous

• Little Fingers - For those times when kids and cats want to help type.
• WaterMinder - To help remember to drink enough water throughout the day.
• LookUp - An app that reminds you to look at least 20 feet away for 20 seconds, every 20 minutes, to prevent eye strain.

*

Not all developers responded, so this list should be considered representative, not comprehensive.