Over the years I’ve built up a list of applications that I use on a daily basis to get the job done. Moving from developer to architect, I struggled initially to figure how best to architect, document and present the various views that I created to stakeholders.
That really revolved around moving and letting go of the central IDE (Integrated Developer Environment) tool to plain diagrams, e-mail and presentations. Simple yet effective if executed well. I’ve listed down my go – to tools/applications that I normally would like to have installed and accessible.
Microsoft 365 Products
I know the following products will be scoffed and maybe seen as dinosaur products. However over the years Microsoft’s 365 offering of products have become better. The inclusion of adding versioning to OneDrive also removes the need to keep renaming documents with version numbers as well as being backed up automatically.
Visio – My go to diagramming tool, I’ve yet to find a replacement for this one. Yes it’s dated in terms of functionality but I’ve grown accustom to the easy of use and speed at which I’m able to put design’s together.
PowerPoint – No surprises here. Simplest way to help convey an idea for me has been PowerPoint. I’ve created a number of templates where I essentially ,”paste and go”, from Visio to PowerPoint.
Browsers
Besides having Edge as default browser in most organizations I usually install the following as well.
Firefox – My daily browser for everything that’s not needed to view corporate networked websites. Yes, I did experience the browser wars with Netscape navigator and Internet Explorer.
Chrome – When everything else doesn’t work in Edge or Firefox, it’s off to Chrome. However I do find myself using this less and less on a daily basis. Mainly because with Edge’s adoption of the Chromium browser engine, there’s less of a need to use Chrome.
Developer Tools
The need for an architect, especially a solution architect, to understand the technical components of their landscape should not be overlooked. I do stress that this is a fine line – as architect you need developer’s to do their job but it’s always good to understand what’s happening under the hood. There may be times where you would be required to perform a due diligence on a platform or code base and understanding the technical components is essential.
The other reasoning is that at my core I’m still a developer.
Visual Studio – Organization specific and what I mean by this is, different size organizations require specific licensing and versioning. As an example, in my personal capacity I have Visual Studio Community Edition installed on all my machines that I can build and run code. However when I’m in an organization licensing comes into play and depending on licensing Visual Studio Professional Edition is the way to go.
Visual Studio Code – I really have this installed as an alternative to the beloved Notepad++.
Azure Data Studio – This is an interesting one, I thought it was the replacement for SQL Management Studio, however it doesn’t seem to be. Obviously more focused on Data and Azure but I have found it useful as there’s a bunch of plug-ins available, including one for MySQL DB. That’s what I’m using this one really for at the moment.
SQL Server Management Studio – The old titan, most likely this with Visual Studio have been my dedicated developer tools – if you in a Microsoft based environment. Primarily used for CRUD operations against Microsoft SQL Server Databases.
Postman – Still getting the hang of this tool but quite neat if you needing to browse/document or generally interact with any API’s. Yeah, alternative’s do exist such as the developer tools in all of the browser’s or SmartBear’s SoapUI however this one seems to have stuck.
Diagramming Tools
Being a big fan of Visio, I have encountered times where I’ve needed to use alternative’s. This has been for various reason’s but I’ve learnt to not overlook any of the listed tools.
Draw.io – No surprises here – I use the windows app (offline app?) vs the cloud offering for Draw.io. The only disadvantage I’ve really had here is that the icon’s that are on offer aren’t that great. Other than that this is a pretty decent tool as an alternative to Visio.
Miro – This tool I’ve discovered based on working with many agile and consultant teams. I don’t really have a preference between the windows app or the web version – both seem to get the job done. Also the windows app feels more like a wrapped version of the web version.
Other tools
Adobe PDF – Not really essentiall but I do find the orignal tool by adobe to be way more superior than other free versions and what is available by the browser.
Windows Subsystem for Linux – Also known as WSL. Maybe overkill but I’ve replaced PuTTY with the shell offered by this. Connecting to Linux devices has become easier now in the Windows environment.
7-Zip – Alternative if your needs are beyond just zipping files. 7-Zip offer’s a host of other popular formats and it’s free.
AI Tools – Not an essential apps list if something around AI is not included here – ChatGPT and Bard are absolute must’s in the work place nowadays. However be careful at what input is provided – organizations have started to develop and implement policy’s around what data an employee’s are able to provide these AI web based tools.