New tools for the new year

Some new tools I've come across that I'm finding useful.

Overmind

I found Overmind while checking out the Lucky web framework (which is also really good). It looks at a Procfile and runs everything in there.

# Procfile.dev

sidekiq: bundle exec sidekiq
nsqadmin: nsqadmin --nsqd-http-address localhost:4151
jsdev: bin/webpack-dev-server
ngrok: ngrok http --subdomain=myngrokdomain --host-header=rewrite http://myproject.test

overmind s -f Procfile.dev

I've been using it to start up needed applications during development. Before I'd start each application in its own tmux pane. Now I run everything in one pane and I don't have to remember or lookup each command.

Watchexec

Watchexec does exacly what the name implies, it watches files and then executes a command. It's been helpful for Golang & Crystal development for running tests after a file changes.

watchexec --exts cr crystal spec

That compiles and runs crystal specs whenever a file changes.

Ws

Ws is a command line app for working with websockets. Connect to a websocket and then send and recieve messages.

ws http://localhost:3030/websocket

Wtfutil

Wtfutil is more of a fun one. I found while looking for ways to make Golang terminal applications. It uses the tview framework and displays a bunch of information in a nice terminal dashboard.

It takes a minute to setup as you need API keys for a lot of the modules, but after that, you get a nice overview of your system and other development related services.

Above image from the wtfutil docs