https://blog.thetextsmith.com/tools-of-the-trade/ Recent content in Tools of the Trade on Under the Anvil Hugo en-us Tue, 28 Jul 2026 17:42:44 +0200 https://blog.thetextsmith.com/tools-of-the-trade/why-vs-code-took-the-programming-world-by-storm/ Tue, 28 Jul 2026 17:42:44 +0200 https://blog.thetextsmith.com/tools-of-the-trade/why-vs-code-took-the-programming-world-by-storm/ Before Visual Studio Code arrived, the programming world was already crowded with editors. There was Vim for those who loved the keyboard, Emacs for those who wanted an editor that could become an operating system, Sublime Text for speed, Atom for hackability, Notepad++ on Windows, and countless IDEs for specific languages. https://blog.thetextsmith.com/tools-of-the-trade/the-rustification-of-the-unix-toolbox/ Thu, 23 Jul 2026 21:11:00 +0200 https://blog.thetextsmith.com/tools-of-the-trade/the-rustification-of-the-unix-toolbox/ The best Rust tools rarely reject the philosophy of small composable programs–they simply revisit decades-old implementations with today’s programming languages and expectations. https://blog.thetextsmith.com/tools-of-the-trade/old-tools-new-ideas/ Thu, 16 Jul 2026 19:15:43 +0200 https://blog.thetextsmith.com/tools-of-the-trade/old-tools-new-ideas/ Perhaps nowhere is the impact of Rust felt more than in sysadmin: its speed and expressiveness means that some old tools are being modernized. Whether this is good of bad depends on the user’s perspective. https://blog.thetextsmith.com/tools-of-the-trade/the-case-for-small-tools/ Wed, 15 Jul 2026 19:10:33 +0200 https://blog.thetextsmith.com/tools-of-the-trade/the-case-for-small-tools/ Every program is a set of functions that cooperate to produce the desired result. Did you ever consider how your computer makes it possible for you to craft complete programs on-the-fly through its small utilities?