Coder’s Eye

I’ve been using a Mac as my primary development and personal operating system since OSX 10.1, a few years. In that time, I’ve tried a lot of software, and I’ve developed my own working style. But what is really interesting is how I’ve come to appreciate the services the operating system and its stock apps all work together.

With the glue of Applescript, well defined APIs, and more recently the incredible Quicksilver, my standard working environment has become a cloud of apps that interoperate surprisingly well. Since I realized this was happening a while ago, I’ve been watching and investigating apps that seem to "get" this design ethic.

For example, I’ve started using the quite young but promising app iGTD to manage my task lists. There are a zillion task managing apps out there, what makes this so great that it could move me from all the options and power I used to have with DayLite. I’d spent dozens of hours using that program for the last six months, so why would I change to iGTD, an app which appears to do so much less?

App Synergy

I made the change because iGTD has that elusive design ethic of being a good fit. I can enter new tasks using Quicksilver, having them pop into the proper context and project all in one simple command, much faster than I could ever do in Harvest. Plus, once they are in, they get synchronized into my calendar and the Mac built-in todo lists. This lets me use iMac sync to have my tasks synced between my desktop and laptop. Even better, I can directly pop mail messages into iGTD with one keystroke from the built-in mail.app.

But better than that is the simple fact that it doesn’t have to do everything. iGTD just does one thing well, it lets me use the built-in address book to handle addresses, unlike Daylite. It doesn’t make yet another manual export-import loop for me to synch my iCal, unlike Daylite.

A good neighbor app like this is gold because it synergistically adds to the usefulness and speed of my production environment. It doesn’t have to take over to be useful, and I love that.

Other good neighbors

I’d love to hear your favorite apps like this. Ones that fit in to the workflow rather than hijacking it. Ones which rapidly become familiar tools always at hand in your working environment.

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