Delightful Tooling

26th Mar 2026

A short list of tooling I've been enjoying recently

Mise

Tool version manager. Lives in a .mise folder with a config.toml like this:

[tools]
node = "22.17.0"
typst = "0.13.1"

Running mise install creates a standalone shell, and in general just feels very smooth and well made.

Typst

A large and growing alternative for LateX, for generating nice-looking documents. It’s fast, but the bit I like most is that it’s a lot easier to install and run.

uv

If you use Python you’re probably already aware of this. For a while there were many competing Python dependency management, but uv blew them out of the water with it’s speed.

Astro

Frontend framework for content websites. I like that it can be used relatively simply, with opt-in complexity for performance.

Photopea

Image manipulation akin to Photoshop. Relatively simple for a hobbiest image manipulator like myself.

Terraform

I still can’t get over the fun of infrastructure as code. Willilng physical services into existance with keystrokes is magic.

Terraform config can get a bit messy, so I’d love something that made good practices easier, but I’m experienced in it enough that I can set my own guardrails. I still haven’t tried OpenTofu, but I hope to at some point.

wsl2

I only have 1 laptop, and I use it for both games and software. I prefer Linux or Mac for programming, and I dual booted for a bot but I’ve prefered using wsl2, which lets me use Linux without the same overhead. In general, it’s worked quite well! The main limitations I’m finding are a) App development is a no-go, and b) AI assistants frequently mess up interacting with files.

I hear linux is getting better at running games (probably thanks to the Steam Deck), so when I need another Laptop I’ll be giving pure Linux a go.