in reply to Software handyman and handywoman
.= # Adding to the above:
- My favorite editor with my favorite settings
- An Internet connection
- Search engine
- Dictionary (well, maybe not for *most* of my programming work...)
- screen
- GNU grep (has -r)
- od -x, wc, and other small text utils
- tcpdump
- netcat
- A c development environment, preferably full gnu toolchain
- If I need to do merges and I'm on Windows, Beyond Compare (probably the only tool that makes me want Windows! Runs OK with Wine)
- Quiet or music as appropriate
- Sufficiently good display (e.g., refresh rate)
- perl! of course :)