I spend most of my computer time on the command line. The command line is such a powerful environment. Unlike graphical user interfaces, command line programs are simple to create. That makes you can build your own more easily than graphical programs, and it also makes it much easier to chain them together to do tasks that dwarf the sum of their parts. Excellent holistic tools are ones that are easy to learn and understand, but empower and inspire. When used well, you barely even notice that they’re there. Here are some of my favourite tools, which empower and inspire me every day: bash termite cat less grep sed vim tar g(un)zip tdag tslide invoicer strapdown marked airpaste dat webtorrent scrot exrot imagemagick youtube-dl mplayer picast xit git ecstatic hcat , scat browserify common-readme pkginit readme superlevel ...