Powerful Resources for PhD Students

Having spent years as a PhD student working with software development and website maintenance, I have had the opportunity to explore and experiment with a wide range of tools and technologies.

Through my journey, I have discovered some resources that have made a significant impact on my work and personal life, enabling me to be more productive and efficient.

In this blog, I will be sharing some of the most useful tools that have helped me in my work, covering everything from code development to general writing. My hope is that this list of tools will be useful for anyone looking to streamline their work process and increase their productivity.

Development

Visual Studio Code

A popular and versatile source code editor developed by Microsoft for Windows, Linux, and macOS

It is designed to be lightweight and fast while also providing advanced features and support for a variety of programming languages. Visual Studio Code offers built-in Git support, debugging tools, extensions, and customizable keyboard shortcuts to make coding more efficient and productive. It is a popular choice for developers and has a large and active community of users who contribute to its ongoing development and support.VS Code is an customizable and extensible IDE with cross-platform compatibility.

Extensions:

• GitHub Copilot: AI-powered code autocompletion tool. Free for education
• GitLens: a powerful set of features for working with Git repositories
• autopep8: Python code formatter according to PEP 8 style guide
• Preview: previewer to various types of files, such as Markdown, HTML, and PDF
• Table Formatter: formatter for tables in markdown, HTML, reStructuredText

The Good Research Code Handbook

A valuable guidance on how to organize research code effectively

Common Commands

A personal collection of common commands involving Conda, Git, Linux, tmux, Docker, and SSH

Writing

Overleaf

A web-based collaborative LaTeX editor

THESAURUS.COM

An online resource of synonyms and antonyms for words in the English language

Research

Novelty in Science

A blog by Michael Black that explores the concept of scientific novelty

Four golden lessons

An essay for PhD students based on a commencement talk given by the Steven Weinberg