What programming tools could you not live without?

I'm firmly in the minimalist camp. Everything you add comes with issues:
- licensing
- security
- support
- cost (maybe)
- leaning curve for new hires
- documentation
- chance of errors/bugs
- getting updates
- finding a replacement when updates stop
So there'd have to be a very good benefit of the thing to outweigh all that hassle. Usually isn't worth it.
 
Notepad++ for sure, with trillions of tabs open. I use it as a paste pad for stuff I might need later (snippets, urls, blocks of data, etc.), it is a fantastic search and replace (extended chars and regex), supports keystroke macros (omg, edit: when people are still sending you csvs!), flips line endings (unix/win), shows format chars, etc. It only misses hex mode. Which brings me on to the next one, Hexpert, for when you really want to understand whats in your file. Matlab. WinMerge for visual file comparison and sorting out git cli merge conflicts. GREP, where would Linux be without it? Verbose, I suppose.
 
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