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I'm a huge fan of running programs from my portable hard drive: it means I always have my favorite tools no matter what computer I'm on. Sadly, development tools seem to be hard to get portable at times. I recently realized that the "portable" version of MinGW I was using off my USB drive was actually interfering with a locally installed version of MinGW, so sometimes even the tools you think are portable, aren't.

So what are the best portable development tools that you've used? What runs well on a portable media, leaves the host machine clean, and generally makes moving around easier for you?

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Does "no matter what computer" also include "no matter what operating system"? – LennyProgrammers Nov 18 '10 at 10:07

closed as not constructive by ChrisF♦ Oct 20 '12 at 10:44

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9 Answers

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Check out portableapps.com - they have a great selection of program that run on flashdrives. They have several dev tools, like Notepad++. They also have a desktop tray application so that you don't have to search all over your drive for your apps, and it will also pick up applications you find elsewher if you place them in the right directory.

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Was actually thinking of selecting this option as well. – WernerCD Nov 18 '10 at 7:16
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Pen Drive Linux

Not an installer, this actually lets you run a linux distro off of the USB key. I don't use it myself these days, because I have a netbook with me at all times. If I felt strongly about it, it wouldn't be too hard to pick up a good flash drive and just have my entire development environment on my keychain. It's funny because most of my computers are decked out with 32GB solid state drives, so I wouldn't even be losing any storage.

Of course, if you're a windows developer, this doesn't help you in the slightest.

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I used to do this before I got my netbook as well. – xnine Nov 18 '10 at 6:10
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Actually, I'm getting more comfortable in Linux as well, I just have more Windows machines around me. USB-Bootable Linux is pretty cool, just not something I can use much. Something more akin to a portable VM or "run in windows-linux" would be ideal. – CodexArcanum Nov 18 '10 at 13:51
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gvim

No, not talking about GVim Portable (which is, btw, by the looks of it, not developed anymore) but our old, regular, plain and complicated favourite editor. Portable by definition, and if wanted, a few lines in _vimrc ensures that no traces are left.

portable perl

I mean, really :)

portable git

Haven't tried this yet, but looks promising (drools :-) )

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up vote 1 down vote

Most languages based on Java are easily portable (as in "installable anywhere"), like:

(Note: all links refer to portableapps.com and the fact you can install those languages and IDE wherever you want, including an USB storage.
They have also the added bonus to be "portable" as in "working on many different OS", but that wasn't the reason I mentioned them)

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I don't think he meant portable in that way. – Inaimathi Nov 18 '10 at 1:25
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@Inaimathi: I think he does. If you follow the links I mention, I refer to portableapps.com, like most of the other answers. – VonC Nov 18 '10 at 4:48
My bad; thanks for the clarification. – Inaimathi Nov 18 '10 at 11:47
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Squeak (or Pharo). A programming language, IDE, and just about anything you'd want (Squeak used to ship with graphics tools, a graphical scripting library, speech and FM synthesis apps, ...), and all packed into a very small package.

The latest Squeak installer for Windows weighs in at a mere 10MB. Virtual machine + image weighs in around 16MB or less, depending. Supporting sources file's around 20MB.

And if Windows isn't to your taste, install the OS X version, or the Linux version, or run it on an Android phone, or ...

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So since posting this question, I've given Pharo a try. I had tried Squeak about a year ago and was put off by it, but Pharo has really impressed me. I think I'm sold on Smalltalk again, and I'm loving how easy it is to carry around not just my projects, but the entire environment with me. And with true multiplatform portability! So thanks very much for pointing me in that direction, really amazing stuff. – CodexArcanum Nov 30 '10 at 6:38
Squeak has changed a lot, graphically, from a year ago. Pharo's great, and there's a lot of cross-fertilisation between the two communities, and they still share the same VM, so don't write Squeak off! – Frank Shearar Nov 30 '10 at 9:25
up vote 0 down vote

Notepad & Paint - I don't even need to carry them around ;-)

Seriously, what language / platform are we talking about?

PS. I carry my notebook with me with the dev environment set up in VM.

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Total Commander

Not a pure development tools. But you will need it when you do file management.

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XAMPP

Apache, mySQL, PHP, phpMyAdmin and more in an integrated package

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UltraEdit

UltraEdit Text editor: The #1 selling, most powerful, value priced text editor. UltraEdit is the ideal text, HTML and hex editor, and an advanced PHP, Perl, Java and JavaScript editor for programmers. UltraEdit is also an XML editor including a tree-style XML parser. An industry-award winner, UltraEdit supports disk-based 64-bit file handling (standard) on 32-bit Windows platforms (Windows 2000 and later). Download a free trial today and discover why UltraEdit is the defacto standard with over two million users worldwide. I love it

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