4 ms·

Ask YC: What are the libraries you couldn't live without?

6 points by watmough 19y ago

What are the libraries, that you currently couldn't live without? You can assume that you have the base c library, and the STL h files.

cstejerean 19y ago
Are you asking specifically about C libraries or any library in general?
- watmough 19y ago
  Any libraries. It doesn't have to be C based. For instance, I wouldn't be able to live without my Oracle JDBC libraries.
  - cstejerean 19y ago
    If I had to take a programming language on a deserted language I would just take Python, Emacs and IPython. I can't think of any single Python library that I just can't live without. If I have to I will rewrite anything not part of the standard.
breily 19y ago
if you're working with python and images, the Python Imaging Library is a must-have
bayareaguy 19y ago
I have a lot of my own stuff that uses sqlite. One day I learned that I could not indeed live (or at least boot) without it. It probably qualifies as one of the dumber things I've done - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=115577 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=115577 What happened was I knew OSX came with sqlite3 but I didn't know some OSX system applications rely on it. So one time I renamed the system's libsqlite3.dylib in order to debug a dyld problem and forgot to put it back. A few hours later I discovered my laptop wouldn't boot. Luckily I remembered what I did and was able to boot single-user and fix things.
- watmough 19y ago
  Ahhh, does it underly CoreData? If it does, I may finally get round to investigating CoreData, providing I can overcome my reluctance to use anything that isn't fully cross-platform.
danw 19y ago
The Queens Library at University of Bristol. So many stacks full of engineering knowledge..
Tichy 19y ago
The public library. Also the libraries of my local universities are cool, as they also admit strangers.
forsaken 19y ago
BeautifulSoup is amazing. Django is as well (if that counts)
Rickasaurus 19y ago
It would be nice if you guys specified what language/platform the library is for. I'm a big fan of the .NET reflection assemblies. How did I ever live without reflection?
- watmough 19y ago
  Well, I was trying to leave it open so people could write interesting things about what they know. I never would have thought this a couple of years ago, but I would now be very happy to locked-in to a JVM platform, and my chosen libraries would be Swing and a pure-Java Oracle JDBC. I'm pretty sure I could make a good living using only that platform, plus Scala, or Clojure, or maybe even Java iteself, though it's always seemed a bit verbose if you write like the books tell you.

6 points by watmough 19y ago

What are the libraries, that you currently couldn't live without? You can assume that you have the base c library, and the STL h files.

cstejerean 19y ago

Are you asking specifically about C libraries or any library in general?

watmough 19y ago
Any libraries. It doesn't have to be C based. For instance, I wouldn't be able to live without my Oracle JDBC libraries.
- cstejerean 19y ago
  If I had to take a programming language on a deserted language I would just take Python, Emacs and IPython. I can't think of any single Python library that I just can't live without. If I have to I will rewrite anything not part of the standard.

breily 19y ago

if you're working with python and images, the Python Imaging Library is a must-have

bayareaguy 19y ago

I have a lot of my own stuff that uses sqlite. One day I learned that I could not indeed live (or at least boot) without it. It probably qualifies as one of the dumber things I've done - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=115577 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=115577 What happened was I knew OSX came with sqlite3 but I didn't know some OSX system applications rely on it. So one time I renamed the system's libsqlite3.dylib in order to debug a dyld problem and forgot to put it back. A few hours later I discovered my laptop wouldn't boot. Luckily I remembered what I did and was able to boot single-user and fix things.

watmough 19y ago
Ahhh, does it underly CoreData? If it does, I may finally get round to investigating CoreData, providing I can overcome my reluctance to use anything that isn't fully cross-platform.

danw 19y ago

The Queens Library at University of Bristol. So many stacks full of engineering knowledge..

Tichy 19y ago

The public library. Also the libraries of my local universities are cool, as they also admit strangers.

forsaken 19y ago

BeautifulSoup is amazing. Django is as well (if that counts)

Rickasaurus 19y ago

It would be nice if you guys specified what language/platform the library is for. I'm a big fan of the .NET reflection assemblies. How did I ever live without reflection?

watmough 19y ago
Well, I was trying to leave it open so people could write interesting things about what they know. I never would have thought this a couple of years ago, but I would now be very happy to locked-in to a JVM platform, and my chosen libraries would be Swing and a pure-Java Oracle JDBC. I'm pretty sure I could make a good living using only that platform, plus Scala, or Clojure, or maybe even Java iteself, though it's always seemed a bit verbose if you write like the books tell you.