Each year when I do the Advent of Code challenge I use it as an opportunity to learn a new language or tool chain. This year I am writing in Java 17 (I have not used Java since Java 8), along with Eclipse Collections, and using VS Code as my IDE.
Since I have never used Eclipse Collections before, I have installed the API documentation into Dash for macOS, which is an API Documentation Browser and Code Snippet Manager. I have used Dash for a long time, and love the integration with Alfred to quickly lookup documentation for a method/class.
Despite using Dash for years, I only just discovered the search profiles feature, which allows you to define a custom collection of docsets search, rather than all documentation. Very handy when wanting to filter down and ignore other large docsets like Spring or Kotlin. The custom docset can be triggered by multiple things like a keyword, or the fact that an application like VS Code is open.
Another nice touch is that the keyword is integrated into Alfred.
The only frustration I have with Dash is that it does not understand inherited methods for Java types. So for a while there I was struggling to understand the true power of Eclipse Collections, as I could not see all the available methods on a type. The only workaround I have is search on the page to find "Methods Inherited". It is rather sub-optimal.
eom.
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