I’m guessing that in every trade or craft, the ‘craftsmen’ delight in sharing (or not sharing!) their favorite tools, the objects that make their day. For cooks, maybe it’s a special pot or pan; for writers, maybe it’s a special pen. For software developers, well.. we just have software. Scott mentions a list of tools he used in a recent demonstration at Microsoft, most of which were new (and very interesting) to me. I’m pasting below so that I don’t have to check out his page every time I want to remember where something was:

• XSD.exe comes with the .NET SDK  ASP.NET XSD Online Demo
  
• WSDL.exe comes with the .NET SDK.  WSDL Explained
  
• YATT (Yet Another Trace Tool) from the fantastic Simon Fell 
  
• XML Spy 5.0 from Altova
  
• Mind Reef’s SoapScope 1.0 (just released!)
  
• OmniOpera from Kamiak
  
• GotDotNet’s Free WebServicesStudio
  
• Microsoft’s Free SOAP Toolkit 3.0
  
• Apache AXIS (SOAP Implementation)
  
• IDL2SDL (and WSDL) from Infotects
  
• Google’s SOAP API and WSDL (.NET code included!)
  
• Calling Google from PocketSOAP with a VBS Script from Simon Fell
  
• Simon’s WSDL Tools
  
• XMethods Web Services Directory
  
• Blunck’s ieHTTPHeaders for seeing HTTP Headers within an IE Explorer Bar
  
• Eclipse is a “Universal IDE” with a neat WSDL Editor available (screenshot)
  
• VMWare is pure love, letting me run betas of the .NET Server OS UNDER Windows XP Pro
  
• A version of Zoomin, the screen magnifier, is included with Visual Studio 6.0, but there is a freeware version from Brian Friesen.  Both are great, and I actually prefer the flexiblity of Brian’s.
  
• The Remote Display tool for seeing a Pocket PC screen on your desktop over TCP/IP is a Microsoft PocketPC Power Toy.
  
• The .NET IL Disassembler is called ILDASM.EXE and if you have the .NET SDK, this is installed on your system already in the Framework’s BIN directory.  It’s your best friend.
  
• The AskDotNet Survey application is available from GotDotNet including source in C# or in VB.NET
  
• LSW DotNet – Reflection Browser is yummy, it’s better than just ILDASM, it’s an object browser and Disassembler that lets you see the disassembled source in C#!
  
• Ghost-It 1.04 rocks, it lets me make any window (like chat windows, or notepad) easy transparent via a tray icon.
  
• Lutz Roeder is my new best friend (noone’s told him yet) because of Documentor, Reflector, and Resourer.
  
• For when every pixel counts, I use JRuler (JR Screen Ruler) to measure my Windows…
  
• QuickCode.NET makes demos cleaner and less error-prone…let them do the typing.
  
• Aaron Skonnard’s .NET XML Tools aways help me out