What's a Good Gift for Programmers?

In the interests of shameless self-promotion, I made these calender's I think are pretty cool: https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/1012906584/wooden-calendar-p...

Just finished programming a solver (well, ripping apart someone else's solver) to solve for all the possible states (hint, look up Knuth's Algorithm X).

Don't imagine they'd ship in time though if you were interested.

Not useful but fun:

LED controller so you can e.g. have mail notifications as an LED on your desk https://www.blinkstick.com/

A clock that you can reprogram to e.g. to kind of a drunken walk with the seconds hand and still be on time. https://www.tindie.com/products/nsayer/crazy-clock/

I really enjoy my pbt key caps. Programmers spend all day at the keyboard and the oils from their fingers wear down the key caps and make their keyboards look terrible. PBT feels better and takes longer to break down. You can get a good set for $30. Just make sure the key caps on their keyboards come off.

Logitech also makes some nice wireless mice around $100 that are pretty ergonomic and comfortable to use. Anything to help prevent carpel tunnel is nice.

A lot of programmers really love the jetbrains tool suite, but that's more subscription based.

A lot of free database viewer tools pale in comparison to their paid counterparts. So something in that arena could be nice

A one-way plane ticket to somewhere else, ideally with limited internet connectivity.

https://www.workaway.info/

https://www.worldpackers.com/

Not sure if this really counts under your original spec, but I’m a programmer and I think they are cool.

Desktop steam engines [1]

You can get the engine on its own which can be powered by a candle or small oil burner. Then you can build your own stuff to starch to it to be powered!

1. https://www.amazon.com/steam-engines/s?k=steam+engines

This could be tricky! More and more, programmers are moving away from the stereotype of white dude who likes to play computer games in their spare time, and is always on the lookout for a gadget. I’d opt for giving them a gift voucher for an area of interest to them. That way, they could buy a raspberry pi if they wanted, or art supplies, or get nails done, or have a spa treatment. They could even use it to top up their own spend :) Key thing is to know your audience. If you don’t, maybe setup a system where they can choose. I wouldn’t recommend buying equipment for them. They’re a very particular bunch, and you could end up buying “rubbish” in their opinion! Maybe one of the options could also be to not give the money to them, but to a charity. Only if they choose it though!

I have always liked these but felt it was too much of an extravagance to buy for myself and it is 25 dollars over your budget.

Etsy Link...err tindy

https://www.tindie.com/products/stephanelec/mooltipass-mini-...

But what programmer wouldn't want their own open source customizable authenticator?

Edit** I guess it is technically just a password vault but I think it is still a pretty cool gift. Another thing I think would make a nice gift is this (I must be on a password kick tonite)

Tindy Link

https://www.tindie.com/products/russtopia/psstm-mark-ii-pass...

Time. I wish 4 weeks of "me" time to write my own code and not be disturbed by anybody.

If they have showed any interest in math and/or physics, you should consider getting them my MATH&PHYS book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0992001005/noBSmathphys it's very popular for programmers.

I also have a book on linear algebra, which would be good for people doing more machine learning or data sciency stuff: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0992001021/noBSLA

Both books are perfect for math haters, since they start out with a review of high school math.

USB electronics toolkit, scope, psu, signal generator... https://espotek.com/labrador/

Rubber duck

Use daily and increase their productivity? Have you thought of getting them some kind of coffee machine?

Scotch.

I’m a huge fan of Dash[0]. Being able to instantly summon documentation for many, many languages and third-party packages is a superpower.

[0] https://kapeli.com/dash

More RAM, USB stick, an external disk, solar charger, the more the better.

Previous thread from a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29380795

tungsten cube

A USB security key such as Nitrokey could be handy for code signing, git and Github access.

Raspberry pi? Keyboard? Mouse?

RAM

Knuth’s AOCP boxed set!

A reason to live

$100 gift card.

A hug.

Facepalm.