Here's some interesting bits and pieces for software developers:

• bstring , a C library for safe and easy string manipulation in the style of Python. Every so often I need to mangle strings faster than Python or Perl can manage it; at those times, I turn to the bstring library. (I have a longer writeup on bstring here .)

• quilt , a package that allows one to manage a series of patches by keeping track of the changes each patch makes. Patches can be applied, un-applied, refreshed, etc.

quilt is especially handy for adding modifications to existing RPM packages (which are already a base program plus a set of patches). It will even take the RPM specfile and build a quilt working environment for you, which is really handy for adding quick modifications to an RPM.