I’ve written about Kapeli Dash before: it’s a Mac program that lets you download sets of documentation to your computer. This week I discovered a killer use case: pair-programming.

Recently I was pairing in a domain I didn’t know well. Before the session, I loaded Dash with every docset I thought I might need. So, for Python, think: Python, Django, and SaltStack, plus React and TailwindCSS for the frontend.

When we needed docs, we could effortlessly explore these resources without Googling. Opening a browser while a pairing can be distracting (Banner ads! AI summary!), it can expose your personal information, and is a bit more clumsy when you know what you need. I can find React’s useMemo docs by typing useMemo into Dash and hitting enter— that’s it. There’s no path to that resource online that’s as direct as that.