S tarting with web development can get overwhelming sometimes - as is choosing the right tools, you might see different developers use different tools to get the same job done. While there are a host of options, we want to share some useful tools for beginner web developers that you could integrate into your development roadmap. Choosing the right tool for yourself is down to efficiency, performance, and sometimes just personal preference. So let’s get started!
Having a coding environment you are comfortable in is very important at the beginning of your web development journey. VS Code is our pick of the lot, a mini version of the old Microsoft Visual Studio, VS Code is fast, clean, and has a lot of built-in features such as IntelliSense, integrated version control, debugging, and syntax highlighting that can come in handy as a beginner developer. It also includes an extensive library where you can install the right extensions according to your needs.
It is practically impossible to not come across Git in the web development world. Git is a version control system that will keep track of your project, noting every change you make, allowing you to roll back to previous versions to undo any wrong changes. Companies industry-wide will, at some point, require that you learn Git as it makes collaboration within teams so much easier, allowing you to create branches of the same project for different teams, so they can focus on specific features without disturbing the overall codebase.
Google Chrome’s Developer Tools are highly important in increasing efficiency. Moving back and forth between the code editor and browser to notice changes can get tiresome. Chrome Developer Tools allow you to monitor your website within the browser, make changes to your HTML/CSS, use a console to test your JavaScript, and much more. The real-time overview of your website allows you to make changes and find the right combination before you can go back to your code and make those changes once and for all.
Bootstrap is the most famous frontend library out there. When designing web pages, it can get tedious getting the perfect layout and styling it, and there is often a level of CSS that you need to write even for basic styling. Bootstrap packages a bunch of styled HTML elements that you can simply pop into your page, making your job much faster and easier. Moreover, Bootstrap also includes JavaScript, allowing these components to be interactive. You can then add your styling and scripts on top of these elements to customize them according to your needs.
You probably already know how essential JavaScript is to make your websites interactive. While JavaScript is important and we recommend you learn it, once you start making bigger websites and have more pages with higher interactivity, the code might get too complex. In comes jQuery, a small JavaScript library that simplifies the process by providing a higher-level abstraction over JavaScript's functionalities. jQuery is recommended if you want to write your scripts faster and cleaner.
It might be a good idea to get a sense of your website’s look before setting out to write its code. Web design tools such as Figma help you achieve just that. With Figma, you can wireframe your website with simple drag-and-drops - creating layouts to see how the different components fit in, and once you’re satisfied, you can move on and start implementing it in code. On top of that, Figma supports collaboration with teams and also maintains a history of the different wireframe versions you’ve been working on.
While HTML might be the first thing you learn during your web development journey and is the building block of web pages, it isn’t made to handle dynamic web content. As such, developers make use of front-end web frameworks such as AngularJS. AngularJS is a feature-rich front-end JavaScript framework that allows us to develop dynamic websites using components. Tech companies generally use at least one frontend web framework as part of their tech stack. Here are some other frontend frameworks for you to evaluate and see which one’s best for you.
This was our collection of the most useful tools for beginner web developers. These tools belong to different categories, some are libraries, frameworks, others are just computer programs that can assist your development cycle. Once you’re comfortable with these tools, it becomes easier to focus on the conceptual part of the project and start making some full-fledged applications.
