7 Amazing Developer Tools that you’re not using yet
Here are 7 developer tools that your team should be using. This is by no means an exhaustive list of the tools currently in the developer universe, as there are many variations. The purpose and concept remain the same no matter which one you do use. These tools, however, are for Software developers going beyond the idea that application creation involves just coding and shipping. They will give you a deeper look and appreciation.
For those budding and current software developers, review the list below and learn to incorporate as many of these tools in your Software development life cycle. The results will be exponential in terms of ease of build.
#WorkSmarterNotHarder
Let’s get started by looking into the developer toolkit:
#1 UML Diagramming Tool
Before writing a code experienced developers typically utilize the UML Diagramming Tool. It’s utilized when more complex and unique products are being undertaken. UML diagram is a diagram based on Unified Modeling Language (UML) with the purpose of visually representing a system along with its main actor’s roles, actions, artifacts, or classes, in order to better understand, alter, maintain, or document information about the system.
This method can only be beneficial if it would take less time to draw the diagrams than writing and rewriting the actual code. It serves the purpose of being a software blueprint.
Tool: Lucidchart | Visual Paradigm | StarUML
#2 Terminal
I know a lot of newbie developers will say, “the terminal command line is back when Dinosaurs coded, and with the invention of GUI (Graphical User Interface) came the extinction of terminals.”Wrong! One of the only ways to SSH into a server is through your terminal. So it’s best to learn the handful of commands cause there is always something that comes up that will require you to pop open a command line and run either a node server or do some form of compiling.
#3 Code Editor / IDE
How would a developer make a developer’s life easy? The invention of code Editors or IDE does just that. When working on a cross-platform application, having an editor will be your number one tool. It allows for changing the syntax to match the particular language. It goes a step further for debugging and similar to terminals it allows for your code to be compiled and deployed from the IDE.
Tool: Sublime | Visual studio | Atom
#4 Version Control
Without the use of a version control application, ‘code’ conflicts are just another type that results from working with multiple developers on the same product.
Version Control app is used to manage changes within a code-base. This increases the level of collaboration among developers. If the product has a bug or major issue it enables you to roll back your code to a point where the code base is more stable. It furthers teamwork without having developers stepping on each other’s toes. A few commands to look out for is pull and push codes as well as merging into the various branches.
Tool: GitLab | BitBucket | Github | Git
#5 CI/CD
Before there was Dev-ops, teams would develop an entire application from start to finish and then hold their breath for deployment. Sadly, there was a greater chance of failure deploying such a dense amount of code that only lived on a Dev Environment rather than in PROD. Thankfully technology comes to our rescue with the creation of concepts and tools to support continuous integration and deployment. However, there still needed to be an environment set-up identically and for automated deployment with its internal checks and balances. Now we have teams deploying to various Environments on a daily basis.
Tool: Docker | Jenkins | Circle Ci
#6 Testing Tool
Testing is and should be an iterative process and be a part of the entire development. Having a tool that integrates testing into the Software Development Life-cycle is key to the success of a project. As a Developer part of your work will require some level of unit testing. It is necessary to get familiar with tools to create test cases and also develop the ability to automate your testing, which will reduce your turnaround to crank out code that has low technical debt. This will keep your code clean and your users happy. Therefore, check out the latest trends in automated and manual testing tools for mobile, web, and security.
Tool: Browserstack | Appium | Testrail | Postman | Cypress
#7 Open Source Community
This is an open community for developers to share knowledge of code snippets that can help implement some of the most complex issues. There is no coder who codes 100% of any application without reusing some amount of open-source code. No matter what there are always bugs to debug so this gives developers an opportunity to learn from others’ mistakes and solutions in a global community. Beyond code snippets, there are sites such as Githelp that help developers implement the entire library in their application.
Tool: Stackoverflow | Githelp
