What are these Frontend Development Tools?
Frontend development tool is a software application which helps and allows front-end developers build attractive layouts and app without any hassle. These tools help accelerate the web development process with the use of highly tested libraries to improve workflow and benefit from the possibilities of a responsive design.Now let’s look at several best tools for front-end web development.
GitHub
GitHub introduces itself as a development platform inspired by the way you work. It is considered one of the best web application development tool that allows developers manage the source codes, track changes made in your code and even go back to your previous state in a convenient way. GitHub allows collaboration among developers easy as pie by reducing code conflicts. GitHub is very much secure, easy to use and open-source.TypeScript
TypeScript is a strict syntactical superset of JavaScript which adds optional static typing. It is an open source front-end scripting language.It has better documentation for APIs, is more structured and concise, upholds interfaces and discretionary static composing,
Sass
Sass is one of the most widely used CSS extension languages across the world.It helps to extend the functionality of an existing CSS of a site like variables, inheritance, and nesting with ease. It allows you to use mixins, functions, and more, all with a fully CSS-compatible syntax which helps keep large stylesheets well-organized.CodePen
CodePen is one of the top Front End developer coding environment tools that lets coders build and deploy a website. This tool is excellent for creating test cases to learn and debug a website.CodePen is also an incredibly useful tool for those overhauling their web developer portfolio. It’s an elegant way of showing off not just the code behind features you’ve built, but also how they are displayed to users as well.
Chrome Dev Tools
When building a website, you need to test and see how they look to live in a browser before finalizing it or making modifications, Chrome Dev tools allows you to edit web pages directly from the Google Chrome browser and diagnose problems rapidly to build better websites. With the help of Chrome DevTools, you can easily edit your HTML & CSS code or debug JavaScript code in a real-time environment.It provides a set of web development tools that allow you to do a wide variety of development testing in your browser, which saves a ton of development time.
Npm
Npm ( Node Package Manager) - A package manager is an essential tool to have with Front End development. It prevents coupling your codebase and provides an easy installation method for new dependencies. It helps to discover packages of reusable code and assemble them in powerful new ways, There is a command-line client that allows you to install and publish those packages. You can simply add npm to your project using this particular command – “npm init”.One of the major advantages of using npm is you just need to run “npm install” and all the external dependencies will get installed by it. Without any doubt, this particular tool is strongly recommended to all the front-end developers out there.
HTML Boilerplates
This help in building fast, robust, and adaptable web apps or sites. It is a set of files that developers can download, which provide a foundation for any website. One of the best things about HTML Boilerplate is that it can be integrated with any of the front-end frameworks, content management systems, etc.You need to know that Microsoft, NASA, Nike, etc... are some of those renowned names who are using HTML5 Boilerplate for their respective platforms.
Visual Studio Code
A better code editor is a fundamental requirement of front-end developers – and with a similar concern, here we’re mentioning one of the most recommended code editors for you i.e., Visual Studio Code.It includes a lot of awesome features that are usually available on paid editors. The main features are:
IntelliSense: Provides smart completions based on variable types, function definitions, and imported modules.
Debugging capacities: Debug code right from the editor. Launch or attach to your running apps and debug with breakpoints, call stacks, and an interactive console.
Git commands built-in: Review diffs, stage files, and make commits right from the editor. Push and pull from any hosted SCM service.
Flexibility and extensibility: You can easily add extensions relative to new languages, themes, etc.
Easy deployment capabilities: Helps with deployments of your apps at ease.
Frontend Frameworks
Frontend frameworks are packages of files for styling and laying out your websites.Frontend frameworks are considered the pioneer blocks of the software development process.
The common frontend frameworks include:
React
Also known as ReactJS is an open-source framework that stands out because of its virtual Document Object Model (DOM), which offers its exceptional functionality the DOM interacts well with HTML and XML documents, causing them to behave similarly to a tree structure, and each HTML element functions as an object. Through the use of virtual DOM, you can achieve consistent and seamless performance.Angular
Angular is a framework for creating efficient and advanced single-page applications.Unlike React, Angular is unique with its two-way data binding feature. It means there is a real-time synchronization between the model and the view, where any change in the model reflects instantly on the view and vice versa.
Angular is a component-based framework for developing scalable web applications, as well as a set of tools for developers to use to create, build, test, and modify code, and a collection of well-integrated libraries.
Vuejs
Vue is a simple and straightforward framework. It is good at removing the complexities that Angular developers face.As one of the best JavaScript libraries, vue.js has been creating interactive UI elements that are lightweight and easy to adapt, it provides data-reactive elements through a flexible and straight forward API.
Vue.js is versatile, helps you with multiple tasks that ranges from building web applications and mobile apps to progressive web applications, it can also handle both simple and dynamic processes with ease.
In summary, there are a lot of tools and frameworks out there for frontend development but with these above you cannot do without them as a frontend developer.