Web developers are known for two things. First, their applications and second, their complex internal workflows that can get pretty messy at times. According to many developers’ first-hand experience, even smaller projects can become very time consuming and may require going through several stages of development. In such cases, developers will use applications to streamline workflow and maintain efficiency. Such tools can both enhance productivity or if inexperienced can make things even more complex.
The difference between a fresher and an experienced developer is the way the latter use different tools to better their development process. These tools, apart from making management systems easier, also enable seamless conversation with other team members, and thus brings integration to create the perfect stack between team leaders and members.
The overarching theme of the applications we’ll be discussing today is that although they have a variety of uses, the one thing they all share is that they allow developers to focus entirely on writing good code and less time dealing with looming deadlines, workflows, timesheets, task lists, and more. Since we take efficiency seriously, let’s dig right in:
Even beginner developers know or have heard of Sublime. With its fast, lightweight, cross-platform, and robust code editing features, Sublime has a powerful Python-based plugin system to enhance its functionalities according to your requirements. The coolest thing about Sublime Text is its ‘Goto Anything’ shortcut that can help developers easily jump to each line of the code. Being completely customizable in nature, Sublime Text also has a variety of plugins to keep things completely personalized.
What is it used for?
Sublime Text Editor is preferred by developers across the world for its superfast searches, performance checks without experiencing any lag, even with large codebases.
Here are some of the most-loved features of Sublime Text, according to developers:
- Opens in less than a second
- Comes with an autocomplete feature
- Syntax highlighting
- Interactive multiple split panels
- Quick and smooth searches
- Features like ‘save on lost focus’, ‘trim whitespace’
Overall, Sublime Text is a handy text editor that comes with tonnes of third party packages, cool features, and smooth operation to let you take off steam now and then. When it comes to having heavyweight code coping ability, Sublime Text is more robust than several other text editors. The best part is perhaps, whenever you open Sublime Text, you can see your files in the exact condition as you left them, irrespective of whether these files have been saved or not.
- Slack
Slack was developed with the objective of replacing the need for emails in a development team. Allowing teams to chat, manage goals, assign tasks and even order lunch in one place.
What is it used for?
If you’re working in a team, Slack keeps all internal communication seamless as well as keeps everyone updated with milestones, meetings and more. At Slack, instead of having one singular chatbox, Slack has several channels dedicated to specific agendas to organize discussion on different aspects of your projects, organization, or ventures. When it comes to organizing team meetings, you can easily install integrations that schedule meetings and notify your team accordingly. Apt for a team of developers working together on a project, and can serve as a great option for developers who like to work alone but keep updated during a side project. In the case of the latter, you can enhance your work by sending yourself messages, reminders to make the most of this tool. Since Slack’s top integrations can be found easily on its marketplace, it’s worth keeping an eye on them. You can also develop your own integrations using open source libraries to utilize Slack API.
A shout out to the massive Slack community online, it’s free to join, so make the most of it.
- Zapier
Zapier is a tool that automates your workflow. It is the glue that can connect your apps together and have them work efficiently.
What is it used for?
Zapier is an online tool that helps developers create several interlinked functions across several platforms or applications. Each automation is known as a Zap, an example of a Zap would be a function that automatically saves email attachments to Dropbox (assuming that’s what you want.) Zaps allow you to easily combine multiple actions and apps. Zapier works best in case of business and productivity apps and can support several other apps like QuickBooks Online, Asana, Google Calendar, Evernote, Todoist, Slack, Toggle, etc.
For developers, Zapier comes with plenty of integrations that help in taking care of all those small tedious tasks that distract you from focusing on your project.
Pssst…if you’re a developer yourself and are running your own technical organization, using Zapier could save you a lot of time by removing needless repetition, bugs and lag from your development process.
- Draw.io
This tool is a free open-source technology stack for building diagramming software. For developers, IT and network administrators, this tool is perfect for prototyping, mockups, and building architecture designs.
What is it used for?
This tool could work in a variety of ways for charting out prototypes, mock-up designs, architecture designs and server designs. Since Draw.io is a Google Drive add-on, developers will also have access to all sharing and collaboration access that Google Drive has. Draw.io also lets you make responsive flow charts for both Android and iOS screens.
- One-Click Migration: If you already have a lot of pre-drawn diagrams related to your project that you want to migrate to Draw.io, this can be done in a single step.
- Data Privacy and Security: Only the browser stores user authentication details that can’t be accessed or be released into third-party servers.
- Highly Extensive: Draw.io provides a large library of shapes and SVG images.
With over 11 million users, Stack Exchange is a specialist site where you can get answers to all sorts of technical or development questions. For all Stack Exchange sites like Stack Overflow, Super User, Server Fault, Ask Ubuntu, Stack Exchange brings all these platforms together in an official way.
What is it used for?
Getting all your questions answered from a network of 100+ QA communities, it’s just what you need when you’re stuck in your development process. Think about it like this, every time any question in your interested domain gets answered on Stack Overflow, you immediately get notified. Even when you’re asking the question and it’s getting answered by experts. Especially when you’re a beginner or an intermediate developer, this tool is like a textbook and saves you a lot of time!
Since anybody can ask or answer questions, the best answers receive votes and therefore are displayed at the top, useful accounts will also receive reputation points. Unlike other QA forums, in Stack Exchange, the entire community is run by participants where moderators get elected, top users and answerers have access to special tools to help in moderating, greatly reducing inaccurate solutions and unnecessary notifications!
Conclusion:
For a web developer, keeping workflows organized and at peak efficiency is top priority. That’s when good software can actually help you achieve your goals and keep yourself focussed on writing good code. We discussed the tools that can help you edit, organize, micro-manage, as well as answer queries that your team can come across while working on a project.
The more efficient your development process, the more sought after your development team is. The best development companies in the world are those that know when to utilize web apps or tools and when to find custom solutions on their own. Kolkata-based development company CodeClouds is renowned globally for providing a development process that is thorough in communication and provides quick turnarounds. If you’re looking to hire dedicated developers on-demand from anywhere in the world, they’re a recommended choice.
Sometimes development apps or tools aren’t going to be the solution to a more productive development process. Sometimes it’s the working environment itself that is stunting your productivity. You might be a freelancer becoming too distracted or lonely from working at home, or maybe your brain has gone numb in the boredom of a traditional office space. The solution in this case is a coworking environment.