The Most Useful Tools And Services For web developers

Life as a web developer may offer many rewards, but when project managers or clients are asking you to do more and more in less and less time, it can become frustrating. So it's always good to find tools and services that can make your work faster and more productive.

Here we've gathered together some of the most useful tools and services that should be part of every web developer's toolkit. Whether you a building a simple "Hello World" app or a complex web application, these tools should make your coding easier and increase productivity.

1. Babeljs.io/repl
Write your code in modern JavaScript and let Babel transform your code into JavaScript that is compatible with even older browsers.

2. Basecamp
Developed by 37signals, Basecamp is a popular online tool to help you manage collaboration and project management with ease. It all runs in the cloud and most people working in web design and development will be familiar with it.

3. BLOKK
BLOKK is a fun-to-use font for "clients who do not understand Latin". In other words, it replaces all text with blocks to suggest generic text instead. That way you can create good looking mock-ups and wireframes without confusing people with Lorem Ipsem

4. Buildregex.com
Construct regular expressions visually.

5. Bundlephobia.com
Quickly find the import cost (download size) of any package in the NPM registry. Or upload your package.json file to scan all dependencies in your project.

6. Codeply.com
Quickly build frontend responsive layouts with frameworks like Bootstrap, Materialize CSS and SemanticUI.

7. CSS Sprite Generator
By reducing the number of HTTP requests, this tool aims at increasing the loading speed of your website. Images are combined into one larger image at defined X and Y coorindates. Having assigned this generated image to relevant page elements the background-position CSS property can then be used to shift the visible area to the required component image.

8. Devdocs.io
API documentation for all popular programming languages and frameworks. Includes instant search and works offline too.

9. Fontello
This icon generator is truly one of a kind. Pick the icons you want and Fontello will compile them into customized web fonts. You can also edit and customize the symbol codes and names.

10. Foundation
Made by develpopers for developers at ZURB, this prototyping tool acts as a blueprint for your responsive design projects. Its latest version is an easy grid-structure that makes styling even more convenient and flexible. It works with both SASS and CSS.

11. Glitch
Create your own web apps in the browser, import GitHub repos, use any NPM package or build on any popular frameworks and directly deploy to Firebase.

12. httpie.org
A command-line tool that is useful for making HTTP requests to web servers and RESTful APIs. Almost as powerful as CURL and Wget but simpler.

13. jex.im/regulex
Write any regular expression into the editor and get a visual representation of how the pieces work.

14. Load Impact
A successful website is one that loads faster and quickly. Load Impact is a cloud-based service for load testing and website optimization that generates traffic load by simulating users. In other words it lets you test how your website, web app, mobile app or API will perform with up to 1.2 million concurrent users.

15. Pingdom
Pingdom is a service that tracks the uptime, downtime, and performance of websites. Upload a full page in HTML and it will mimic the loading process of the entire website, incorporating all the elements (namely JavaScript, RSS, CSS and images), thereby enabling you to check and monitor the efficiency of your site.

16. Cloud9 IDE
Cloud9 IDE is a tool to help you collaborate with others on big-scale code projects. Letting developers around the world edit the same code and chat together in realtime, it's fast emerging as one of the best browser-based IDEs. Features include code completion and editor, drop-document trees, smart drag and FTP integration.

17. Cloud Comp
This lightweight and easy to use tool helps you share website and apps with others. It's been specifically built to give designers and developers a way to present comps to their clients inside of a realistic device shell.

18. Prefix-free
This cool tool from Lea Verou lets you use unprefixed CSS properties. It essentially works behind the scenes, adding the current browser’s prefix to any CSS code, only when it’s needed.

19. Regexr.com
A good tool for testing your regular expressions in the browser.

20. Typetester
The Typetester is a browser tool for comparing different kinds of fonts, Choose the typeface you want to test out, along with your chosen size, tracking, colour etc, and Typetester applies it to a set piece of text so you can see what it will look like.

21. W3c Markup Validation Service
Validating web documents is an important step that can dramatically help improving and ensuring their quality. This free service from the W3C helps you to check the markup validity of different web documents, in HTML, SMIL, XHTML and MathML and more.

(images: Kubo agency)

The exact difference between a coder, a programmer, a developer and a software engineer

Jack Dorsey is an American computer programmer, a co-founder and CEO of Twitter.

Maybe you have heard about these job titles in the past, but what exactly is the difference between them? Some people claim that it mostly depends on your education and on what you have achieved; in some way, this may be true, but some others claim that sometimes the company you are working for decides if you are a programmer, a developer or other, making it merely a job title. Let's take a closer look to this.

What is the exact difference between a coder, a programmer, a developer and a software engineer?

1. Coder

A Coder is a person in charge of writing the code that makes most of our apps run properly. Those who are coders have the ability to create software that can be used not only in apps but also in video games, social media platforms, and many others. Coders sometimes cannot do all the phases required in the making of a software, like designing or testing, they mostly take part only in the phase of writing the base code. In some cases, there are people who may get offended If you call them a coder.

2. Programmer

A Programmer is a bit more specialized person. They are able to create computer software in any primary computer language, like Java, Python, Lisp, etc. Programmers are said to go beyond coders, they may specialize themselves in one area or may even write instructions for a wide variety of systems.

They also understand quite well algorithms. Programmers can be similar to Developers but the ones who implements are not the same as the ones who can design or do a well class structure within the software. They can take care of many details.

3. Developer

A Developer can write and create a complete computer software out of nowhere taking care of the design and other features. They are key for the development of any software applications; they are also experts in at least one programming language. Some people consider them true professionals that can take care of all the generals. Developers can sometimes be more general when it comes to the development of a software, unlike Programmers.

4. Software Engineer

A Software Engineer is an individual that applies the principles and techniques of computer science or software engineering to everything regarding the development of a new independent software; from analyzing what the particular needs of the user are, going through the design, maintenance and testing, and even the final evaluation of the software. They are able to create software’s for any kind of system as operating systems software, network distribution, compilers and so on. They often have a college degree and can prove things theoretically.

Another way for understanding the differences between a Coder, a Programmer, a Developer and a Software Engineer is seeing them as a hierarchy or as stair, where the Coder can be found in the low section of the stair and the Software Engineer can be found at the top. Maybe to you all these job tittles may mean the same because you once knew a Developer that could do everything a Software Engineer can, but there are really some differences between them are worth knowing.

If some companies take special attention in the name of their employees or not, it is not such a big deal to worry about; what really matters is knowing what you can do and how well you can do it. (Vicky Singh Rao/technotification.com)