Tools Every Frontend Developer Should Have in Their Toolbox

Frontend development as we all know is a very important part of web development. It has to do with the visual layout of the page, and the general functionality of the page. As such, frontend developers must have the right tools in their toolbox to create fantastic-looking websites, that have very nice UX and great functionality. Today, we're going to look at 5 different tools every frontend developer is supposed to have in their toolbox, to create nice websites.

The tools we will be looking at today include:

Text Editors and IDEs (eg Visual Studio Code, Sublime Text)
Version Control (eg Git, Github)
Package managers(eg npm, Yarn)
JavaScript Libraries and Frameworks(eg jQuery, React)
Browser Development Tools (Chrome DevTools, Firefox Developer Tools)

These are some of the tools I believe every developer is supposed to have, and we are going to look at them individually.

Text Editors and IDEs: A good IDE is a very important tool for front-end development. While any IDE can be used to write code, having a good IDE is very important. This is because they provide a central interface for common developer tools, making the software development process much more efficient. Developers can start programming new applications quickly instead of manually integrating and configuring different software. They also don't have to learn about all the tools and can instead focus on just one application. IDEs are usually built with the strict rules a programming language must follow, as such, they can help in code editing automation. It also helps in intelligent code completion. They can make suggestions to complete a code statement when a developer begins typing. There are popular IDEs out there which can help with this such as Visual Studio Code which was developed by Microsoft, Sublime Text, and Atom.
Version Control: Version Control is the practice of tracking and managing changes to software code. There are software tools that can help achieve this, and these are known as Version Control Systems. Version control helps keep track of modifications to the code in a database. If a mistake is made, developers can turn back the clock and compare earlier versions of the code to help fix the mistake while minimizing disruption to all team members. These systems help teams work smarter and faster. The most popular version control system in use today is Git. It was developed in 2005 and has since become the most used version control system. It is easy to use, amazingly fast and very efficient with large projects. Git as a version control system has some features which make it unique such as :

Git add: The git add command adds a change in the working directory to the staging area. It tells Git that you want to include updates to a particular file in the next commit. However, git add doesn't affect the repository in any significant way—changes are not recorded until you run git commit.
Git commit: The git commit command captures a snapshot of the project's currently staged changes. Committed snapshots can be thought of as “safe” versions of a project—Git will never change them unless you explicitly ask it to.
Git branches: A branch in Git is simply a lightweight movable pointer to one of these commits. The default branch name in Git is master. As you start making commits, you're given a master branch that points to the last commit you made. Every time you commit, the master branch pointer moves forward automatically.

Associated with Git are GitHub and GitLab which provide hosting and collaboration tools for developers. These are sites on which you can deploy and host your codebase, and also collaborate with other developers who might want to access your code.

Package Managers: A package manager is a collection of software tools that automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing computer programs for a computer in a consistent manner. They are very important in frontend development because they help developers get access to code already built, instead of building one from scratch. Developers can easily download block of code that they need when they need it. It saves a lot of development time and adds extra flavor to the software being built. The most popular of these package managers is npm and yarn. These two do the same thing but with a little syntax difference. For npm, you start up a new project by typing these commands in order

npm init (starts up a new project)
npm install (package name)

while with yarm, you use

yarn init(starts up a new project)
yarn add (package name)

Firing up npm init or yarn init usually automatically downloads a file named package.json. This file contains human-readable metadata about the project such as the project name and description. It also contains data about the package version number and a list of dependencies required by the application.

JavaScript libraries and frameworks: JavaScript is a popular language for frontend development, and as such various tools have been built to help make it easier to work with. Unlike vanilla JavaScript, these tools have been developed to give the developer a pre-written set of code to work with. they do not have to start from scratch anymore and this saves a ton of development time. Such tools include jQuery, React, Angular, etc. React as a library was developed by Meta in 2013 and made open-source, and as such many companies have adopted the use of React as opposed to using vanilla JavaScript. It is evident today as almost all websites you can think of today use React.
Browser Development Tools: Browsers like Chrome and Firefox have all developed development tools into their browsers, and as such have proven to be very effective tools for developers to have. These tools help developers debug their code, and produce the best possible code they can. Developers must understand how to use these tools during development, to increase development time, reduce errors and debug their code whenever they notice a problem.

In summary, every developer is supposed to know, have, learn, and understand how to use these tools to make his/her work easier, reduce development time, and become the best developer he can become. As a developer, you should continually seek out these tools, take the ones which best work for you and practice their use as much as you can.