From Design to Development: 10 Tools I Can‘t Live Without

As a full-stack developer, few things are more important to my productivity than having the right tools for the job. Over the years, I‘ve honed a core set of tools that help me efficiently design, develop, and collaborate on web projects. Today, I want to share that toolkit with you.

These are the tools I reach for on a daily basis—the ones that have become indispensable to my workflow. If any of them are new to you, I highly recommend checking them out. And even if you‘re already familiar with them, I hope you‘ll pick up a helpful tip or two that makes you even more productive.

Let‘s dive in!

1. Visual Studio Code

If I could only use one tool for development, it would have to be Visual Studio Code. This free, open source code editor from Microsoft has rapidly become the go-to choice for developers of all stripes. In Stack Overflow‘s 2021 Developer Survey, a whopping 71% of respondents named VS Code their preferred development environment. After using it for several years, I can see why.

Source: Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2021

One of the biggest selling points of VS Code is its vast library of extensions. These let you customize the editor and add new capabilities to suit your exact development needs. A few of the extensions I couldn‘t live without:

• ESLint for catching bugs and enforcing consistent code style
• Prettier for automatically formatting code
• GitLens for gaining valuable insights into your repo‘s Git history
• Live Server for spinning up a local development server with live reload

Speaking of live reload, another huge timesaver in VS Code is its built-in debugging tools. Rather than constantly switching to the browser and refreshing to see changes, I can use the Live Server extension to instantly preview my HTML/CSS as I code. And for JavaScript debugging, the built-in debugger lets me set breakpoints, inspect variables, and step through code without ever leaving the editor. It‘s a massive productivity boost.

Out of the box, VS Code also has best-in-class support for the languages and frameworks I use most, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, and Node.js. From syntax highlighting to smart code completion (IntelliSense) to hover documentation, it makes writing clean, error-free code a breeze.

If you‘re a developer and haven‘t tried VS Code yet, I can‘t recommend it enough. It‘s the closest thing to a productivity swiss-army knife I‘ve found.

2. Figma

As a full-stack developer, I‘m often involved in the design process as well as development. And when it comes to UI design, Figma is my go-to tool. It‘s a collaborative, web-based design platform that‘s perfect for everything from wireframing to high-fidelity mockups.

One of the standout features of Figma is its real-time collaboration capabilities. Multiple designers or stakeholders can hop into a Figma file simultaneously, making comments and even editing the designs. It‘s great for gathering feedback and getting everyone aligned quickly.

I also appreciate how seamlessly Figma fits into my development workflow. It was clearly built with developer handoff in mind – I can easily inspect elements to get properties like colors, measurements, and CSS attributes. The "Code" tab even generates CSS code snippets for me, taking the guesswork out of translating a design to code.

Another big selling point of Figma is the community. There‘s a huge library of free UI kits, icon packs, and even fully designed templates to use as a starting point. No more staring at a blank artboard wondering where to begin!

Figma has quickly become an industry standard for UI design, and it‘s not hard to see why. If your design workflow could use some streamlining, definitely give it a look.

3. GitHub

When it comes to version control and collaboration, GitHub is indispensable. It‘s the world‘s largest host of source code, home to over 200 million repositories and used by more than 73 million developers worldwide. If you write code and aren‘t on GitHub, you‘re missing out.

Source: GitHub Octoverse 2021

At the core of GitHub is Git, the distributed version control system. While the command line interface can be intimidating for Git newbies, GitHub wraps it in an intuitive web UI that makes common tasks like creating a repo, making commits, and merging branches much more approachable.

A GitHub feature I couldn‘t live without is pull requests. When I want to merge code changes into a repo, I open a pull request which creates a dedicated space for discussion and code review before finalizing the merge. Catching bugs and getting feedback from teammates this way leads to much higher quality code.

Another GitHub feature I love is Actions for continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD). With some relatively simple configuration, I can automate code-related tasks like running tests and deploying to hosting services. Not having to remember (or worse, forget!) to do these things manually is a huge load off.

If you do any kind of development work, you need to be on GitHub. Its combination of version control, collaboration, and automation tools is unmatched!

4. Wappalyzer

How many times have you visited a site with a slick design or cool feature and wondered "how‘d they build that"? That‘s where Wappalyzer comes in. This handy browser extension detects and identifies the technologies used on any site you visit.

With just a click of the Wappalyzer toolbar icon, you get a tidy list of all the frameworks, libraries, analytics tools, and more powering the page you‘re viewing. It can detect over a thousand web technologies, from JavaScript frameworks like React and Angular to back-end languages like PHP and Python to content management systems like WordPress.

As a developer, this kind of insight is invaluable. If I spot a UI component or site feature I want to recreate, Wappalyzer helps point me in the right direction of what tools I might need to build it. Or if I‘m scoping out the competition, I can quickly get a sense of their tech stack. It‘s like being able to look under the hood of any website.

Wappalyzer is available as an extension for all major browsers, and there‘s also an API and CLI tool for bulk analysis. Give it a try on a few of your favorite sites – you might be surprised at what you discover!

5. CodePen

CodePen is like a virtual sandbox for front-end developers. It‘s an online code editor that lets you write HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and instantly see the output right in your browser. And with the ability to save and share your "pens", it doubles as a great platform for showcasing your front-end skills.

Whenever I need to quickly prototype an idea or experiment with a new web technology, CodePen is my go-to. With features like auto-updating previews, built-in preprocessor support (SCSS, Babel, etc.), and automatic vendor prefixing, it eliminates a lot of the usual friction of setting up a local development environment. I can just open a new pen and start coding.

CodePen isn‘t just useful for solo experimentation though – it‘s also a fantastic tool for collaboration and debugging. I frequently use it to demo ideas to teammates, since I can send them a live, editable version instead of just a screenshot or chunk of code. And if I need help troubleshooting a tricky front-end bug, I can reproduce it in a pen and share for others to take a look.

Beyond the editor itself, CodePen is also a thriving community of developers. Browsing the "picked pens" feed is a great way to discover creative new designs and techniques to use as inspiration. And participating in the site‘s weekly coding challenges is a fun way to practice your skills and learn from other developers‘ approaches.

If you do any kind of front-end development, you need to have CodePen in your toolkit. It‘s the quickest way I‘ve found to go from an idea to a working prototype.

6. Postman

Like it or not, APIs have become an essential part of modern web development. Whether you‘re building your own RESTful service or consuming a third-party API, having a solid grasp of HTTP requests and responses is a must. And when it comes to exploring and testing APIs, Postman is my tool of choice.

At its core, Postman is a souped-up GUI for making HTTP requests. I can easily set up a request, specifying things like the URL, method, headers, and body. Hit "Send", and I get a nicely formatted view of the response, including the status code, headers, and data.

Where Postman really shines is in its ability to organize and automate. I can save requests to collections which act as a single source of truth for my API. Paired with environment variables, I can quickly switch between development, staging, and production API endpoints without having to update URLs in multiple places.

Postman also has a slick built-in testing tool. I can write JavaScript-based tests that run automatically after a request finishes, asserting things like the response status code, headers, and data format. Having a suite of API tests is invaluable for catching bugs before they make it to production.

Using Postman has leveled up my API development workflow significantly. It eliminates a lot of the tedious boilerplate of working with cURL or plain HTTP clients, and makes it easy to ensure the APIs I‘m building (and using) are well-tested and reliable.

Beyond its own feature set, Postman also integrates with many other parts of the API development lifecycle. Features like documentation generation, GitHub syncing, and the CLI mean it slots in nicely to my existing tooling rather than feeling bolted on.

If API development is at all part of your job, I highly recommend checking out Postman. It‘s one of the most polished and powerful tools in my dev toolkit.

Wrapping Up

And there you have it – a deep dive into the tools that keep me productive and sane as a full-stack developer. I hope pulling back the curtain on my personal toolkit has given you some new tools and techniques to try out in your own workflow.

Of course, this is far from an exhaustive list. The beauty of the web development community is the staggering number of open source tools and resources we have at our disposal. Whether it‘s a new framework, a handy CLI tool, or a productivity hack, there‘s always something new to learn from each other.

If you have a go-to tool that I didn‘t cover here, I‘d love to hear about it. Us developers need to stick together and swap tips! Feel free to drop me a line on Twitter and I‘ll add it to my ever-growing "to try" list.

Until next time, happy coding! May your error messages be few and your git commits many.