5 Must-Haves for a Developer

5 Must-Haves for a Developer

Every day, new products and tools are launched worldwide to either improve an existing solution or solve new problems.

Being able to identify and choose the right tool for yourself can be quite daunting because of the numerous options or the need to do things manually.

In this article, I will highlight 5 must-have tools every developer should use to help them stay informed, increase their productivity, and excel in their tech career.

Editor: VS Code

VS cdode Every developer needs a text editor or IDE to write code with, right? And trust me when I say I have used different text editors and IDEs, and so far, VS Code is top-notch.

Why?

To start with, VS Code has one of the best documentation I have ever seen. This means that any question you may have about VSCode is explained effectively in their documentation.

Working with Git and other version control systems has been made easier because of VS Code's inbuilt support for Git commands.

There are also thousands of extensions that make coding more exciting and increase your productivity as a developer.

You can run and debug your code directly on VS Code, customize it to fit your preference and build cool extensions for it as well. I also love the fact that different developers worldwide recommend using VS Code for coding shows that it is an excellent software with a strong community behind it.

VS Code is incredible and is a must-have for any developer.

Blog: Hashnode

As a developer, blogging does not only allow you to share your technical knowledge & experience with the developer community; it also helps to reinforce your learning on every topic you write.

Most people think you have to be super smart to start writing and sharing knowledge, but I disagree entirely. As much as we write to share knowledge, we also write to document what we've learned.

Hashnode enables developers to create a blog mapped to their own domain for free. The goal here is to help you focus on developing and sharing content on their blogs while Hashnode takes care of the rest - customization, readership, visibility, web monetization, and so much more.

Hashnode

You’ve probably asked yourself why you should create a blog with Hashnode when you can build a blog yourself.

Well, I have one question for you.

Do you complete every side project you start working on? If your answer is yes, then I’d love to know your secret. But if you are like most of us, and your answer is no, why do you think building a blog would be different?

Let’s assume you decide to build a blog from scratch, what happens when you can’t finish it due to lack of time? You won’t be able to publish an article on an unfinished blog.

What happens when you actually finish the blog but can’t maintain it after some time or people don’t read your articles? You may stop publishing articles.

Creating a blog with Hashnode saves you the stress of creating your blog yourself and helps you to be more efficient. It gives you the best of both worlds - a blog mapped to your domain for free and readership from the developer community.

Version Control: GitHub

You know what they say about having a strong GitHub profile as a developer, right? If you have a good GitHub profile, you can access job opportunities and collaborate with other developers in the community.

From open source to business, you can host and review code, manage projects, and build software alongside 50 million developers.

GitHub

The user experience on GitHub is better than other version control tools; you can easily find, use or contribute to open source projects available on GitHub.

Most importantly, GitHub also serves as a storage for your code. Gone are those days where you lose all the projects you are working on because your laptop spoilt of you changed your computer. When you push your code to GitHub, it will be there forever.

Browser Extension: daily.dev

daily.dev

With every new tab opened on your browser, you may find the article you've been looking for displayed on your screen to help you boost your knowledge.

daily.dev is a browser extension that curates tech news, articles, and discoveries worldwide for software developers.\ With daily.dev installed on your browser, you can easily keep track and stay updated with the latest programming publications worldwide.

If you write technical articles on Hashnode for instance, your article will be picked by daily.dev and displayed to thousands of developers using the product.

Task Management: Trello

Staying updated with new technologies, working on our full-time jobs, freelancing and building side projects are a couple of things most software developers do.

You will often see us say things like “24 hours isn’t enough” because we don’t know how to manage our time effectively or we end up burning out because we’ve been doing so many things in a short period of time.

Trello

With Trello, you can keep track of everything; your task, goals, priorities, etc. All you need to do is create a board for your task with a list and cards highlighting each of them. Most times, we lose track of the things we have done and end up thinking we've not done anything with our time, but when you use Trello as your task manager, you can clearly see everything you've achieved so far - this can be good for your mental health if you ask me.

You can also power up your workflow by integrating Trello with awesome tools like Slack. Google drive, time trackers, calendar, and so much more. It is definitely a must-have for developers.

Conclusion

I hope you found this article useful and would hopefully start using one if not all the 5 must-haves for developers I shared in this article.

Do you know of any other platform or tool that developers should use? Please share it in the comment section below, and I'll reply to every comment.