<p>So, you want to get in to web development, or you think you already are. You have you hack version of <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver/" target="_blank">Dreamweaver</a> and you can push things around in design view, or you downloaded some templates from somewhere and you figured out how to add your “bevel emboss” logo into it. You’re ready to start kickin ass and taking names! I was once like this like many others before me, but i met a seasoned Ruby developer through a project i was hired to do <span class="caps">CSS</span> work for and he showed me the true light of the web world. Im not saying that DW isnt good, i have just come to realize that to really have a grasp on the “true” web, you reallly need to dig into the guts of what your building and not just mash crap up in design view. so with that being said…</p>
<p>As a developer you’ll find that there are many many tools that can all get you where you need to be, and its a matter of taste and how comfortable these tools are to you. So if you’re a windows guy then you just have bad taste…j/k here are a few tools that we here at the cube prefer. <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br></span><h3>Mac Mac Mac -</p>
<p></h3>I actually have a Ubuntu box as well, but I am a Mac guy for life, not that you cant develop on other platforms, I just think that the Mac out performs any other machine on the planet and the last thing i want when im working is a box that craps out or hangs etc.. So i would suggest saving a few extra bucks and buying a <span class="caps">MAC</span>. Even the <a title="Apple Mac Mini - Pure Awesome!" target="_blank" href="http://www.apple.com/macmini/">mac minis</a> are a supreme machine<br><h3>Ruby, Rails, jQuery -</h3>The core of our development efforts. <a title="The Ruby Programming Language" target="_blank" href="http://www.ruby-lang.org/">Ruby</a>, because its the greatest programming language on earth. <a title="The greatest framework in the world" target="_blank" href="http://www.rubyonrails.org">Rails</a>, because its a fantastic Ruby based web development framework, and <a title="simply awesome javascript" target="_blank" href="http://www.jquery.com">jQuery</a>, because it makes javascript easy and a lot of fun to code. I wont go into too much detail on these as most posts will be about these.<br><h3> Textmate -</h3> When it comes to writing code i have used <a href="http://netbeans.org/" target="_blank">Netbeans</a> which is an <span class="caps">IDE</span> (integrated development environment). Its a good tool if you like IDE’s and the other <span class="caps">IDE</span> is <a href="http://www.jetbrains.com/ruby/index.html" target="_blank">Ruby Mine</a> which gets a lot of praise from Ruby guys that like IDEs. I personally think they are heavy and clunky and dont really care for them. <a href="http://www.macromates.com" target="_blank">Textmate</a> is my editor of choice. It has color coding, a nice snippets feature, and there are a lot of great <span class="caps">FREE</span> bundles to help enhance it with a lot of really nice features. It loads fast and simply gets the job done without hiccups. Also you start to notice that in many many screencasts, Textmate is the editor being used, so it can help a noob follow along a little better. it costs about $50 bucks but is so worth it.<br><h3>SequelPro – </h3>When it comes to web applications using <span class="caps">SQL</span> based database back ends, I <span class="caps">WAS</span> a long time user of a <span class="caps">FREE</span> application called Cocoa MySQL. This has now transitioned into a program called <a title="Sequel Pro database management tool" target="_blank" href="http://www.sequelpro.com/">Sequel Pro</a>. This is a fantastic <span class="caps">GUI</span> type tool for managing your databases. it allows you to not only manage local (on your machine) databases, but remote (on your server) databases as well. Very easy to use and <span class="caps">FREE</span>. Although i suggest you donate even a few bucks to these projects to give back to these great tools that make our development lives easier.<br><h3>Firefox – </h3>Unless you live under the Microsoft rock, youve probably heard of, and hopefully use, <a title="The Mozilla Corp - Firefox" target="_blank" href="http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/">Firefox</a>. Firefox is one of the greatest tools for web development. Not only is it a great, and <span class="caps">IMO</span>, the best browser out there to experience the web with, it also has the ability to add plug-ins. These plug-ins make a developers life a lot easier. The most noted are <a title="Firebug add on for Firefox" target="_blank" href="http://getfirebug.com/">Firebug</a>, <a title="The Web Developer toolbar for Firefox" target="_blank" href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60">Web Developer Toolbar</a>, and <a title="yslow page tester from yahoo" target="_blank" href="http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/">YSlow</a><br><h3>Photoshop -</h3>Not so much a dev tool, but a tool non the less. For those that are doing both design and development, <a title="Photoshop graphics software" target="_blank" href="http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshop/">Photoshop</a> <span class="caps">IMO</span> is a must have. There are alternatives like <a title="GIMP open source graphics tool" target="_blank" href="http://www.gimp.org/"><span class="caps">GIMP</span></a> or <a title="Inkscape vector tool" target="_blank" href="http://www.inkscape.org/">Inkscape</a> that are free from the open source community, but I find that Photoshop is the greatest tool for image manipulation and optimization, and graphics. You can also use Illustrator in conjuction with, but i find that i can create about 95% of everything i need in Photoshop. This is the tool I will be using in future graphic blogs and tutorials.</p>
2010-02-06T01:30:55-08:00
11
tools-of-the-trade
what the cool kids use
general
Tools of the trade
2010-02-14T18:42:50-08:00