Best JavaScript Developer Tools for Increasing Productivity

Best JavaScript tools for productive developers

The task of development is often time-consuming, so here is a list of JavaScript tools in different categories that you can use to increase productivity. These tools are popular and are backed by a large community of developers.

Task runners

Gulp

Task runners are tools that help automate tasks and save time. Recurring tasks that consume time like unit testing, minification, compilation, linting, etc., can be automated using Gulp.

It helps you leverage the full potential of JavaScript by automating slow and repetitive workflows. It enables you to compose these workflows in efficient pipelines.

Gulp has multiple plugins attached to it which are responsible for different tasks. You can automate repetitive and time-consuming workflows by making use of all the plugins.

Grunt

Grunt means automation. It performs repetitive tasks on your behalf and saves time. Like Gulp, it helps in minification, unit testing, linting, compilation, etc. Once you have configured your device with a Gruntfile, your task runner will handle all your mundane and repetitive tasks.

Grunt is an ever-growing ecosystem. It has hundreds of plugins that you can choose from. They ensure that you achieve the most by putting in the least effort.

If you are unable to find what you are looking for, you can even create a plugin of your own with Grunt and publish it on npm.

Module bundlers

Webpack

Module bundlers are used to organize and combine files of JavaScript code. They are best used when your code has become too big for one file or when you work with multiple libraries with different dependencies.

Webpack is one of the most popular JavaScript module bundlers. It lets you control how you want to treat different assets that it encounters. It also comes with many plugins and has wide community support.

Browserify

Browserify is an open-source JavaScript bundler tool. It allows you to write and use Node.js-style modules for compilation for use in the browser. It helps you write code with the “require” feature which you would use in Node.js.

Package managers

NPM

NPM or Node.js Package Manager is one of the world’s biggest code registries with over 800,000 code packages. When initially released, NPM had multiple errors and other issues and people quickly started switching to Yarn. However, the vibrant community of developers backing NPM saw these issues and resolved them.

Node.js Package Manager is considered one of the most popular package managers for JavaScript developers in 2022.

Yarn

Yarn is an open-source package manager that also acts as a project manager. As the latter, it offers workspace options that split your project into sub-components. It also allows you to choose from a large variety of plugins, and is supported by a vibrant community.

Libraries

React

Libraries and frameworks empower developers to build unique features for their web applications with minimal time wastage. They aim to increase productivity on a feature-by-feature basis.

React is a popular JavaScript library that helps developers create fast and interactive UIs. It is maintained by Meta and has a large community of developers.

jQuery

jQuery is a feature-rich, small, and super fast JavaScript library. It has an easy-to-use API that works across a myriad of browsers. It makes the tasks of HTML document traversal and manipulation, animation, event handling, and Ajax much easier and quicker. It is best known for its versatility and flexibility.

Mobile frameworks

Angular

Mobile app development frameworks give a fundamental structure to the development of mobile apps. The frameworks include tools that help in compiling, debugging, and programming.

Angular is a popular framework among developers as it lets them create a single page application in a clean manner. Its code is unit testable and it also uses dependency injection which allows developers to use separation of concerns.

Apache Cordova

Another commonly used mobile development framework is Apache Cordova. It allows developers to build hybrid web applications using JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS3.

Note that JavaScript has various frameworks that are used to create web applications. It’s important to choose the best framework that suits your needs.

Testing frameworks

Mocha

Using a framework that has a set of rules for designing test cases can speed up turnaround time. Mocha is one of the more popular test frameworks in JavaScript. It runs on Node.js and helps make asynchronous testing simple. It tests the code serially which enables flexible and accurate reports.

Jasmine

Jasmine is a behavior-driven development framework that is used to test JavaScript code. It is known for its clean and obvious syntax which is easy to write. You can use Jasmine to test both synchronous and asynchronous JavaScript code.

Conclusion

JavaScript is a commonly used programming language that allows you to create client-side and server-side applications. It has gained much attention due to its effectiveness. The in-demand and efficient tools listed here add to its popularity and serve to boost developers’ productivity.