 Front-end development has never been hotter than its current state. Web development has an expected job growth of 27% from 2014 to 2024, which is much faster than the average for all occupations. My name is Jocelyn J. I'm a YouTuber and front-end developer and in this video I'm going to talk about five apps and tools you need to be successful as a front-end developer. The apps and tools I selected for this video can be broken down into five different categories — IDEs or text editors, UIUX design software, API tools, dev tools, and version control. All of these are resources you'll be using on the regular as a front-end developer and without further ado, let's get started. Visual Studio Code is by far my favorite IDE to use. VS Code extends the traditional use and concepts of a text editor. With the simple side navigation that allows you to explore your workspace or folder, search across your app, check your changes in source control, install extensions, allows me to be a more productive developer. Another feature that I love about this lightweight version of Visual Studio is the easy access to the terminal. As a computer science grad, I've learned to love working through the terminal and at this point I know it like the back of my hand. You have the ability to navigate throughout the entirety of your computer, create folders or directories, install software dependencies, and create components for progressive web apps like Angular and React. It just works with TypeScript like Peanut Butter works with Jelly. Like I mentioned earlier, VS Code works well with version control and as long as you have Git downloaded you can clone repos, commit code, switch branches, and merge code through the top toolbar or if you're silky smooth you can do it from the built-in terminal. VS Code also has integrations with pretty much every modern programming language and before the launch of VS Code I remember always trying out different IDEs because they almost always felt like they fell short in some aspect, mainly usability and user experience. And after using Visual Studio it was hard to defer to Adam in NetBeans. Creative design is a standard and something every company and customer expects in 2020. Learning how to code is obviously an essential part of becoming a front-end developer but you also need to understand design and you don't have to be an expert to do so but you at least need to understand the lingo so you can communicate effectively with the designers you're working with. Adobe XD has become my favorite platform to create designs for websites, mobile apps, and more. I'm pretty biased because I use XD almost every day and since it's part of the Creative Cloud Suite the shortcuts and keys are the same in other Adobe apps like Premiere Pro. XD is very simple to use you can create artboards for whatever device you plan on designing it's very collaborative allowing users to share for review and with the co-editing feature that allows you to work together with your team in real time. One of my favorite features is animations you can create between elements across artboards so when you're demoing your app at work or in front of generous VCs you can walk through the prototype showing the user flow and hopefully the amazing experience you've created. Alright before we continue I just want to take a moment to talk about the sponsor of this video Skillshare and how they and how their online community can help you become a front-end developer, a full-stack developer, or whatever creative endeavor you're interested in pursuing. Skillshare is an online learning community where millions gather from all around the world to take the next step in their creative journey. You can explore topics like illustration, creativity, productivity, UI, UX design, web development, marketing, freelance and entrepreneurship and so much more. One thing I love about Skillshare's online community is that it does not matter where you are in your creative journey. Skillshare is for creative and curious people and lifelong learners amongst others not only will you learn from industry professionals but Skillshare classes include a combination of video lessons and a class project so not only will you be able to learn visually but you'll also be able to get hands-on experience. The first thousand people that select this link that will be linked down in the description box as well will have two free months of Skillshare premium access and for those of you all who want to take it the next step in your creative journey you can get a annual Skillshare premium subscription for less than $10 a month. That sounds like a great deal to me for those of you all who have had a Skillshare account or have one now comment down below your favorite course and once again thank you to Skillshare for sponsoring this video. Though APIs and services are considered back in if you want to grow as a software developer understanding the science behind how APIs are built along with knowing how to build apps that are dynamic and that interact with users understanding APIs are highly recommended. Postman is a collaborative app for API development that has an API client so you can easily send rest soap and GraphQL requests directly within Postman. Postman also offers automated testing design mock APIs documentation and you can monitor the health of your API you can also create collections and workspaces for building and consuming APIs. Before you try to implement an API via code it's best practice to try to access your API from an API platform like Postman so you can know if your end point is available your authorization is valid and the type of data you'll expect to receive amongst other things. It's refreshing to start writing the service side of your code after you know that the API requests are behaving as expected so if they don't work in your app you know it's probably not your API but how you've implemented your requests. If you're building any web app that has a front-end inspect and Chrome tools will become your best friend. Not using inspect as a web developer is like playing football without equipment okay maybe that isn't the best analogy but you need this to be successful otherwise you'll never understand the science behind the DOM or be able to easily debug your code using the console. I typically use inspect to see how my HTML elements are responding to different size displays using the device toolbar to the left of the elements. I also inspect my elements so I can make changes in real time to the CSS because it's much faster to experiment with styling through inspect opposed to going back and forth from the code to the browser when you need to make UI changes. The network tab to the right of the console is also a great way to see if your API services are returning with the right responses allowing you to view the body of your response along with authentication headers like bearer tokens. Chrome is a trick of all trades. Last but certainly not least Git. Git is a free and distributed open-source version control system designed to handle everything from small to large projects with speed and efficiency. Version control is a skill set you'll need no matter what you do as a software developer or what your role is and the reason being is because version control is what allows developers to collaborate and work on different features or even the same features without stepping on each other's toes. Also as a dev you want to make sure that the projects you're working on are being built through a Git repository. You can build public and private repos so those app ideas you have that will make you a millionaire can stay safe and the ones you want employers to see can be public so a hiring manager can see what projects you've been working on and they can pull down your code so they can see how skilled you are as a developer. Git also is a safeguard for when you lose code. You can always go back to previous commits in the repo and start from there. Think of Git as a control system designed to handle every update you make in your code base while allowing you to share code. I hope this video helped you get a better understanding of what you need to become not only a front-end dev but a developer in general. Comment down below some of your favorite software development apps and tools and also thank you to Skillshare for sponsoring this video. As always I hope you and your family are staying safe and healthy. Peace.