10 Free Tools Software Developers Should Know
Dev teams and software developers need tools to get their jobs done, and there are plenty of free options. Here are 10 to consider for your tool kit.
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In the enterprise, the software developer often is an unusual employee, one that's half technologist and half creative pro. While many organizations standardize on development environments, others leave the choice of editor and organizer up to the individual programmer. If your company falls into the latter category, or if you are an IT executive helping teams choose the tools, there is a plethora of free options.
Whether the team you're working with is large or small, there are tools that you need in order to get your job done. Now, in order to put together a list like this, I had to make certain assumptions about the kind of environment your developers will be working in.
My first assumption was that you're doing traditional development work rather than rapid application development (or low code/no code development). I also assumed that your developers are working in some sort of team, even if it's a small team, or one made of contractors, partners, and employees working together.
Finally, I assumed that your policies don't require a single environment encompassing every tool a developer will use. This list is filled with best-of-breed, single-task sorts of tools.
[See 10 Tools for Effective DevOps Collaboration.]
With all that said, please note that I'm not going to say that anything here is a "best" tool for you. There are far too many personal preferences and individual workflow details for anyone not intimately connected with your team to make a "best" recommendation. These are tools that I think you should know about as you make your decisions regarding the suite that your developers will use.
Note also that all of these tools are free. Some of them are open source projects, some are free products from commercial publishers, and a couple are free versions of tools that also have paid, commercial brands. There are many ways to get to free -- any of them were acceptable for this article.
How do you feel about free tools? Do you dismiss them for any team that's not part of a student group at a university? Do you use them now? Have you used them in the past? I'm always fascinated by a discussion around tools. I'd love to know which ones you feel are indispensable and which you think I've oversold by including them on this list.
Komodo Edit is the free, open source version of the team-oriented Komodo IDE development system. It is a flexible, programmable editor that can be configured to support may different languages and programming frameworks. If you need more automation and closer ties to programming languages, then the Komodo IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is available on a commercial basis.
Full disclosure: I have used Komodo Edit for years as the editor whenever I'm writing code. I have found it to be easy to use and powerful for a wide variety of languages. It's part of my toolkit.
You don't usually think of Microsoft as a leading source of free software but that's precisely what the company is when it comes to a programming editor with Visual Studio Code. This highly visual code editor is available for Windows, MacOS, and Linux, and supports a wide variety of programming languages, from JavaScript to C# and Swift.
Visual Studio Code has a highly extensible architecture and a number of languages are supported through extensions. That means additional languages can easily be added -- and that will keep it useful as technology moves forward. If your team is developing with Visual Studio, then this editor is a natural. But even if you're not, this might easily be the editor that you need for your team.
If you're developing for the web, then BlueGriffon, based on Gecko, the same rendering engine used in Firefox, is an interesting option. If you ever used any of the web editors that were part of the Mozilla family of products then you'll be somewhat familiar with the user interface of BlueGriffon, since it's part of the same general family and philosophy of editor design.
There is a paid version of BlueGriffon that gets you more in the way of CSS editing and graphics automation functions. If you're working in basic HTML, though, the free version might well be the only editor you'll need for your projects.
One of the characteristics that many programmers look for in an editor is that it be lightweight. That means that it does not take an inordinate amount of resources from the system for its own purposes, since tools like compilers, linkers, and the other code-generation tools often need quite a lot in the way of CPU and memory. Bluefish is an open source editor available for Windows and MacOS (with Linux in beta) that is lightweight and extensible. It has support for a long list of programming languages. If you're looking for a pure-play open source editor, then Bluefish will fill the bill.
Another small, open source editor to consider -- this one based on the GTK+ framework -- is Geany. Lightweight, flexible, and "hackable," Geany is the sort of editor that a team can take and turn into its own custom tool, with plug-ins and modification of the core engine. Geany isn't a traditional choice for an enterprise editor. But if you're going into a series of projects where you have very specific needs for automation and custom actions, then Geany could well be a tool that gets you there.
If the idea of a hackable editor appeals to you, then Atom could be a strong candidate. If you use Git, then you're already using the backend repository Atom is designed to work with. Atom continues the "designed for programmers" theme with a very hackable framework and extension through "packages" intended to extend features to specific languages or functions and "themes" that alter the appearance of the editor around specific behaviors.
Atom is available for Windows, MacOS, and Linux, and the source code is available (on Github). So, if you want to compile it for another platform, go right ahead. Of the open source editors on this list, Atom is arguably the most polished, and it's certainly ready for enterprise team deployment.
While Slack gets most of the group chat attention these days, it's far from the only player in the market. If you think that Slack is a heavier, more obtrusive chat client than you want for your team, then you might take a look at Ryver, a free (though not open source) chat service that is a simple way for teams to communicate.
Ryver is in its early days and makes no excuses for its free service -- or for the fact that there will be paid components coming in the future. For now, though, if you want a chat service that isn't Slack for your team, Ryver is a free and interesting way to make it happen.
While text chats are great for many things, sometimes you just need to see the person, or people, you're talking with. When that's the case, Appear.in is a free service that connects small teams (up to eight members) in ad hoc video conferences. Appear.in is an early system making use of the WebRTC protocol that brings point-to-point video to web browsers. At this point, it's not supported by every browser. You can use Chrome, Firefox, or Opera, or you can use an app on iOS or Android. But if you can live within that browser universe you can find yourself video chatting with your team with no extra hardware and no paid services.
Once upon a time, personal computer application collections included packages for things like mind-mapping and outlining. Why? Because sometimes you need to see your ideas in order to improve or share them, and it can be nice to have something a little nicer (and more electronic) than a composition book for taking down those notes. For developers who want a way to figure out the flow of a process, TreeSheets can be just the ticket.
In many ways, TreeSheets is a throwback to a simple application age in both function and appearance. This is a small open source application that's available for Windows, Linux, and (in beta) MacOS, so your team can use it as a tool and as the basis for more tools.
If you're developing software, and especially if you're working on a team, developing for the web, or both, you'll need to move files around. The most common protocol for moving files is, of course, FTP, and there are a variety of FTP clients available. If you're looking for a free FTP client for Windows, though, it can be hard to beat Free FTP. This is a simple, free client that lets you handle the basics of sending files from place to place with minimal muss and fuss.
If you need more features, they're available for a low price, along with an entire suite of web development tools that will be of greatest interest to sole practitioners and consultants. Sometimes, though, looking for tools in unexpected places can pay off -- and that's certainly the case for Free FTP.
So, there you have 10 free tools that can be useful to software developers (and dev teams). What did you think? Are you already using any of these? Have you tried one or more and found them lacking? Let me know -- I'm eager to find out what you think of the tools on the list.
If you're developing software, and especially if you're working on a team, developing for the web, or both, you'll need to move files around. The most common protocol for moving files is, of course, FTP, and there are a variety of FTP clients available. If you're looking for a free FTP client for Windows, though, it can be hard to beat Free FTP. This is a simple, free client that lets you handle the basics of sending files from place to place with minimal muss and fuss.
If you need more features, they're available for a low price, along with an entire suite of web development tools that will be of greatest interest to sole practitioners and consultants. Sometimes, though, looking for tools in unexpected places can pay off -- and that's certainly the case for Free FTP.
So, there you have 10 free tools that can be useful to software developers (and dev teams). What did you think? Are you already using any of these? Have you tried one or more and found them lacking? Let me know -- I'm eager to find out what you think of the tools on the list.
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