Ask HN: What are your favorite tools for front-end JavaScript development?

6 points by joelthelion 11y ago ↗ HN

I'm new to this side of things, and I find myself juggling a lot between text editor and browser, which I don't find very pleasant or efficient.

I'm wondering what tricks seasoned JavaScript programmers use to make their environment more productive?

4 comments

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mcrider 11y ago ↗

Two monitors -- So you can keep your editor and browser in view at the same time :)

domrdy 11y ago ↗

I normally setup a 'watch' task including livereload (grunt[0] / gulp[1]), coffee > js compile, jshint. For prototypes, I use yeoman [2] to bootstrap my application and for generators.

[0] https://github.com/gruntjs/grunt-contrib-livereload [1] https://github.com/vohof/gulp-livereload [2] http://yeoman.io

joelthelion 11y ago ↗

Thanks a lot, I will check these out.

CrowderSoup 11y ago ↗

Become very familiar with your browser of choice's Developer Tools. In most of them you can set breakpoints in your JS, add watches to your code, among many other useful debugging techniques.

Also, two monitors will make your life 1000x easier.