There are a lot of moving parts in web development and programming.

It seems like, as a JavaScript developer, you have to think about many things at

once, like the structure of your project, proper syntax, installing frameworks and

libraries, debugging, even just refreshing the page to view and test your code.

So because of the increased complexity in a JavaScript developer's workflow,

developers turn to tools to help make them more efficient.

The JavaScript community has created lots of free,

open source tools to help make our job a little bit easier.

So in these final videos, we'll go over some of the common tools used by

JavaScript developers, starting with text editors.

When building a website or

a JavaScript application, it all starts with the Text Editor.

It's where you'll spend most of your time and an essential part of development.

There are many JavaScript friendly text editors available.

But a good text editor should help make you a more efficient coder,

as well as be able to handle certain JavaScript related tasks,

like syntax highlighting, proper indentation, and code completion.

The most common text editors used by Java Script developers are, Sublime Text,

Atom, built by Get Hub, and Visual Studio Code, built by Microsoft.

These are fast, lightweight, and robust editors that include common features

of text editors, like syntax highlighting,

automatic code completion, they're easily themeable, customizable and extensible.

And they have built in package managers that let you install tools for

additional features and functionality.

Some editors like Atom, and Visual Studio Code,

were even built using JavaScript, with a framework called Electron.

You can read more about this in the teacher's notes.

Two useful tools developers set up in their text editors are linters and

code formatters.

All too often, errors in your projects are related to simple typos like misspelling

a variable name, a missing comma, or a closing bracket, for example.

A linter reads your code to help you avoid problems and spot possible errors.

And a code formatter maintains overall code quality by

enforcing a consistent style.

For example, tabs versus spaces and semicolons versus no semicolons.

This is important when working on teams.

Every developer has their own style of writing code, so a linter and

code formatter can help a team keep their project's code maintainable and

readable for everyone on the team.

Especially future team members.

One of the most popular Java script linters you can use in your text editor

is ESLint and Prettier is a code formatter commonly used by developers.

Since these are automated tools, running them doesn't require any extra manual work

once they've been set up in your text editor.

You can learn more about the differences between linters and

formatters in the teachers notes with this video.