The market is well populated with an array of app development tools that make the development process easier and faster. These days, using tools is not a matter of just choice but an obvious option to opt for. Every app developer is aware of the great value addition done by these tools in the software development process.
While we are going to explain here some of the most effective and popular tools for software development, we must take a hard look at the key common attributes of these tools before moving further.
Key Common Attributes Of Popular Development Tools
Human beings learn best from the examples and so us. This is why it would be more effective to take note of the most popular and frequently used tools and their common attributes. In this respect, it must be noted that while these qualities across tools often vary and deviate, a few aspects remain often repetitive and recurring.
When choosing a great productivity tool for your application development project, watch out for the below-mentioned qualities.
- You should opt for tools that help you to make priorities of tasks. It is important because developers always need to choose one task over the other in their list of thing to do.
- The second consideration is about finding a tool that perfectly fits your specific development needs. Obviously, all tools don’t stand equal and they pose serious differences when it comes to appropriate usefulness.
- You should go for tools that are well-equipped for task management. Within a developer team, it should delegate tasks appropriately to individual members and help them understand their roles in the context of the entire project.
- You should also go for tools with inbuilt communication, collaboration and documentation to guide you through the process.
- A productivity tool should also incorporate a feedback loop to perfect the code lines in sprints and ensure bug-free development.
- Modern productivity tools are all well-equipped to ensure continuous development and testing of the application to prevent building a buggy software leading to unnecessary and time-consuming post-development process.
Let us now briefly explain some of the most effective and popular productivity tools that developers can use for their projects.
- The Silver Searcher
As most developers these days prefer correcting the faulty code lines throughout the development process rather than waiting to do the same at the post-development phase, they often struggle to find the faulty code line among thousands of code lines. To help them deal with this rather awkwardly challenging situation, we have the Silver Searcher tool.
This is the easiest to use and effective code searching tool with an emphasis on finding the faulty code line faster and without the slightest delay. Thanks to the faster pace it delivers in searching a code line, it remained to be the most popular code searching tool as of now.
- Vysor
Vysor is an app to work on Chrome browser and is compatible across all operating systems. Thanks to Vysor you can operate the devices of any mobile operating platform right from your desktop. To be precise with an example, on your desktop screen you can navigate by pointing your mouse for scrolling the pages and clicking on buttons as well as links.
Vysor comes in two different versions, respectively as the Free and the Premium or paid one. While the free version is limited with the mirroring of the Android device screen and taking screenshots, the Pro version offers better and more high quality mirroring apart from offering screen video and drag and drop functionality. The Pro version comes at a monthly cost of 1.99$.
- Slack
Slack is regarded to be one of the most popular software for workplace environments. The tool offers exceptional scope to allow colleagues and team members collaborate and work in sync within a project. The best thing about this tool is that the developers sitting in faraway places across continents can constantly remain in touch through Messenger. This feature makes it incredibly easier for the freelancer located in different cities to remain in touch and work efficiently.
As a productivity tool, Slack comes with a load of valuable features. You are just able to pin down a notification in case you need the app to remind you of tasks. With Slack in place, you can be in total control of your communication and project tasks. The primary objective of the tool is to cut on the entire unproductive time spent in communication and sending emails for the purpose of notifications. In that respect, the tool seems to be quite effective.
If this is not enough, the tool can also be downloaded on your mobile device and be used on the move. If you are looking for a great communication tool for your developers, look no further than Slack.
- Trello
For app development projects tracking pending tasks is of utmost importance and for this, you have an array of valuable tools. But no tools do the job of tracking pending tasks better than Trello. In a development project with a significant number of developers working remotely, maintaining a schedule to meet the deadline is of serious concern and that is the reason why people precisely use Slack for.
The tool is capable to categorise different tasks as ‘’To Do”, “In Process” and “Done” and help you easily see all the tasks in the development process and their respective states. Each category further allows you to add cards with additional elements like Google Drive links, comments and highlighted areas. The categories along with their cards continue to guide you through the development process.
- ActiTime
Going through a rigorous development project, often developers lose track of time, schedule and list of things to do. This is why a tool like act Time comes to help. The tool is professionally designed to keep track of not only the time of individuals but also of the entire team members. This is a well-equipped work management tool to manage the development tasks with scheduling tasks and time.
The tool particularly comes to aid in projects involving freelancers located across locations and different time zones. The tool can evaluate the progress of the projects, track time being spent on specific tasks and make an analysis of the profitability considering the development cost and time for the project. In an environment involving regular employees with 9 to 5 work schedule, the tool can help to schedule tasks and tracking time to boost productivity.
- Oh, My Zsh
According to Github rating, this is one of the most effective and popular tools to boost productivity at this moment. It comes as an open-source and free tool allowing developers to deal with the number of aspects in a development environment. By utilising the tool in their command line developers can significantly boost their efficiency and output.
According to Robby Russel, the developer creator of the tool, it has been built as an organised framework to accommodate all the shortcuts and scripts that many developers are using for years. The tool as of now managed to garner hundreds of contributors and it is powered by dozens of different plugins.
- H2O
Now, there is an overwhelming number of app development projects that use Artificial Intelligence (AI). Internet of Things (IOT) app development projects are also getting continuous traction. The development projects involving these ahead of time technologies have increased to a massive proportion. It is particularly for AI-based gaming projects, you need a sophisticated tool like H2O.
This open source tool basically remains embedded in a Machine Learning platform and it is written in most advanced languages such as Python, Java and R. Thanks to this tool, the developers can easily utilise predictive analysis without really worrying about the breaking of code. Lastly, this great tool can be utilised across multiple OS platforms including Linux, Windows and Mac.
- 7pace
In spite of hating the time tracking done by your project manager, as a developer you must be coping with it. Without time tracking, there is a big chance of experiencing a steady decline in productivity. This is where 7pace as a productivity tool has its own pride of place. It is a tool to improve personal efficiency and productivity in an organized manner and without really undermining the individual ease.
The tool is fully equipped to work in different types of development environments including Agile, Waterfall and Scrum. The best thing about the tool is it takes not more than a couple of seconds to log in to each task. The tool is fully capable to integrate with the Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) and Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) to ensure optimum productivity for the entire development team.
- Bug Muncher or Saber
In spite of your continuous quality focus and efforts to prevent errors and bugs, they are at times inseparable and unavoidable. Particularly when the core software of a CMS system gets an upgrade or any other extensions or plugins are integrated with the objective of value addition, the website may unknowingly receive bugs. In such times, they need to search, find and eradicate bugs.
Bug Muncher which is now known as Saber is a great tool to allow website managers detecting potential issues and bugs that can interfere with the performance of the website. It offers an easily embedded feedback system to help you see the faults through detailed screenshots. When specific problems and errors in your code are detected and highlighted by the tool, it becomes much easier for you to correct them.
Conclusion
Do you have any tool of your choice? Do you think there should be several other tools in our present list? Well, your choice of tools may vary and there can be several others that we forgot to mention here. But the above-mentioned tools at least provide a picture of what application development tools are capable of and that has been the precise purpose of our present discussion.
Atman Rathod is working as the Business Director at CMARIX TechnoLabs, a leading web and mobile app development company with 13+ years of experience. He loves to write about technology, startups, entrepreneurship and business. His creative abilities, academic track record and leadership skills made him one of the key industry influencers as well.