8 Free Programming Tools for a Web Application Development Project

A great skill set is necessary for the programmer, but a good programming editor needs to have a great set of tools to showcase their talent in the real sense. Every developer needs a set of tools that can insist them in achieving the result they look forward to, and tools seem to be even better when they’re free. Here a list of tool you can use as a programmer to support your work and get the best results.

1) Free Code Editor: Notepad++

We all know about the traditional Notepad program that comes with Windows, Notepad++ is the replacement to original Notepad program and it even supports several languages. Originally built to work with Microsoft Windows, notepad even supports platforms like Linux, Unix, BSD and Mac OS X.

This is not just an upgrade to traditional notepad, it’s a complete transformation where you will find lots of new buttons and new features like tabbed editing, drag and drop, split screen editing, spell checker, search for and replace option over multiple documents, you can even do file comparison, zoom the files and much more. You can notice a complete transformation on the home screen. It is lightweight, and it launches super quick.

You can even add bookmarks to your work. Unlike traditional notepad, where the full screen was really annoying, in Notepad++ you can enjoy working in full-screen mode with a beautiful looking user-interface. There is a big list of feature that you can know by visiting their website or once you start using it. Some of the drawbacks with new Notepad++ is, it does not support large files, and you need another program to make it run on Mac OS X.

Recommended reading: CodeLobster PHP Edition: A Free PHP, HTML, CSS & JavaScript Editor.

2) Programming/Scripting Language & Database: HTML + JavaScript + PHP + MySQL

HTML: Tim Berners-Lee developed HTML in 1990. Every single web page on the internet is written using HTML code as HTML code ensures there is the right formatting of text and images, so they appeared proper and managed the way it intends to be. HTML is considered as the heart of web page creation as without HTML; browser cannot display text elements. HTML provides basic structure to web pages and creating web pages using an HTML editor is not difficult. HTML files can be viewed easily online using a browser as well as these files can be viewed locally once created.

JAVASCRIPT: JavaScript is a dynamic programming language, and all Web browsers support it without any need for additional plug-ins. It is one of the most significant and widely used programming languages alongside HTML and CSS, JavaScript for World Wide Web content production. The importance of JavaScript has increased tremendously as the majority of websites use it. Web applications made with JS become more powerful.

PHP: PHP language is designed for the web development. The PHP code can be easily embedded into HTML and with other web systems and frameworks too. PHP language received a tremendous amount of success when it comes to its deployment of web servers and it is deployed on every operating system and platform and that for free.

MYSQL: MySQL is an open-source database management system. MySQL is highly successful DBMS and is used by big players of world wide web like Google, Facebook, Flicker, Twitter, and YouTube. Applications such as Joomla, Drupal, and WordPress use MySQL database.

3) Development Environment: XAMPP

Experienced users know that it is not a cakewalk to install Apache web server and it gets harder and harder when you move on add MySQL, PHP, and Perl to it. XAMPP is quick and easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP, and Perl. XAMPP is simple when it comes to installation and to keep it up and running, just download, extract, and start it – it is as simple as that.

4) Best All-in-one CMS: WordPress

WordPress is the best website development platform over the Internet today, and it is growing tremendously. A robust platform with multiple options for website customization. It offers customization at the extreme possible way; you can just do anything you want with your site. Download it online, and you can install it within minutes if you have your server. And if you are not experienced in website development, they have their support community to help you with every simple thing possible. Although, you need some basic technical knowledge as it is not very direct to just build the website with WordPress.

5) Best eCommerce CMS: Magento

The powerful and fast growing e-commerce script, Magento is an open-source platform using Zend PHP and MySQL databases. When you need to present your product in a manageable way, Magento offers the greatest flexibility. Through its architecture, it offers the broad range of options including customer service, creating user accounts, track shopping history, custom forms, option to select different languages, and currencies and much more. Magento is the best choice when you need to create a full-fledged online store.

6) Free Web Hosting: Not Recommended

By using the great free tools mentioned above, you can cut down the development cost of a web app enormously. But we will not recommend this for web hosting. There are many options available online for free web hosting but they not recommended due to many possible outcomes. They are completely unreliable when it comes to customer support and server resources. If your website is not loading, you may discover that the service discontinued and your site not up and running. Free hosts can remove you anytime from the server as they take no responsibility.  Free hosting comes with unwanted and very infancy long URL promoting the free host and you ending up with frustrated customers only. It seems very unprofessional using a long URL that is utterly horrendous. Always choose a good and premium web host as per the requirement of your web application.

Recommended reading: 6 Best Affordable Magento Hosting (Shared/VPS) for Small Magento Sites.

Conclusion

So all of these brilliant tools can be used to fulfill the programming needs by the editors and achieve the excellent results as all of these are the result of significant research and hard work by their makers and receiving great success in the market too.

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