Beginners Guide for Setting Up Web Development Environment 

It’s an intense dream of every developer to have the perfect web development environment on their computer.  Even during any connectivity issues, any developers can easily continue their work by setting up a proxy server.

Today’s article will discuss— how to set up a web development environment on a computer. Firstly, the whole process of setting up a web development environment has been differentiated in groups. The groups are: 

• Operating System (Windows or MAC)
• Browsers
• Code Editor / IDE
• Other tools (Hosting service, GIT-tools, standard/often-used libraries, etc.)

Let’s take a deep dive into each of the groups to get clear understandings.

Operating System (Windows or MAC)

This is the most general part of the web development setup which can greatly influence the utility of other tools. Actually, it doesn’t matter that much whether it’s MAC or Windows since all the popular text editors and IDEs are supported in both operating systems.

Moreover, the workstation doesn’t require heavy configuration, as a result, the application that is about to be developed won’t be that much resource hungry. Though windows are the most popular and well-known OS which is mostly comes pre-installed with new devices.

More importantly, to start doing web development, a browser and an IDE is primarily everything one needs and windows have it already. However, if one wants to develop a web application especially targeting Macbook or iPhone users, they will need MAC OS.

For server-side coding, there is a command prompt in Windows and Terminal in MAC OS. Since VMWare and other software are accessible to virtually host a windows operating system on MAC, but a virtual environment hosting system for MAC isn’t available.

Browsers

The most essential part of web development workflow including accessing knowledge, tests, and others. Almost everyone using a computer has one of their own browser including a built-in one.

According to the latest published stats, Chrome which is the most popular web browser is covering 61% usage share, next is Safari which covering 17% of the internet business, then comes Firefox and IE both covering almost 5.6%. Lastly, the remaining usage is covered by Edge, UC Browser, Opera, Android browsers, etc.

Whatever the choices, one needs to install all the major browsers and test the browser compatibility to develop a fully responsive website. The mobile device emulator plug-ins are also needed to be installed in the browsers for testing cross-device adaptability of the developed website.

Code Editor / IDE

Now comes for the most essential part for every programmer to set up a web development environment, a suitable place where most of the work is done. Among multiple opinions, the two general choices are; an IDE with full-fledged development experience in mind including a great number of built-in additional goodness. Another is a simple, lightweight and fast code editor, often with great extendibility advantages. Selecting the Perfect tool for Coding is very important. Here are some most-popular options:

• A standard text editor that supports color-coding is a better choice for any simple application and HTML/CSS, PHP or any other lightweight programming languages. Many web developers worldwide are using Notepad++ which is the perfect tool for the job.
• Adobe Dreamweaver (the best IDE for developing responsive web applications) is the best choice for developing a simple application where budget isn’t a constraint.
• Visual Studio Code or Atom is the ideal tool for any complex application with multi-layered and Angular or any advanced JS framework.
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Other Tools (Hosting service, GIT-tools, standard/often-used libraries, etc.)

The setup process definitely includes plenty of more tools according to the developer’s preference. Such an additional piece of software, VS Code extensions, GIT-tools, hosting service, browser extensions, etc. For hosting the developed webpages, one has 3 options:

• Traditional dedicated hosting services.
• The personalized virtual servers on the cloud through paid hosting services.
• Managed hosting services, which is managed by a service provider.

For VS Code extensions, there’s a full package of JS-related tooling, including NPM and TypeScript support, ESLint, Prettier, Live Server and TODO Highlighter.

For browser extensions, some of the popular tools include React and Redux Dev-Tools for Firefox and Chrome.

Wrapping Up 

Lastly, selecting a repository hosting service which is very important for a complex application. Depending on the budget, one can choose any repository hosting service among multiple choices like GitHub, BitBucket, Microsoft Team Foundation Server, etc. Repositories provide the option of code sharing, which helps to share one’s code to be reviewed by the customer as well as with their peers.