Top Web Development Tools -2015

                                                      
1. CSS Pre-Processors

CSS has redesigned the front-end Web development for users. The syntax is fairly easy to understand and use. You can use multiple style sheets in your project. It becomes hard to maintain the flow of code in case of a large project, where thousands of CSS lines are written in the style-sheet. CSS pre-processors come in very handy in such situations. These tools help you write CSS with variables and functions. You can compile this program in browse compliant CSS format using these tools. There are a number of CSS pre-processors available online. We recommend to use Sass, LESS,Stylus and Myth.

2. Template Engine

Creating HTML front-end for websites is fairly simple. You can use multiple HTML pages and create a web portal for a website. Most of web pages have very generic components like Header, Sidebar and Footer. Template engine helps you edit multiple pages at once. You need not do a lot of manual work while editing components across pages. We recommend using Kit, Jade and Handlebars. Template engine has simplified the pain of building a static website.

3. Task Runner

Task Runner is a process to build repetitive content in the website. Task Runners automate a number of processes like Minification, Compilation, Unit Testing, Linting, Concatenating Files and Browser Refreshing. It is very easy to automate specific tasks using Task Runner. You can leverage the features in Task Runner to compile LESS file in CSS. Task Runner helps in streamlining workflow. We recommend using Grunt andGulp. 

4. Synchronised Testing Tool

Synchronized Testing is an unavoidable process of building a mobile-friendly website. These tools help you test your website on multiple devices. The tool allows you to test your Web page on different formats instantly. It also tests website features like scrolling, clicking, zoom-in across all devices. You can use a popular pluginBrowserSync and Ghostlab for synchronized testing. 

5. Development Toolkit

Development Toolkit is a one-stop shop for all web development tools. It consists of number of tools in one application. We recommend Codekit as it includes LESS, Saas, Kit, Jade, Siml, Uglify, Bower and some other important features. However, Codekit is available exclusively for Mac OS X, We recommend using Prepros for Windows and Koala-app for Linux users. 

Top 10 Free And Open Source Blogging Platforms For Developers

The major blogging platforms like WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr – these are not designed for hackers. Out of the box these popular blogging platforms lack in a lot of things like code syntax highlighting, markup language support besides HTML and so on. If you are looking for a blogging platform which is programmer-friendly then here we will provide you a list of 10 free and open source blogging platforms which are designed keeping developers' requirements in mind.

1. Hexo: 

Hexo is a blogging platform which is powered by Node.js. Its has hacker-friendly features like native support for GitHub Flavored Markdown (GMF) and you can also template and extend capabilities using EJS, Swig and Stylus. Hexo can be installed within a few seconds through $ npm install hexo -g.



2. Jekyll: 

Jekyll is a static site generator which compiles your markup files into Web-ready HTML documents. Jekyll has a steady-growing ecosystem, as there are several open source projects being developed for it like Octopress, JekyllBootstrap and Exitwp. Jekyll can be installed as a Ruby Gem through gem install jekyll.



3. Anchor CMS: 

Anchor CMS is a lightweight platform as its source code .zip archive is just a little over 200 KB. Anchor supports Markdown syntax, which seems to be easier for coders as it's quite natural for blog-writing and formatting. It also supports art-directed blogging.



4. Wheat: 

Wheat is a cool platform as it pulls articles from GitHub and then publishes it to the website. Wheat is developed with Node.js and can be installed as a Node packaged module: npm install wheat.

5. Nikola: 

Nikola is a static site generator which is strongly blog-oriented but it can also be used for any other type of website. It has a small codebase, which means "programmers can understand all of Nikola core in a day." Nikola supports an array of markup languages like reStructuredText, Markdown and of course HTML will do fine with it.



6. toto: 

toto is "the 10 second blog-engine for hackers” and it is a minimalist blogging engine which runs on Git. It means you can version-control your posts too.

7. Poet: 

Poet is a Node.js-powered blogging platform which gives you the ability to write your blog posts using a markup language, as per you wish. It can be Markdown, Jade or whatever you want. You can also customize routes for your blog posts.



8. Dropplets: 

Dropplets is a Markdown blogging platform which has a limited feature set. It helps you to spend more time in writing and less time in improvising matters.

9. Pelican: 

Pelican, a static site generator, is written in Python. It supports reStructuredText, Markdown, or AsciiDoc markup. It also features code syntax highlighting out of the box and an importing feature for data coming from other publishing platforms such WordPress. Theming can be done using Jinja2.



10. Bolt: 

Bolt is a content management system which can be used for other purposes outside blogging. It uses Twig for templating and its own Symphony debug bar is used for tracing code issues. You can choose from SQLite, MySQL or PostgreSQL.