Setting Up Your Dev Environment

I've compiled a list of sites, tools, and extensions I've enjoyed using for anyone looking to get started on their own development journey.

Learning

Developing software means learning to learn. Visualization and teaching are the most direct ways to create new neural pathways. Create projects you'd want to use to flex your new skills and sprinkle fun into whatever you're doing. Jim Kwik's Limitless is worth a read to kickstart your learning journey.

Tutorials

freeCodeCamp

Level Up

Reading & Listening

dev.to

CodeNewbie

Syntax FM

Playing & Prototyping

Sites for when I want to play around or prototype an idea and not have to deal with environment config:

Glitch

Replit

CodeSandbox

Terminal

I use the default mac terminal since I enjoy the winky sass the icon serves me and it does everything I want :) shout out to iterm2 as a more fully featured option. I use zsh with oh my zsh

Xcode CLI tools: xcode-select —-install

Source Control

Text Editor

Extensions:

Material Theme

Material Icons

EsLint

Prettier

Live Server

Bracket Pair Colorizer

Import Cost

Browsers

You'll want to get familiar with the dev tools in your browser of choice and have multiple browsers to QA your apps on. Get extensions for viewing JSON, React / Vue Dev Tool extensions, and an ad blocker while you're at it ;)

Firefox Developer Edition

Chrome

Servers

Once you want to start playing around with storing content in a database and creating an API to access it you'll want to explore cloud services such as AWS, Heroku, or DigitalOcean

have fun!