Great tools for Website and online Developers

In this post I discuss a number of services and tools I've used in the past to keep organised and also for personal development.

At the moment, with the massive rise in open source projects there are so many great tools for developers. This post will outline the tools I use to help make my development life much easier.

GOGS

Gogs Logo (site tools)

For git repositories, GoGits (GoGs) is a great self hosted tool. GoGits is heavily influenced by Github in both its design and functionality. The way I use it is for hosting projects any projects which I may need to access elsewhere. At the moment I am primarily using it to test out new things and host a big range of projects that I can pick up when the mood strikes.

Built with Go, GoGits is an extra dependency to install on the server. Having multiple sites on one server I run it behind Apache which handles the SSL and means all my sites are configured in a similar way. I'm sure that GoGs offers all the functionality of having it be setup without the need for Apache. Maybe that's something for me to add to my trello list.

Why not Github?

For a regular user like me I think that GoGs is probably a bit of an overkill as I don't use half of the functionality it ships with. Having the ability to easily setup new repositories and just code though is great and incredibly useful. People probably are asking the question "Why don't you just do it on GitHub?". Three reasons:

  1. I use GoGs for testing and throwaway projects most of the time, so might not necessarily want them to be seen.
  2. I get the flexibility of everything been in one place where I can just share or make repos private without needing to worry about costs or another companies licences (Microsoft is coming!).
  3. The experience. It's great to have something like this on a CV as it shows interest and are passion for the web and server configuration.

All in all I think GoGs is an awesome tool and if you feel like taking advantage of any of the benefits I mentioned above I'd recommend giving it a shot.

Trello

Trello Logo (Site Tools)

I mostly use Trello at the moment for a single massive board where I have a big list of things I want to learn and build. Trello makes it easy to just quickly note down any thoughts you may have wherever you are and everything always keeps in sync. It's free and I'd definitely recommend it.

Personal Website

Wordpress Logo (Site Tools)

I first had the idea whilst looking for a new job to have a blog. Somewhere I could record my thoughts and share some of the things I have discovered with others. The site holds most of my CV and a few other blog posts which you may find interesting.

The site also allows me to document my ideas and give me something to look back to. The foundation for the site is currently Wordpress just using the twenty seventeen theme. I did build it with the thought of building my own theme and learn a bit about plugins. Other things have however got in the way, as they often do so that part is on halt for the moment.

MediaWiki

MediaWiki (Site Tools)

I setup my own wiki which I would recommend to anyone. It runs on MediaWiki, a free to use PHP based Wiki site. I primarily use it to document anything I feel I may need to check/do repeatedly in the future. A great example of this is simple commands to refresh SSL certificates and various configuration examples from different frameworks. This helps greatly in keeping things documented and in a safe place where I know I can find them.

Conclusion

This concludes some of the main tools I am using on a daily basis, the majority of which are to help with project management and planning. I'm keen in future to share some of the tools which I use for development in a future post.

Talk soon!

Headshot of Jaymeh with slightly smiling face

Posted By: Jaymeh Sykes

On: 27/10/2018


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