As a web developer, you’re probably used to working with several different tools and languages. But every so often, it’s necessary to take a step back from the day-to-day grind of coding and evaluate how you can improve your web development workflow. You might want to do this on your own or with your team—either way, it is okay. In this article, we’ll talk about ways developers can modernize their workflow to make it more efficient and enjoyable.
In this section, we’ll discuss what modernizing your workflow means, why it’s vital in today’s web development and technology, and then give some examples of how you can modernize yours.
Enter DevOps
DevOps is a term that refers to the collaboration between software developers, QA professionals, and IT operations professionals. DevOps aims to improve communication between these groups so that they can work together more effectively on a product or service.
Today, multi-cloud DevOps is becoming increasingly important for organizations that want to gain a competitive edge. This is because many companies are moving away from traditional infrastructure and adopting cloud-based solutions, which allow them to scale their businesses up or down quickly depending on customer demand. As IT organizations become more agile, they need to work together seamlessly to keep pace with the demands of modern business.
DevOps helps you modernize your web development workflow by bringing in technical practices such as continuous integration (CI), automated testing, deployments, and monitoring. These are all critical elements of a modern web development environment because they allow teams to work faster, more efficiently, and with better quality standards.
How CSS preprocessors have changed what we do
At its core, CSS is a way to define the appearance of a web page. And for as long as there has been CSS, people have wanted to make it more powerful. That’s where preprocessors come in. They allow you to write regular CSS that can then be transformed into something more potent by a processor before being sent out to render on your users’ browsers. Examples of popular CSS preprocessors include Less, Sass and Stylus. These preprocessors have made CSS much more powerful.
What are the benefits of using CSS preprocessors?
Preprocessors allow you to do things with your code that native CSS doesn’t support easily or at all—like using variables and functions (as well as many other features). This makes it easier for teams working together on large sites without stepping on each other’s toes by accidentally changing variables they shouldn’t touch; plus, it allows developers more freedom when creating new designs without having to worry about whether they’ll work with existing stylesheets at all times while they’re designing new pages or making changes elsewhere within their project structure.
The role of static site generators in the game
Static site generators are an excellent tool for web development. They’re fast, scalable, and easy to maintain, making them ideal for developers’ teams. Static sites are more straightforward than dynamic sites because they don’t require a database or other back-end tech; instead, they create HTML files based on your content. This means less maintenance overall—and if you’re using a static site generator popular in the community (like Jekyll or Hugo), plenty of plugins are available to help you customize your workflow even further.
A big part of modernizing your web development workflow involves ensuring you have access to all the tools that will make things easier for everyone involved with the project—including yourself!
Using Git for collaboration and version control
Git is a version control system for tracking changes to computer files and coordinating work on those files among multiple people. It’s not just a version control system. However, it’s also a distributed revision control system (DVCS). This means that instead of committing your code to one central repository, it can be hosted in multiple locations.
While Git was initially created by Linus Torvalds and several other Linux kernel developers under “Git,” today, many different implementations and variations on the theme are available.
It’s a free software project with an active community and lots of documentation, so there are many reasons why you might want to adopt Git into your web development workflow!
How Task Runners help us improve development speed and efficiency
Task runners are tools that automate repetitive tasks in your web development workflow. These tools can help you speed up your development by automating things like compiling stylesheets, minifying JavaScript files, and optimizing images.
Task runners are handy when working with modern JavaScript frameworks like React or Vue.js, which require a lot of manual steps to get started. Task runners simplify this process by configuring everything for you automatically, so you don’t have to worry about it!
Examples of famous task runners include Gulp, Grunt, and BroccoliJS.
AI & web development go hand in hand
Machine learning is a subfield of artificial intelligence that focuses on using statistical techniques so that software can “learn” from data. You’ve probably heard about machine learning in the context of self-driving cars (which use it to navigate roads, avoid obstacles and react to other drivers). Still, it’s also having an impact on web development workflows.
At its core, machine learning allows us to automate repetitive tasks and make smarter decisions through big data analysis. For web developers, this translates into tools that can build websites with fewer bugs; for example:
- Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool automatically identifies optimization opportunities for your site based on things like file size and load times;
- The W3C’s Validator API checks code syntax against the official standards guide;
- And Contentful provides content management services with built-in support for responsive design and internationalization (i18n).
Conclusion
In this post, we’ve explored how CSS preprocessors have changed the web development landscape. We’ve also looked at the role of static site generators in the game and how Git helps us improve development speed and efficiency. Last, we learned how Task Runners help us automate tedious tasks so we can focus on the more important stuff!