5 apps/software that every developer must have in their PCs

5 min readSep 15, 2018

3 and a half years into my career as a Software Engineer, I recalled my days as a college computer student. I think every young developer can relate to those projects that require us to create a program, design a website, launch a mobile app or even layout a poster using Photoshop. The first 2 years in college was a bit more focused on the basics, foundation of algorithms and design, that didn’t really require us to have our own laptop, well in my case, I was dependent with the PCs we have at school. By 3rd year college, I was very fortunate to be given my laptop for school on my 18th birthday ❤ as I was installing programs, I never really thought about what are needed for my development. I just installed the basics: MS Word, text editor, the software we use at school (codeblocks, eclipse and Dreamweaver), and I thought I was all set.

During revisions and debugging, when I had changes to my soft of working code, I would copy paste and name it according to how I felt that day. I still have my back folders with filenames final_project or final_projectforsubmit and the names evolve as time went by.

Now at work, I learned a lot of tools that is very useful for development and is a must in my life as a Developer.

Allow me to share my list of apps that I never really appreciated or used before back when I was at school. So for any college student going through their first steps in to technology, install these software fast :) Here are 5 apps/software that is a must for every developer or aspiring ones ;)

Git

By definition, Git is a version control system for tracking changes in computer files and coordinating work on those files among multiple people. It is primarily used for source code management in software development, but it can be used to keep track of changes in any set of files. Say goodbye to your folders with the weird names. Git allows us to save our files in the cloud and give us detailed information about your changes. You can always stash and fetch old and new versions depending on your need. You have apps like source tree to help you have a view with all you pending and submitted data. Also, as you store this one at the cloud, you can access it anywhere as long as you have your user information. Lastly, if you ever want to kick off your portfolio or even share content for other developers (open source content), you definitely need to have a git repository.

Data Comparison Utility (Diff Checker)

According to PC Tools, A file comparison utility helps you visually compare and merge the differences between two (or more) different versions of the same file, or detect the variations between two different sets of data. These types of utilities are often called “Diff” programs.

Different types of file comparison utilities exist, each tailored for specific types of data and file formats.

Back in college, I was already familiar with the git. This tool however is my favorite one among the 5 I’m listing. I was introduced to this tool when I was starting in my first job. I was really impressed in how easy it is to compare the changes we made in the code. I can remember the moments before during capstone of me trying to find the modifications done from the previous working app. Beyond compare is really a amazing tool for data comparisons. It can differentiate and determine what was done and how to easily revert it. If you have your favorite diff check, feel free to comment below.

Favorite IDE or Text Editor

An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. Some has built in libraries and other functions that checks your code, port necessary libraries and functions and even build checks your code.

Photo Manipulation or Image Editing Software

Project Management Tool (Scrum Board or Your Simple To Do List)

Project management tools are aids to assist an individual or team to effectively organize work and manage projects and tasks. The term usually refers to project management software you can purchase online or even use for free. Despite its name, project management tools are not just forproject managers.