Tools for Web Developers
Every profession has its preferred set of tools. In addition to the standard markup, style, and client- and server-side programming languages, Web Designers/Developers have an array of tools to choose from.
Browsers
For users, choice of browser is not as important as it is for Web professionals. For us, the browser is our key testing and debugging tool, so it’s crucial we have the best at our disposal.
Many Web professionals recommend Firefox as the primary browser. I use Firefox exclusively for all my browser work. Firefox follows accepted standards for rendering markup and style sheets, as well as provides a robust DOM tree and Javascript interpretor. Additionally, Firefox has a number of addon available which are geared towards helping Web pros find and fix errors.
In addition to testing web pages in Firefox, it’s also important to test in IE. Current releases of IE perform better than previous, but there are still subtle differences in CSS rendering. Testing will reveal those differences before your user finds them. Fortunately, there’s a Firefox addon which opens the IE parsing engine in a tab, removing the need to open IE separately to test and streamlining the testing process.
Addons
Probably the most important and interesting addon for web designs/developers is FireBug. This is useful for testing CSS positioning and Box Model settings, as well as finding Javascript bugs. I find myself using it in almost every work session.
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