Open Source Web Development Tools

I have been playing catchup lately trying to wrap my head around web developmentwith Node.js, and the npm ecosystem. There are so many tools available and packages to stitch together. I’m in awe of the amount of development in the javascript community. There’s a lot to learn to become familiar with each project and what it does without even learning how to use it.

Here’s a list of the more popular tools and frameworks:

Code: CoffeeScript, TypeScript Frameworks: Express, Flatiron Templates: Jade, Mustache/Handlebars Style: Less, Sass Frameworks: Express, Ember Test Frameworks: Mocha, Selenium Platforms: Angular, Backbone, Meteor Package Management: npm, Bower Build: Grunt, Gulp Text Editors: Sublime, Vim, Brackets Database: MongoDB, CouchDB, Redis

There’s a lot to pick and choose from. I’m used to all things Microsoft. Its a very homogonized community with fewer players. Everyone writes c#, uses Visual Studio and TFS, Microsoft Test Framework, SQL, MSBuild, and writes ASP.NET websites and services and XAML in desktop or for windows store apps. Javascript, for me, was someting to be bothered with occasionally when I wanted to use google maps.

Now, there are choices to be made and in this new world I have difficulty coming up with criteria to evaluate upon. I’m learning how these pieces fit together, and I have scant preferences. My strategy is to see what people around me in the community are using, and to try what they do.