5 Useful Tools for a Full-stack Developer

The below tools will help you increase your productivity and reduce compilation issues on running a debug job (Jenkins), allowing us to maintain a smoother Production run.

1. Rest-Client/Postman:

A must-have tool for API developers and consumers at all levels of experience. This plugin/extension can be used to test a Rest-API calls, which you have developed via Back-end code (Java) before integrating it with the front-end code (i.e, AJAX call).

Postman provides an environment in which tests can be written and run without any additional setup.

You can add it from chrome browser as an extension

RESTClient supports all HTTP methods. You can construct custom HTTP request (custom method with resources URI and HTTP request Body) to directly test requests against a server.

You can add the plugin from firefox as a plugin.

The rest client has a few drop-downs to decide on the type of request or response

i) Authentication: it can either be Basic Auth or Oauth type.

ii) Headers: Accept: application/json

iii) View: Can either be a response or request

iv) Method: Can either be POST, GET, DELETE, PUT these are some of the frequently used one's

v) URL: Pass the Rest URL that you want to test

vi) Body: You can pass the appropriate data to test. eg : Json

The Response will give you the status code as part of headers.

Data returned by the rest call as a response

2) JSlint in Aptana Studio (JavaScript):

If you install Aptana Studio, a free Eclipse plug-in, you get an JavaScript IDE with support for Ext, jQuery and other major libraries. JSLint will warn you whilst writing code.

Refer steps in the image to enable Aptana

3) Jsonlint:

We often make use of JSON to pass data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and array data types, while developing Front-End (UI code) for storing and exchanging data. This tool helps you to validate and reformat JSON data.

To add it as a plugin

or alternatively you can use the url to validate your Json format

4) Java Decompiler:

The tool helps us to decompile and analyze Java “byte code”, i.e to cross-verify your changes inside the jar. You can use the link below to either add it as a plugin to eclipse or use it as a external tool.

5) Memory Analyser Tool (JvisualVM, JMAT, JMAP):

It is used for performance analysis of an application. You can analyse it, by generating the Java heap dump and Thread dump.

To integrate with eclipse as a Plugin

You can use below link to run it as a separate application

You can click on the below link for detailed explanation on how to add JvisualVM as a plugin to eclipse and use the Memory Analyser Tool to find the memory leaks.

Analysis of Memory Leak in Java Applications via Heap Dump

Heap dump generation & Analysis Tools

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