What’s Unique In Codepen? Why Developers Should Use This Code Editor?
What’s Codepen?
The company describes it to be an essential thing for front-end design and developers. It is great for testing out bugs, collaborating, and finding new inspiration.
It works by allowing the user to create “pens”, which are mainly sets of HTML, CSS, JavaScript. You can then showcase those pens on your profile, take feedback, and continue to edit those pens at any time.
Here Are Some Reasons That Will Make You Start Using Codepen
These are those big reasons due to which you should start using Codepen.
1. For a hassle-free and quick coding experience
It is highly easy to get started with the Codepen. Here, you don’t need to set up a development environment, running servers for live previews to creating the HTML, CSS, and JS files.
It offers the fastest way for the users to get started on a new idea or concept you have been thinking about. Other than the fact that creating pens is fairly easy, the development process and the workflow are smooth and pleasing.
2. Highly customizable editor
The editor that it offers has highly customizable options and can provide various development workflows.
Besides this, it offers a number of views for your pens, which include
- Editor review
- Details view
- Full page
- Debugging mode (it offers much more in case you have pro membership)
On the other hand, the tab that belongs to settings offers great customizability options. A user has the option to use HTML and CSS pre-cursors such as Haml, Slim, and Pug, etc.
You will be surprised to know that even JavaScript can be written as CoffeeScript or TypeScript.
It seriously doesn’t matter, even if you don’t have any idea about any of these names when you are just starting out and focusing on the basics. Other than this, you can also refer to CSS or Js files in your pens.
3. Showing off your skills and experience
You will be aghast to know that Codepen has a really big community where you can show your skills. Having an impressive profile of Codepen can speak a lot about your skills and experience in the web development community.
You can think of it as a development portfolio where you can easily display coding skills to anyone who is interested.
4. Blogs
Blogging is a new and the latest feature of Codepen that allows the user to easily write about your code and experience, which is similar to a regular blog.
You can simply write with and markdown and use a special embedding tool to embed your pen when you need to. You can also add custom CSS to your posts, and for that, there is a simple preview to test out your post.
5. Inspiration
As we have mentioned earlier, Codepen has a big community of really talented and creative developers. You can find inspiration on anything you want to try in seconds.
For that, you can follow the collection and projects of people and can even edit their pens for exploring the ins and outs of their code.
Conclusion
In the end, we would like to say that every developer out there must be using this to maximize the extent. If you also feel like coding something new, learning browser pens from others, or simply want to experiment with new frameworks, then Codepen is ideal for you.
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