15 Useful Applications For A Programming/Design Student

Hello, steemians all across the world! Today I'd like to showcase fifteen useful programs that a programming students, like me, could use in their studies in order to maximize their learning potential and enhance their technical/practical abilities as well.

Image source: Pixabay.com

Although my study program does not revolve solely around programming but also on different other related areas such as design, user get-to-know theories, image processing, audio processing, and video processing (just to name a few), I can totally voice for the following series of applications/programs from the list below given my productive past and current experience with virtually speaking all of them.

Thus, without further ado, let's get started!

1. LaTex

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Most respectable universities with online repositories nowadays will ask their students to write down and complete a report using LaTex (or, alternatively, any other Microsoft Word-like application as well). The modality of installation for LaTex is up to the user itself, having to choose between either online or machine-compatible setups.

The positive aspect of using LaTex for writing down student reports compared to, for example Microsoft Word, LibreOffice, or Pages (the last one being compatible only on Macintosh devices), is the fact that you can equally learn some coding in the process. In spite of the fact that the code tags in LaTex constitute only a mark-up language (on par, for instance, with that of Wikipedia), using this program can help one tremendously with respect to developing an enriched programming paradigm.

Last but not least, if you're a student who's working in groups (just as me, once again), then you'll certainly benefit greatly from using LaTex in the prospect of growing your offline and online group work skills.

2. Canva

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An aspiring programmer must also take in account design when prototyping. Therefore, an online tool such as Canva can provide quick and satisfying design solutions from a multitude of templates.

3. GitHub

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GitHub is one of the largest online repositories which includes countless lines of code behind even some of the most popular programs and applications out there. Using GitHub and a specific GUI (i.e. graphical user interface) will clearly boost a student's code-sharing aptitudes up in a relatively short period of time.

4. GeoGebra

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Knowing mathematics for a wide range of multimedia applications is almost indispensable for most programming students these days. So it is that by using GeoGebra one can digitally study different branches of math, from arithmetics to complex vectorial geometry, all compiled in the very same place.

5. MatLab

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Just as with the aforementioned application, MatLab provided by MathWorks is a must for those who need to create projects that have a digital side to the math theories. With the use of MatLab, a student can both learn to code and solve math problems equally well.

6. Star UML

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Star UML is quite a handy application which will let the user create many types of UML diagrams which are ideally used throughout the whole process of prototyping.

7. Processing

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Processing is a free of charge IDE (i.e. integrated development environment) which is ideal for starting to program. It is user-friendly and exceptional for sandbox/easy coding in Java.

8. Eclipse

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Eclipse is yet another open source handy programming tool, though you have to be a little bit more experienced when it comes to programming in order to fully get the hang of it. In other words, you can consider it the level up of Processing.

9. Atom

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Atom (provided at http://atom.io) is a nicely designed text editor which can be a very powerful coding tool for many Macintosh users. It ensures cross-platform editing and GitHub integration, two more reasons why should try it out at some point.

10. Code::Blocks

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Code::Blocks is a pretty old school open source programming tool purposely used for programming languages such as C/C++ as well as Fortran. I remember using it while I was still in high school and it can prove efficient for C/C++ implementation.

11. Simple Mind

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In order to keep your ideas neatly ordered and organised in a brainstorm, you can try out Simple Mind, which lets the user start, edit, and complete creative mind maps.

12. Mendeley

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Mendeley is surely a handy referencing tool when it gets down to writing up any kind of academic report. The sooner you'll be using it in your education, definitely the better! Mendeley also provides the user with a series of Word or LibreOffice compatible plug-ins for citation.

13. Maya

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Maya provided by Autodesk is doubtlessly necessary for those who aim at getting a job as a graphic designer. The application ensures creation of marvelous, finely rendered 3D models and graphics.

14. Photoshop

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Photoshop is already a consecrated image processing software. Needless to say a graphic design student should have it in his/her toolbox, in spite of the somewhat excessive pricing for some of its versions.

15. GIMP

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Yet no where near the power of Photoshop according to many people, GIMP is the great free of charge alternative to it which provides basic image processing at zero costs, being compatible on multiple platforms.