After I heard and read a lot about it, I decided to give Ghostlab a try today. Ghostlab is a tool for front end development that allows you to preview and debug your front end code in multiple browsers on different devices simultaneously. It also compiles SASS, LESS, CoffeeScript and a bunch of other abstractions of standard web technologies.

Ghostlab didn’t really fit in with me today. I already use Grunt that provides a lot of identical functionality and in combination with MAMP Pro and xip.io, I have a very minimalistic toolchain for front end development. I like to keep things lean because I want to focus more on actual code than on tinkering with tools. I’m also very picky about new tools that come (and go) every so often.

Don’t get me wrong: I think we should be open to new tools and technologies. But at the same time we have to be mindful of what we adopt. We should evaluate tools carefully and never use anything just because X and Y use it too and Z says, that he can’t imagine working without it anymore. At least for me it’s a matter of simplicity and not of tools for tools sake. In the end, the result is always the same: front end code. And browsers don’t care which tools created it, as long as it’s done right. That’s what I learnt today.