Sunday, February 14, 2016

Weekend Reader, Week 6: Bricks

Software is not made of bricks

Once you understand that software is not a simple pile of bricks, you understand that the minimum level of competence required to contribute positively to a project is non-trivial.

I think this essay should be a “must read” for anyone involved into software development. It shows the problems with the widespread mentality that developing a piece of software is like building something fairly simple out of bricks.
One point which shows the fundamental difference between laying bricks and software development particularly stuck with me: Skilled developers typically come up with solutions that are simpler and consist of less code than less skilled developers. This does not fit a “brick mentality”, where you have a fixed amount of bricks to move.

ChakraCore is now Open-Source

The JavaScript engine by Microsoft is now available under the MIT License at the ChakraCore GitHub repository.

There is already a pull request to make Node.js run on ChakraCore. And there is a new node-chakracore repo under the Node.js Foundation. Unfortunately it seems that it is only working on windows for now …

Project Raider

JetBrains is building a cross-platform C# IDE … the missing piece in true cross-platform .NET development.

Angular 2 versus React: There Will Be Blood

Of course the title is link-bait and the article is provocative. But it is still a good comparison between the different approaches and concepts used in Angular2 and React.

Video: Be Predictable, Not Correct

The talk gives a good overview to different approaches for data-binding in current web-frameworks. It also explains the concept and benefits of using a virtual dom.

Piracy in online education

There was a lot of money to be made if you got into online education early: Scott Allen earned over one million dollars in 2013 from his Pluralsight courses!

Today the landscape looks not that promising any more… especially Udemy seems to attract/enable piracy and price-dumping:

The Sad State of Web Development

The web (specifically the Javascript/Node community) has created some of the most complicated, convoluted, over engineered tools ever conceived.

A very critical view on the current trends in web development. The author seems pretty frustrated … but he has some points.

Shields Down

Happy people don’t leave jobs they love

An accurate analysis how people get to the point where they quit their job. I have gone through that process many times in my career …

Coders Without Clothes

Without comment …

Funny: This is what happens when you reply to spam email

If you like it, here are more scam baiting stories: 419 Eater

Tweets of the week:

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Saturday, February 13, 2016

Trainings and Courses Update

The first month in 2016 was very busy in regard to my trainings. I updated my courses to reflect the latest trends in web development:

I held a 3 day course at SBB for JavaScript and AngularJS. I updated this course to contain a module about the ES6/ES2015 language and corresponding tooling with Webpack and Babel.

I also updated my course module in the CAS “Mobile Application Development” at the University of Applied Sciences. Besides HTML5 as a platform for mobile development I am also teaching an intro to Ionic and React Native. These frameworks show two different approaches for mobile development that are using current web technologies.

In February & March I will run two 3-day in-house courses about JavaScript and Angular development at ELCA.

In April I will run a 4-day in-house course at Puzzle. In this course I will compare Angular and React/Flux and it will also contain an intro to Angular 2.

Please contact me, if you are intersted in a course about those latest trends in web technologies.

I will also continue to offer public courses in 2016:

At DigiComp my next course “Frontend-Entwicklung mit AngularJS” is scheduled for April.

At BBV Academy my next course “Frontend-Entwicklung mit JavaScript & AngularJS” is scheduled for May.

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Sunday, January 3, 2016

Weekend Reader, New Year's Edition

Microsoft’s modern JavaScript Engine is going Open-Source

Chakra, the JavaScript Engine that powers Microsoft Edge is going open-source!
This is very interesting, since Chakra is currently the fastest JavaScript engine and the engine with the widest ES6 compatibility.
Microsoft already showed that Node.js can run on top of Chakra. I am curious if this will be a scenario picked up by the open-source community …

However right now, the step to open-source has not yet happened. According to the announcement it will happen “after the holidays”.

Visual Studio Code is Open-Source

Open-source, once scolded as “cancer”, is becoming the new black at Microsoft. The sources of Visual Studio Code are available on Github.
Also Visual Studio Code now supports extensions.

Exploring the new .NET “dotnet” Command Line Interface (CLI)

Apart from the fact that .NET Core and ASP.NET 5 will be cross-platform, Microsoft is also working on a simple cross-platform CLI for .NET… It very much looks like Node/NPM!
I am really looking forward when .NET development becomes as accessible as Node development is today. With the possibilities to develop .NET on Mac/Linux and to run .NET application on Linux servers. Combine the elegance of C# and the dynamic compilation of ASP.NET with the simplicity of this CLI and you get a package that looks really productive for all kinds of enterprise applications … hard times for Java :-)

Free eBook: Modern Java EE Design Patterns

Hmm… I did not read the whole book, but I rather skimmed it. In my opinion this book is not about Java EE. It is about microservices, and it claims that microservices are the “modern” way for developing enterprise applications. It shows some interesting patterns for implementing applications with microservices.
But it also shows that Java EE does not offer much for microservices and in appendix A it lists a set of technologies that are (in my opinion) better suited for implementing micorservices.

Free eBook: Professor Frisby’s Mostly Adequate Guide to Functional Programming

A very readable introduction to the concepts of functional programming in JavaScript. Currying, functional composition, functors … learn all those constructs and many more.

Apps: The iPad Pro has an App Store problem

Apps on iOS sell for unsustainably low prices

I really like my iPad Pro. For most scenarios it replaced my iPad Air (execpt reading in bed). However the app landscape of optimized apps for the iPad Pro really is disappointing. This article has an explanation why.

Funny: Bret Victor - The Future of Programming

A really interesting presentation from 1973 … or is it? Funny in a geeky way but also very insightfull.

Tweets of the Week

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