We’ve touched on this before in past VLOGS but maybe you haven’t seen that one or you want a more up-to-date take on this subject.
So, short answer: Java is really best for web application development, and Android client development. It never took off for desktop applications (we go into more detail in the VLOG).
If you don’t believe us, check out the job market. We would venture to guess that very little to zero jobs are going to have you building desktops apps with JAVA; “JAVA is not client-side, …it is server-side programming”.
The VLOG comes equipped with not only my lovable mug crooning to you about all the finer points about this, but I also offer solutions to in forms of other languages and options that will optimize your time and output for creating desktop apps. You should check it out, it’s less than 4 minutes!
Some criteria to consider when selecting a programming language to learn…
We get this question all the time in some form or another; “I really want to be a developer, but what language (programming) should I learn?” Well, let’s jump into it:
1- Consider the Job: The type of coding or kind of programming you want to do. For example do you need to do/want to build an iOS or android app? Web for small businesses? Etc… These decisions will play a role in what language you choose. 2- Consider the Ecosystem around the Language: You don’t necessarily want to jump into a technology that was not yet well enough established. Generally speaking if there’s no support/community for that framework/language, it might not progress or evolve with the “times”… 3- Consider the Job Opportunities Around the Language: Kinda relates to #2, if there’s not a lot of cross-platform support or community base, then generally speaking, you’re going to have a hard time finding a job with a more obscure language… Sometimes the “niche” market pays off but those opportunities are few and far between. 4- Consider the Market Forces: Competition can play a big role in choosing a language. How many other devs will you be competing against? What’s their experience? What is the Language that the majority of the market uses? All these things should at least be considered when you’re choosing a language.
Now that we’ve wound you up tight with anxiety and nervousness for choosing the right language (or failing miserably right out of the gate), let us offer you calming and relaxing idea to soothe you mind… It doesn’t really matter what language you pick… “Most of the modern languages share 80-90% (depending on language) of the same principles and constructs. The syntax or code that you write may be different, but at the end of the day…it’s the underlying architecture that makes the language…” so don’t worry about nailing your choice right outta the gate.
Check out the vlog for a more in depth explanation of how to go about choosing a language. And when in doubt, choose an open platform over a closed one; they tend to win out in the end. Enjoy.
I often laugh when I think to myself that even in a digital world, we still need a place to put all our stuff. Whether it be .txt files, videos, or pics, as long as we have a place to put stuff, we can let our digital hoarder run free!
But what’s the best option for “backin’ dat work up?” Well, for those of us who still remember the days of totally NOT downloading illegal mp3s, there were backup drives that you could buy and that took up physical space. They ranged in storage size, price and quality but they did the trick…until that is, they were lost, destroyed, or even (dun, dun, DUHN!!) corrupted.
So, this should come as no surprise: we recommend “cloud storage” for a few reasons: 1- It’s Automatic: “if you have to manually backup your backup, it’s not a good backup.” There’s going to come a time when you forget to backup and that’s when files will be lost or corrupted. Automatic is nice and easy and most times, seamless. 2- Affordable: If you’re coding, generally speaking your work isn’t going to take up much space and even if it does, the price of a 2 terabyte (TB) hardrive (that you will have to replace in 5-10 years, if it hasn’t blown out already) is wayyyyy more than a cloud service that costs you 10-15$ a year for that kind of space. I mean most cloud storage services offered are free as long as you keep them under a certain amount of gig (GB)… 3- Peace of Mind: “…the chance that Apple’s cloud drive goes or that Google’s cloud drive goes, are a billion to one.” And yes, we have heard of celebrity’s cloud drives being “hacked”, but some major fail-safes would have to be breached for that to happen and security is already pretty tight and getting tighter everyday. Also, for the average person who’s backing up their work, we’re pretty sure you have much less to worry about…
Check out the video below for deeper look into the subject as we try and figure out what to do with all these fried back up drives we have that bring us NO joy…
Another breaking discovery from the Department of Urban Humanity or ‘DUH’: “You are a flesh and blood human being and the software “tools” you choose do not define you. Whatever programs, hardware, etc. other people use is their own business and has nothing to do with you. Go live your life!”
The main reason for this VLOG is because we had the audacity to mention that some lifelong MAC users were switching to WINDOWS for a bunch of reasons, hardware inconsistencies, etc… And some people (and one in particular) practically pooped a kitten!
Now, trolls and general sh*t disturbers aside, we know that most people either have too much common sense or not enough time to care about this statement. But for those of you who genuinely have your back up: “it’s just an opinion, man. Who cares!”
Check out the VLOG below or if you feel like you’re on the outside looking in, checkout the links to some great courses that we offer, that way you can learn coding and then spew your opinion all over the internet…or take those amazing skills and become a highly paid and respected DEVELOPER SUPREME!!
Full transparency: We have a book and we do videos, so we know what we’re talking about having been on both sides of the fence… And of course, our answer is (unsurprisingly) both-ish; kinda like a two pronged attack…
Books are great for referencing material, for example, you need to look something up, you find the page and boom: there it is! As opposed to sometimes having to watch a 15-20 minute video that has great material but it’s buried deep in the vid. You might have to start jumping around on the time bar to find it or it won’t be covered til minute 8 or the 15 minutes, which can be pretty frustrating when time is a factor.
Video on the other hand is great for “…engaging with the material you just learned.” If you’ve been following us for awhile, you know we have online courses that are tailor-made to helping you learn and then put to practice (through questions, exercises, etc.) the things you just learned. While with a book the learning tends to be more passive and in the case of retention, it’s hard to put it down sometimes and start practicing what you just read…
Now we’re not knocking anyone’s learning style, if you can retain and use information you’ve just read in a book, that’s great! We’re just trying to lay out what we think is the best of both worlds and will yield the best results vs. effort. Check out the vid where we go into MAJOR detail. And check out our links at the bottom to our kickass courses: it’s super effective! Enjoy!
The face of native mobile development is changing indeed … and fast!
Okay, so a couple of months ago we talked about SWIFT and how we felt it was going to “lose market share” because frameworks like FLUTTER, React, etc. were going to put more pressure on native development (like SWIFT) with their sheer versatility… it did not go over well with the SWIFT OG’s… but if we could just have a moment of your time, I’m sure we can make things worse… 🙂
“Flutter allows you to write cross-platform mobile applications (iOS & Android) using one language: DART, one framework: FLUTTER framework, and it’s created by google; and what interesting about FLUTTER -it compiles down to native so you don’t have a ‘performance hit'”.
Now, traditionally when you use frameworks, you don’t have access to certain things that you would with native but the major concern when creating FLUTTER was to give developers the ability to customize and have access to everything…in other words: flexibility. Writing and maintaining one code base which is responsive, compiles down to native is gives you a lot of control over UX and UI is pretty attractive and while no framework is perfect, it’s pretty close…
In the video we go into more detail and hit on a few interesting points. Check it out, it’s worth a look. Enjoy!
Widely used by some big name organizations like Nasa and Harvard, is a job working with DRUPAL outdated in 2019?
DRUPAL is (arguably) the 2nd most popular CMS in the world…second only to WordPress (again, arguably…). There a many high paying DRUPAL jobs out there. To work with DRUPAL, you need to know HTML5, CSS3, some JavaScript and PHP … and of course, you need to know DRUPAL.
We’ve been asked if DRUPAL is a dinosaur, an aging language that won’t matter in the years to come and if anyone who works in it will be working towards obsolescence (whoa…heavy, huh?).
Well the short answer is “…no…”
The long answer is (thankfully) a little more detailed and availablehere in what I’d like to be the first to describe as a “Sausage” explanation. In that it is both meaty (detailed) and has a hint of spiciness (fun nerd ranting) mixed in…yeah, ya know what never mind, I’m regretting this metaphor already…apologies…
Suffice it to say that it’s better to experience this explanation in it’s entirety, with the relevant senses than to write it out. Plus, there a bonus RUBY dig (mwahaha…). Long story short if this is a first job for you, we all have to start somewhere and work looks good on a resume no matter what (not to mention experience) and you’d be surprised how many languages are still being used today…
Enjoy!
Mobile app development has moved toward hybrid apps, using the web stack (HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript,) and frameworks like Phonegap or React Native.
But when it comes to the development of high demand (in terms of performance) mobile apps, using native languages like Swift for iOS and Java for Android is still the way to go. This might change with Googles Flutter framework.
I recently watched Google’s presentation of their Pixel phones. The thing is, it wasn’t really about the phone, it was much more about Google’s push into more advanced Ai through Google Assistant.
