You may have heard of this Apache Hadoop thing, used for Big Data processing along with associated projects like Apache Spark, the new shiny toy in the open source movement. They're among the most active and popular projects under the direction of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), a non-profit open source steward.
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Posted by David Ramel on May 3, 20160 comments
A fledgling effort to promote a new standard for styling JavaScript code is getting hung up on the issue of whether or not to use semicolons over at Hacker News.
The JavaScript Standard Style project on GitHub (and here on the Web) promises "one style to rule them all."
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Posted by David Ramel on April 28, 20160 comments
As chatbot Tay could tell you (hopefully without racist bigotry), bots are a hot topic in software development right now, with Microsoft and Facebook among the most prominent leaders guiding the movement.
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Posted by David Ramel on April 22, 20160 comments
Maybe this whole "teach everyone to code" thing wasn't such a good idea after all.
Emerging into the programming landscape is a new class of AI-assisted coding robots (or programming copilots) to train developers and augment their efforts. Their functionality is limited now, but they could signal the vanguard of an insidious uprising that one day will see you training your robotic replacement as your boss impatiently awaits his first command: "Siri (or whatever), wire me up a back-end to our new shopping app."
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Posted by David Ramel on April 19, 20160 comments
For this Android on Windows hobbyist, React Native remains an alluring but elusive shiny new toy to play with.
That's simply because creator Facebook has an iOS-first approach:
As React Native on iOS requires a Mac and most of the engineers at Facebook and contributors use Macs, support for OS X is a top priority. However, we would like to support developers using Linux and Windows too. We believe we'll get the best Linux and Windows support from people using these operating systems on a daily basis.
Therefore, Linux and Windows support for the development environment is an ongoing community responsibility.
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Posted by David Ramel on April 18, 20160 comments
I'm tired of writing about all the cool new things happening in software development, so I'm switching gears to explore the dark side things for a change. I'll take a look at the reasons people gave up on a technology, as taken from their ever-more-prevalent "Why I'm leaving ... " posts.
I was inspired to do this after reading comments in a Hacker News post about some apoplectic, profane purveyor of cartoons or something who let everyone know why he's leaving the Medium blogging platform.
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Posted by David Ramel on April 15, 20160 comments
The Internet of Things (IoT) has arrived, according to a new research report. As it "goes mainstream," joining mobile, Big Data and the cloud as ripe areas for software developers looking for career growth, technical opportunity and big salaries, how should they prepare?
Read on for insights into the burgeoning technology and expert advice tailored specifically for IoT developers.
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Posted by David Ramel on April 13, 20160 comments
I immediately sensed React Native was "game-changing" technology upon first hearing about it, and have been eagerly waiting to try it out. Unfortunately, I've had to wait quite a while because React Native creator Facebook has a definite iOS-first bias, and I don't do any Apple stuff. So I had to wait for Android/Windows functionality to catch up.
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Posted by David Ramel on April 11, 20160 comments
It's a seller's market in the software development arena these days, with companies resorting to all kinds of new and creative ways to identify and attract hard-to-find talent in the face of a daunting skills shortage.
Case in point:
Just the other day I was working through a Web development tutorial and visited a site to inspect how it was using React.js components. I hit CTRL + SHIFT + J to open up the console to get a peek into the inner workings of the site, imgur.com, only to see this message:
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Posted by David Ramel on March 28, 20160 comments
You know that sickening feeling when you're happily coding along and all of the sudden your project won't build and you just can't figure out why? That can lead to hours of nerve-wracking, stomach-churning troubleshooting.
Now imagine that scenario played out thousands of times over because of an npm module naming squabble that no amount of troubleshooting could remedy.
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Posted by David Ramel on March 23, 20160 comments