JavaScript Jabber

JSJ 276: Vue.js with Maximilian Schwarzmüller          This episode of JavaScript Jabber features panelists AJ O’Neal, Aimee Knight, and Charles Max Wood. They talk with special guest Maximilian Schwarzmüller about Vue.js. Tune in to find out more![00:02:21] Introduction to MaximilianMaximilian lives in Germany and is a self-taught web developer. He mostly teaches web development on Udemy and his YouTube channel. Vue.js is just one topic that he teaches. He enjoys teaching and passing on information to other web developers: he believes it is the best thing you can do.[00:03:10] What other courses do you teach?He tries to cover basic web development topics. On Udemy Maximilian teaches Angular and generic JavaScript courses. He also teaches courses on Angular and Node.js. On his YouTube channel he teaches more back-end development and Node.js courses.[00:04:00] Elevator Pitch for Vue.jsVue.js is a new framework that is popular because it is similar to React but also has Angular features. It is easier to learn than React: not everything is in JavaScript and JXS is not included. It is more also flexible and has better performance than Angular 1. Vue.js is easier than Angular 2 both to learn and master. It is still a JavaScript framework, where developers build single page applications or drop in existing applications to enhance views, control parts of a page with JavaScript, get rid of jQuery, and have an easier time creating applications.[00:05:10] What are some challenges people run into as they learn it?If developers are brand new to Vue.js, getting started is easy. It has one thing that a lot of frameworks lack which is awesome documentation. Vuejs.org has a comprehension guide that makes getting started simple. There is a general idea that developers still need to learn of how to structure the app, which is similar to React. Developers have to learn how to build components which is used to build the application. The build template is where everything is controlled with Vue.js. JavaScript code is used as well as template syntax.[00:06:27] So you build the template and then tell it how each part is supposed to behave with JavaScript?Yes. To get started use Vue instances, which are JavaScript objects, control parts of the page and it is marked by an id on an HTML element. Then, write a Vue template, which is basically HTML code where extra features can be used to easily output a variable. It makes it much easier to control via Vue instance. Then add a code, add a method which changes the property of Vue instance. It works together and is easy to build up templates and control your page with Vue. [00:11:12] Vue’s Advantages That depends on the application. Vue.js is easier to learn, which is an advantage when trying to get new developers. The documentation on the website is excellent, which helps when learning the language. Vue also has it’s own single team that develops it’s products, such as the Vue Router and Vue X. It has better performance, but for extremely big projects Angular 4 may be better.[00:13:38] Does Vue have routing in it?Vue.js has its own router. The core Vue team develops it, which is a different package that is downloaded separately. The advantage to this is that if you don’t need the router, then you don’t have it in your bundle but can easily add it. Once it is added it integrates nicely.[00:14:16] How does the Vue router compare to the React router?The Vue router offers the same features as the React router: nested routes, passing parameters, route guards, etc. The Vue router integrates nicely into the Vue package. It also injects into every component you have and is very simple. All that has to be done is just to execute one line of code and then the router is in the project.[00:17:10] How often is Vue.js upgraded and how hard is it to keep up?Vue.js only has two versions. Upgrading from Vue 1 to Vue 2 is easy. The base syntax and framework is still the same, you just need to adjust and move on. Since Vue 2 they released bigger upgrades. There so far haven’t been any issues upgrading, they have added new features, and still use the old code.[00:19:09] What is the feature with Vue as far as adoption goes?It is hard to predict but there are indicators that Vue.js has a good future. Vue.js probably will not overtake Angular but it is becoming important for companies in Asia, which is an important market. They have developed an Ionic version of Vue.js. There has also been an ongoing trend on GitHub.[00:21:20] Why do we keep having new frameworks and versions?The language of JavaScript itself is seeing rapid development. New features have been added, new web technologies developed, etc. One reason is that developers do more on the web. They want easier ways of building applications. There is no perfect framework so there has to be tradeoffs between the frameworks. There is no perfect solution for every application so need a framework for every application.[00:23:16] What is left undone in Vue.js?It is complete as far as something can be complete. Developers are working on service rendering to improve search engine optimization and initial rendering performance. They are also working on progress web app support. [00:28:02] What drives the way that Vue grows?There is simplicity in their documentation. While the documentation is simple, the framework is also easy to learn. Maximilian believes that the reason Vue.js took off is because the documentation and framework work together nicely.[00:31:19] What is going to keep Vue around?The support is not based on corporation, but there is an Asian company that is developing a framework that uses Vue to with their own product. Because of this, can draw an assumption that they will keep Vue.js around. Vue.js also has a strong community and core team, giving it a good support system.[00:34:15] What are people using if they want to use Native Apps but they want to use Vue?They are having a hard time right now. Frameworks for Quasar and Weex are in the early stages. A Vue.js app needs to be built but there are packages that are working in that direction.[00:37:25] How do you structure your Udemy courses and what do you think of that as a whole?Maximilian started teaching Udemy courses about one and a half years ago. He really enjoys teaching. Each course follows a similar pattern. He starts with a rough topic, researches the topic to see what is in demand, and builds a course around projects. He then fits all the things he wants to teach into the project, plans the course curriculum, records and edits the lecture videos, and then finally releases the course.[00:39:22] What do you get the most questions about with your Vue course?Questions are mixed. Students dive into the course quickly but then pause. Most questions are about the basics. They usually have something to do with the first few sections of the course or setup problems.Picks          AJ: Broke Eatery Dream DinnersAimee:Julie Evans blog NodevemberCharles:The Ketogenic Diet2 Keto Dudes Podcast Max:Nuxt.js Framework Slack “Chat with yourself” ChannelLinksOnsen UI for VueTwitterYoutubehttps://academind.com/Utemy Vue.js Course Special Guest: Maximilian Schwarzmüller. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donationsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/javascript-jabber--6102064/support.

29 Aug 201750min

JSJ 275: Zones in Node with Austin McDanielThe panel for this week on JavaScript Jabber is Cory House, Aimee Knight, and Charles Max Wood. They speak with special guest Austin McDaniel about Zones in Node. Tune in to learn more about this topic![00:01:11] Introduction to Austin Austin has worked in JavaScript for the past ten years. He currently works in Angular development and is a panelist on Angular Air. He has spent most of his career doing work in front-end development but has recently begun working with back-end development. With his move to back-end work he has incorporated front-end ideas with Angular into a back-end concept.[00:02:00] The Way it WorksNodeJS is an event loop. There is no way to scope the context of a call stack. So for example, Austin makes a Node request to a server and wants to track the life cycle of that Node request. Once deep in the scope, or deep in the code, it is not easy to get the unique id. Maybe he wants to get the user from Passport JS. Other languages – Python, Java – have a concept called thread local storage. They can associate context with the thread and throughout the life cycle of that request, he can retrieve that context.There is a TC39 proposal for zones. A zone allows you to do what was just described. They can create new zones and associate data with them. Zones can also associate unique ids for requests and can associate the user so they can see who requested later in the stack. Zones also allow to scope and create a context. And then it allows scoping requests and capturing contacts all the way down.[00:05:40] Zone UsesOne way Zone is being used is to capture stack traces, and associating unique ids with the requests. If there is an error, then Zone can capture a stack request and associate that back to the request that happened. Otherwise, the error would be vague.Zones are a TC39 proposal. Because it is still a proposal people are unsure how they can use it. Zones are not a new concept. Austin first saw Zones being used back when Angular 2 was first conceived. If an event happened and they wanted to isolate a component and create a scope for it, they used Zones to do so. Not a huge fan of how it worked out (quirky). He used the same library that Angular uses in his backend. It is a specific implementation for Node. Monkey patches all of the functions and creates a scope and passes it down to your functions, which does a good job capturing the information.[00:08:40] Is installing the library all you need to get this started?Yes, go to npminstallzone.js and install the library. There is a middler function for kla. To fork the zone, typing zone.current. This takes the Zone you are in and creates a new isolated Zone for that fork. A name can then be created for the Zone so it can be associated back with a call stack and assigned properties. Later, any properties can be retrieved no matter what level you are at.[00:09:50] So did you create the Zone library or did Google?The Google team created the Zone library. It was introduced in 2014 with Angular 2. It is currently used in front-end development.[00:10:12] Is the TC39 proposal based on the Zone library?While Austin has a feeling that the TC39 proposal came out of the Zone library, he cannot say for sure.[00:10:39] What stage is the proposal in right now?Zone is in Stage Zero right now. Zone JS is the most popular version because of its forced adoption to Angular. He recommends people use the Angular version because it is the most tested as it has a high number of people using it for front-end development.[00:11:50] Is there an easy way to copy the information from one thread to another?Yes. The best way would probably be to manually copy the information. Forking it may also work.[00:14:18] Is Stage Zero where someone is still looking to put it in or is it imminent? Austin believes that since it is actually in a stage, it means it is going to happen eventually but could be wrong. He assumes that it is going to be similar to the version that is out now. Aimee read that Stage Zero is the implementation stage where developers are gathering input about the product. Austin says that this basically means, “Implementation may vary. Enter at your own risk.”[00:16:21] If I’m using New Relic, is it using Zone JS under the hood? Austin is unsure but there something like that has to be done if profiling is being used. There has to be a way that you insert yourself in between calls. Zone is doing that while providing context, but probably not using Zone JS. There is a similar implementation to tracing and inserting logging in between all calls and timeouts.[00:17:22] What are the nuances? Why isn’t everybody doing this?Zone is still new in the JavaScript world, meaning everyone has a ton of ideas about what should be done. It can be frustrating to work with Zone in front-end development because it has to be manually learned. But in terms of implementation, only trying to create a context. Austin recommends Zone if people want to create direct contacts. The exception would be 100 lines of Zone traces because they can get difficult.Another issue Austin has is Node’s native basic weight. Weight hooks are still up in the air. The team is currently waiting on the Node JS community to provide additional information so that they can finish. Context can get lost sometimes if the wrong language is used. He is using Typescript and doesn’t have that problem because it is straightforward.[00:21:44:] Does this affect your ability to test your software at all?No, there have not been any issues with testing. One thing to accommodate for is if you are expecting certain contexts to be present you have to mock for those in the tests. After that happens, the tests should have no problems.PicksCory:Apple AirPods Aimee:​BlackmillUnderstanding Zones Charles:Classical Reading Playlist on AmazonBuilding stairs for his dadAngular Dev Summit  Austin:NGRX Library Redux LinksTwitterGitHubSpecial Guest: Austin McDaniel. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donationsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/javascript-jabber--6102064/support.

22 Aug 201731min

JSJ 274 Amazon Voice Services and Echo Skills with Terrance SmithOn today’s episode of JavaScript Jabber, we have panelists Joe Eames, Aimee Knight, Charles Max Wood, and we have special guest Terrance Smith. He’s here today to talk about the Amazon Alexa platform. So tune in and learn more about Amazon Voice Services![01:00] – Introduction to Terrance SmithTerrance is from Hacker Ferrer Software. They hack love into software.[01:30] – Amazon Voice ServiceWhat I’m working on is called My CareTaker named probably pending change. What it will do and what it is doing will be to help you be there as a caretaker’s aid for the person in your life. If you have to take care an older parent, My CareTaker will be there in your place if you have to work that day. It will be your liaison to that person. Your mom and dad can talk to My CareTaker and My CareTaker could signal you via SMS or email message or tweet, anything on your usage dashboard, and you would be able to respond. It’s there when you’re not.[04:35] – Capabilities Getting started with it, there are different layers. The first layer is the Skills Kit for generally getting into the Amazon IoT. It has a limited subset of the functionality. You can give commands. The device parses them, sends them to Amazon’s endpoint, Amazon sends a call back to your API endpoint, and you can do whatever you want. That is the first level. You can make it do things like turn on your light switch, start your car, change your thermostat, or make an API call to some website somewhere to do anything.[05:50] – Skills KitSkills Kit is different with AVS. Skills Kit, you can install it on any device. You’re spinning up a web service and register it on Amazon’s website. As long as you have an endpoint, you can register, say, the Amazon Web Services Lambda. Start that up and do something. The Skills Kit is literally the web endpoint response. Amazon Voice Services is a bit more in-depth.[07:00] – Steps for programmingWith the Skills Kit, you register what would be your utterance, your skill name, and you would give it a couple of sets of phrases to accept. Say, you have a skill that can start a car, your skill is “Car Starter.” “Alexa tell Car Starter to start the car.” At which point, your web service will be notified that that is the utterance. It literally has a case statement. You can have any number of individual conditional branches outside of that. The limitation for the Skills Kit is you have to have the “tell” or “ask” and the name of the skill to do whatever. It’s also going to be publicly accessible. For the most part, it’s literally a web service.[10:55] – Boilerplates for AWS LambdaBoilerplates can be used if you want to develop for production. If you publish a skill, you get free AVS instance time. You can host your skill for free for some amount of time. There are GUI tools to make it easier but if you’re a developer, you’re probably going to do the spin up a web service and deal it that way.[11:45] – Do you have to have an Amazon Echo?At one point, you have to have the Echo but now there is this called Echoism, which allows you to run it in your browser. In addition to that, you can potentially install it on a device like a Raspberry Pi and run Amazon Voice Services. The actual engine is on your PC, Mac, or Linux box. You have different options.[12:35] – Machine learningThere are certain things that Amazon Alexa understand now that it did last year or time before that like understanding utterances and phrases better. A lot of the machine learning is definitely under the covers. The other portion of it Alexa Voice Service, which is a whole engine that you have untethered access to other portions like how to handle responses. That’s where you can build a custom device and take it apart. So the API that we’re working with here is just using JSON and HTTP.[16:40] – Amazon Echo ShowYou have that full real-time back and forth communication ability but there is no video streaming or video processing ability yet. You can utilize the engine in such a way that Amazon Voice Services can work with your existing tool language. If you have a Raspberry Pi and you have a camera to it, you can potentially work within that. But again, the official API’s and docs for that are not available yet.[27:20] – ChallengesThere’s an appliance in this house that listens to everything I say. There’s that natural inclination to not trust it, especially with the older generations. Giving past that is getting people to use the device. Some of the programming sides of it are getting the communication to work, doing something that Alexa isn’t pre-programmed to do. There isn’t a lot of documentation out there, just a couple of examples. The original examples are written in Java and trying to convert it to Node or JavaScript would be some of the technical challenges. In addition, getting it installed and setup takes at least an hour at the beginning. There’s also a learning curve involved.[29:35] – Is your product layered in an Echo or is your product a separate device?Terrance’s product is a completely separate device. One of the functionality of his program is medicine reminders. It can only respond to whatever the API calls from Amazon tells you to respond to but it can’t do anything like send something back. It can do an immediate audio response with a picture or turn on and off a light switch. But it can’t send a message back in like two hours from now. You do want your Alexa device to have (verbally) a list of notifications like on your phone. TLDR, Terrance can go a little further with just the Skills Kit.[32:00] – Could you set it up through a web server?Yes. There are examples out there. There’s Alexa in the browser. You can open up a browser and communicate with that. There are examples of it being installed like an app. You can deploy it to your existing iPhone app or Android app and have it interact that way. Or you can have it interact independently on a completely different device like a Raspberry Pi. But not a lot of folks are using it that way.[33:10] – MonetizationAmazon isn’t changing anything in terms of monetization. They make discovery a lot easier though. If you knew the name of the app, you could just say, “Alexa, [tell the name of the app].” It will do a lazy load of the actual skill and it will add it to your available skill’s list.However, there is something called the Alexa Fund, which is kind of a startup fund that they have, which you can apply for. If you’re doing something interesting, there is a number of things you have to do. Ideally, you can get funding for whatever your product is. It is an available avenue for you.[36:25] – More information, documentation, walkthroughsThe number one place to go to as far as getting started is the Amazon websites. They have the Conexant 4-Mic Far-Field Dev Kit. It has 4 mics and it has already a lot of what you need. You have to boot it up and/or SSH into it or plug it up and code it. They have a couple of these kits for $300 to $400. It’s one of the safe and simpler options.There are also directions for the AVS sites which is under Alexa Voice Services, where you can go to the Github from there. There will give you directions using the Raspberry Pi.  If not that, there’s also the Slack chatroom. It is alexaslack.com. Travis Teague is the guy in charge in there.PicksJoe EamesCosmic Engineers by Clifford D. SimakAimee KnightConference: React RallyPancakesCharles Max WoodConference: Angular Dev SummitConference: React Dev SummitJavaScript Jabber SlackTerrance SmithLanguage: ElmYoutube channel: The School of LifeGame: Night in the WoodsHacker Ferret SoftwareHackerferret.comSpecial Guest: Terrance Smith. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donationsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/javascript-jabber--6102064/support.

15 Aug 201749min

JSJ 273: Live to Code, Don't Code to Live with 2 Frugal Dudes Sean Merron and Kevin GriffinThis episode of JavaScript Jabber features panelists Aimee Knight, Cory House, and Charles Max Wood. Special guests Sean Merron and Kevin Griffin discuss how to live frugally. Tune in to hear their advice![00:02:14] Introduction to Sean and KevinSean and Kevin are the hosts of the 2 Frugal Dudes Podcast. They are middle class software engineers. Sean works a 9 to 5 job, while Kevin owns a small business called Swift Kick. Swift Kick is a company that focuses on independent consulting, software development, and training companies for software development.[00:05:50] Different Types of Financial Advisors There is no legal reason that financial advisors have to work in your best interest. On the 2 Frugal Dudes Podcast, Sean and Kevin advise people to use fiduciary advisors. These types of advisors are not legally allowed to accept kickbacks from different funds. This means that they are more likely to help you to the best of their ability. They get paid for their services. Laws are currently changing so that everyone has to be a fiduciary advisor unless clients sign a specific form.[00:10:00] What do I do with money left over at the end of the month that I can’t put into a 401K and Roth IRA?They suggest that you put only the amount of money in your 401K that your company will match. Then, put the rest into a Roth IRA and max that out. Before you decide to do what next, you need to decide why you are saving money. When will you need the money? What will you need it for? Once you know the answer to these questions, you will be able to assess what your money will best be placed. For example, if you are saving to buy a house you need to put your money in a safe investment. A Roth IRA can be used as a savings vehicle or as an emergency fund. Sean believes that a Bank CD is the safest return you can get.[00:14:30] Best Way to Save For those who are self-employed, it is a good idea to have two emergency funds – a personal and a business fund. Business emergency funds should have five months of personal salary. Kevin built his up over two or three years and uses it as self-insurance.Sean says that the employee world is different. For him, he only keeps the minimum amount in his emergency fund. He knows that he is in a field where his job is in high demand, so feels comfortable with being able to get a job quickly. For others, this may not be the case. Have to evaluate how much to save based on how long you think you may need the money. [00:18:50] What is the first thing people should be doing for their own financial well being?Kevin follows Dave Ramsey’s advice.- Basic emergency fund. He uses $1,000. Most emergencies fall under that amount of money.- Get rid of all consumer debt. This includes car payments, credit cards, and student loans. Mortgage is not consumer debt.- Grow an emergency fund to three or six months of expenses.- Investments. Setting up retirement funds, paying for college, or mortgages.Sean values early retirement so he focuses on that. What does retirement mean to me? What does rich mean? You should always track your money through a budget. Then you can funnel money towards emergency funds and tackling debt.Self-insurance means that you don’t have to worry about funds. It helps lower your stress knowing that you have your finances in order. It is a peaceful place to be and opens up opportunities for you. If someone has stressors in their life – for example, their car breaks down – and they have no money to fix it, they now have car and money problems. This stress can then potentially lead to other problems such as marriage problems. If the money to fix the broken car would have been there, it would alleviate stress.[00:28:23] Difference between 401k, IRA, and Roth IRAsA 401k is an employer provided, long-term retirement savings account. This is where you put in money before it is taxed. With this plan you are limited with the funds you can choose from to invest in.IRAs are long-term retirement plans as well. The first type of IRA is a Traditional IRA, which is similar to a 401k. You get tax reduction for the money you put in the account. You pay taxes once you withdraw money. A Roth IRA is where you already pay taxes on money that you are putting in, but don’t have to pay taxes when withdrawing money. You can withdraw contributions at anytime without being penalized, you just can’t take out any earnings.Another thing that is potentially good for early retirement is a Roth IRA conversion ladder. This is where you take money from a 401k and convert it into a Roth IRA and use it before 60 years old to fund early retirement.Traditional IRAs are good for business owners looking for tax deductions now. An HSA (Health Savings Account) can also be used as a retirement device. It goes towards medical expenses if needed.[00:34:20] Are there tools or algorithms I can use to figure this stuff out?There are some. Portfolio Visualizer allows you to choose different portfolio mixes and put different amounts of money in each one. Portfolio Charts is similar to Portfolio Visualizer but gives nice graphics. Sean created a JavaScript website to help people use to figure out early retirement.The hardest part is calculating return because you have to estimate what your return will be each year.[00:39:00] Put Your Money SomewhereThe only bad investment is not making an investment. Even making a bad investment is better than not having any at all. Inflation eats away at money that is just sitting.[00:42:05] If you get one of these advisors what advice should you be looking for?Need someone that tries to understand your particular situation. “It depends” is very true and your advisor should know that. No two people will have the same financial goals. They should want to help reach your goals in the least costly way possible. Other things they should be able to do is be honest and help you control your emotions during upswings and downswings. [00:47:08] Why index funds?As an investor, you can buy an index fund cheaper than buying the whole index. A mutual fund will try to buy and sell the stocks in that index in order to follow the index's performance. As an investor, you have the opportunity to buy into a mutual fund that handles it for you.You don’t have to independently invest in companies either. You can invest in an index instead that will look at, for example, top performing technology companies. It is usually a better value.[00:53:33] How much do I invest in my business verses putting money into a Roth IRA or 401k?Sean thinks it comes down to retirement goals. At some point you will want money to come in passively and retire in the future. If you can passively put X amount of dollars into your company then it can be looked at as a form of investment.Kevin evaluates his business goals every quarter. He creates a business budget based off of those goals.PicksCory- http://www.amazon.com/dp/0393330338/?tag=chamaxwoo-20- http://www.amazon.com/dp/1612680011/?tag=chamaxwoo-20- http://www.amazon.com/dp/1591847818/?tag=chamaxwoo-20Aimee- Hacker News Thread – How to Not Bring Emotions Home With You- http://www.phantogram.com/ Charles- http://www.amazon.com/dp/1476757860/?tag=chamaxwoo-20- https://www.daveramsey.com/elpSean- http://www.amazon.com/dp/1501164589/?tag=chamaxwoo-20- https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/- http://www.mint.comKevin- http://www.amazon.com/dp/0470102101/?tag=chamaxwoo-20- https://www.youneedabudget.com/ - http://www.amazon.com/dp/1589795474/?tag=chamaxwoo-20Links- https://twitter.com/2frugaldudes- https://twitter.com/seanmerron- https://twitter.com/1kevgriff?lang=en- http://www.swiftkick.in- http://www.kevingriffin.com- http://earlyretirementroadmap.com/- http://2frugaldudes.comSpecial Guests: Kevin Griffin and Sean Merron. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donationsPrivacy & Opt-Out:Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/javascript-jabber--6102064/support.

8 Aug 20171h 9min

JSJ 272: Functional Programming and ClojureScript with Eric NormandThis episode of JavaScript Jabber features panelists Aimee Knight and Charles Max Wood. Special guest Eric Normand is here to talk about functional programming and ClojureScript. Tune in to learn more![00:1:14] Introduction to Eric NormandEric works for purelyfunctional.tv. The main target market for his company is those people who want to transition into functional programming from their current job. He offers them support, shows them where to find jobs, and gives them the skills they need to do well.[00:02:22] Address that quicklyFunctional programming is used at big companies such as Wal-Mart, Amazon, EBay, Paypal, and banks. They all have Clojure but it is not used at the scale of Java or Ruby.  So yes, people are using it and it is influencing the mainstream programming industry.[00:3:48] How do you build an application?A common question Eric gets is, “How do I structure my application?” People are used to using frameworks. Most start from an existing app. People want a process to figure out how to take a set of features and turn it into code. Most that get into functional programming have development experience. The attitude in functional programming is that they do not want a framework. Clojure needs to be more beginner friendly. His talk is a four-step process on how to turn into code.[00:05:56] Can you expand on that a little?There are four steps to the process of structuring an application.Develop a metaphor for what you are trying to do. Developing the first implementation. How would you build it if you didn’t have code?Develop the operations. What are their properties? Example: will have to sort records chronological.Develop relationships between the operations.Run tests and refactor the program. Once you have that, you can write the prototype.[00:13:13] Why can’t you always make the code better?Rules can’t be refactored into new concepts. They have to be thrown away and started completely over. The most important step is to think before beginning to write code. It may be the hardest part of the process, but it will make the implementation easier.[00:17:20] What are your thoughts on when people take it too far and it makes the code harder to read?He personally has written many bad abstractions. Writing bad things is how you get better as a programmer. The ones that go too far are the ones that don’t have any basis or are making something new up. They are trying to be too big and use no math to back up their code.[00:20:05] Is the hammock time when you decide if you want to make something abstract or should you wait until you see patterns develop?He thinks people should think about it before, although always be making experiments that do not touch production.[00:23:33] Is there a trade off between using ClojureScript and functional JavaScript?In terms of functional programming in JavaScript don’t have some of the niceties that there are in Clojure script. Clojure Script has a large standard library. JavaScript is not as well polished for functional programming; it is a lot of work to do functional programming it and not as much support.[00:27:00:] Dave Thomas believes that the future of software is functional programming. Do you agree?Eric thinks that it seems optimistic. He doesn’t see functional programming take over the world but does think that it has a lot to teach. The main reason to learn functional programming is to have more tools in your toolbox.[00:31:40] If this is a better way to solve these problems, why aren’t people using it? There is a prejudice against functional programming. When Eric was first getting into it, people would ask why he was wasting his time. Believes that people are jaded. Functional programming feels foreign because people are used to a familiar way of programming; they usually start with a language and get comfortable.[00:40:58] If people want to get started with it, is there an easy way in? Lodash is great to start replacing for loops. It will clean up code. There are other languages that compile to JavaScript. For example, Elm is getting a lot of attention right now. It is a Haskell like syntax. If you want more of a heavyweight language, use TypeScript or PureScript. ClojureScript is into live programming. You are able to type, save, and see results of the code immediately on the screen in front of you.PicksAimee:The Hidden Cost of Abstraction What Functional Language Should I Learn EricSteven King, On Writing Youtube Channel: Tested   CharlesIonic FrameworkLinksPurely Functional TV Blog Building Composable Abstractions Special Guest: Eric Normand. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donationsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/javascript-jabber--6102064/support.

1 Aug 201749min

JSJ 271: SharePoint Extensions in JavaScript with Mike Ammerlaan and Vesa JuvonenThis episode is a live episode from Microsoft Build where AJ O'Neal and Charles Max Wood interview Mike Ammerlaan and Vesa Juvonent about building extensions for SharePoint with JavaScript. [00:01:28] Mike Ammerlaan introduction Mike has worked at Microsoft for a long time on multiple Microsoft products and projects. He's currently on the Office Ecosystem Marketing Team. [00:01:52] Vesa Juvonen introduction Ves a is Senior Program Manager for the SharePoint Splat team. He's been with Microsoft for about 11 years and manages the community and documentation for the SharePoint framework. [00:02:18] What is the SharePoint Framework? This is how you write SharePoint extensions with JavaScript. SharePoint has changed. It now works with common modern development tools and web development techniques. SharePoint consolodates the extension effort [00:03:32] What is SharePoint? File sharing, team sites, communication points for teams. Part of Office 365. You use Web Parts to add functionality to SharePoint. Web Parts provide functionality like widgets and are scoped to a team, group, or set of users. It's usually hosted on premises, but you can also use it with Office 365 as a hosted solution. [00:05:56] What extensions can you build for SharePoint? You can build widgets for your front page or intranet. You can also add user management or data management or document management.Examples:DashboardsMini ApplicationsScheduling and Time TrackingDocument StorageSource code repositories [00:07:39] What is WebDAV and how does it relate? WebDAV is a protocol for accessing documents and SharePoint supports it among other protocols for managing documents. [00:08:36] Do I have to build front-end and back-end components to get full functionality? You can build the front-end UI with Angular and other frameworks. And then build a service in Azure on the backend. The backend systems can then access Line of Business systems or other data systems.It really does take multiple skill sets to build extensions for SharePoint. [00:11:10] SharePoint on Mobile There is a mobile web app and the Web Parts work through the mobile application. You can also use any browser to connect to the application. [00:12:08] Building extensions with standard Angular or React component libraries There are standard Yeoman templates. You can also pull in the components through React or Angular just like what Microsoft does.Newer Angular versions are designed for Single Page Apps and SharePoint isn't necessarily set up to work that way. The Web Parts are isolated from each other and Angular requires some workarounds. [00:14:30] Getting around sandboxing Google and Microsoft are talking to each other to see how to work around this when there are multiple sandboxed applications that can't talk to each other in very simple ways. [00:15:39] Application library or naming collisions if my UI uses different versions or clobber page wide settings There are guides for a lot of this. React does a bunch of the isolation work.Addons are iframed in and an API token is given to grant access to the data and APIs.Microsoft also reviews and approves plugins. [00:18:30] How do you get started and make money at this? Look at the SharePoint store. You can build things through websites and pages and offer the plugins through the store.You can request a SharePoint tenant installation from the Microsoft Dev Tools for free. Then you can build into the tenant site. The rest of the tools are available on npm.SharePoint Developer Tools [00:22:13] Automated testing for SharePoint extensions Unit testing is built in for JavaScript. Testing the UI's require you to sign into Office 365. There are people doing it, though. [00:22:54] Building internal-only extensions SharePoint is an enterprise tool, so a lot of enterprises may not want to install extensions from the store. You can definitely build and install private plugins for SharePoint setups. They also have their own backend systems that will require custom development. [00:25:50] Office 365, SharePoint, and OneDrive Office 365 is used by people across many different sized organizations and SharePoint is much more enterprise. Office 365 tools store files and information in SharePoint.What about OneDrive versus Sharepoint? OneDrive is focused for one person. SharePoint is focused around a team. But they have the same APIs and use the same technology stack. [00:29:05] The history and future of SharePoint It started out on premises and has moved to the cloud. The SharePoint team is working to keep it available and useful in the modern cloud based era. [00:30:25] What does the API footprint look like? It spans modifying lists, data objects, attributes, items in a list, put Web Parts on a page, modify the experience, and manage and modify access, users, and documents. SharePoint is a way of building a way of conveying information.SharePoint is layers of data and scopes. [00:35:26] Tutorials and Open Source dev.office.com The Sharepoint framework is not open source yet, but they're working on that. They also need to open source the Yeoman templates. Open source samples are available at  github.com/sharepoint.PicksCharles Max WoodBlueTickZapierScheduleOnceMoo.comAdvice: Take the time to go talk to people. Vesa adds that you should go to a session that's on something completely outside your experience.AJ O'NealThe CircleSpontaneity/Happiness: AJ tells a story about a woman he saw running through sprinklers.Oh the places you'll go by Dr. Seuss: AJ talks about a journal entry he read at a yard sale.Mike AmmerlaanSuper hot VR on Oculus RiftVesa JuvonenFamilyA big thanks to Microsoft, DotNetRocks, and Build!Special Guests: Mike Ammerlaan and Vesa Juvonen. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donationsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/javascript-jabber--6102064/support.

25 Jul 201754min

JSJ 270 The Complete Software Developers Career Guide with John SonmezThis episode features a panel of Joe Eames, AJ O’Neal, as well as host Charles Maxwell. Special guest John Sonmez runs the website SimpleProgrammer.com that is focused on personal development for software developers. He works on career development and improving the non-technical life aspects of software developers. Today’s episode focuses on John’s new book The Complete Software Developers Career Guide.Did the book start out being 700 pages?No. My goal was 200,000 words. During the editing process a lot of questions came up, so pages were added. There were side sections called “Hey John” to answer questions that added 150 pages.Is this book aimed at beginners?It should be valuable for three types of software developers: beginner, intermediate, and senior developers looking to advance their career. The book is broken up into five sections, which build upon each other. These sections are: - How to get started as a software developer - How to get a job and negotiate salary - The technical skills needed to know to be a software developer - How to work as a software developer - How to advance in careerIs it more a reference book, not intended to read front to back?The book could be read either way. It is written in small chapters. Most people will read it start to finish, but it is written so that you can pick what you’re interested in and each chapter still makes sense by itself.Where did you come up with the idea for the book?It was a combination of things. At the time I wanted new blog posts, a new product, and a new book. So I thought, “What if I wrote a book that could release chapters as blog posts and could be a product later on?” I also wanted to capture everything I learned about software development and put it on paper so that didn’t lose it.What did people feel like they were missing (from Soft Skills) that you made sure went into this book?All the questions that people would ask were about career advice. People would ask things regarding: - How do I learn programming? - What programming language should I learn? - Problems with co-workers and boss - Dress codeWhat do you think is the most practical advice from the book for someone just getting started?John thinks that the most important thing to tell people is to come up with a plan on how you’re going to become educated in software development. And then to decide what you’re going to pursue. People need to define what they want to be. After that is done, go backwards and come up with a plan in order to get there. If you set a plan, you’ll learn faster and become a valuable asset to a team. Charles agrees that this is how to stay current in the job force.What skills do you actually need to have as a developer?Section 3 of the book answers this question. There was some frustration when beginning as a software developer, so put this list together in the book. - Programming language that you know - Source control understanding - Basic testing - Continuous integration and build systems - What kinds of development (web, mobile, back end) - Databases - SequelWere any of those surprises to you?Maybe DevOps because today’s software developers need to, but I didn’t need to starting out. We weren’t involved in production. Today’s software developers need to understand it because they will be involved in those steps.What do you think is the importance of learning build tools and frameworks, etc. verses learning the basics?Build tools and frameworks need to be understood in order to understand how your piece fits into the bigger picture. It is important to understand as much as you can of what’s out there. The basics aren’t going to change so you should have an in depth knowledge of them. Problems will always be solved the same way. John wants people to have as few “unknown unknowns” as possible. That way they won’t be lost and can focus on more timeless things.What do you think about the virtues of self-taught verses boot camp verses University?This is the first question many developers have so it is addressed it in the book. If you can find a good coding boot camp, John personally thinks that’s the best way. He would spend money on boot camp because it is a full immersion. But while there, you need to work as hard as possible to soak up knowledge. After a boot camp, then you can go back and fill in your computer science knowledge. This could be through part time college classes or even by self-teaching.Is the classic computer science stuff important?John was mostly self-taught; he only went to college for a year. He realized that he needed to go back and learn computer science stuff. Doesn’t think that there is a need to have background in computer science, but that it can be a time saver.A lot of people get into web development and learn React or Angular but don’t learn fundamentals of JavaScript. Is that a big mistake?John believes that it is a mistake to not fully understand what you’re doing. Knowing the function first, knowing React, is a good approach. Then you can go back and learn JavaScript and understand more. He states that if you don’t learn the basics, you will be stunted and possibly solve things wrong. Joe agrees with JavaScript, but not so much with things algorithms. He states that it never helped him once he went back and learned it. John suggests the book Algorithms to Live By – teaches how to apply algorithms to real life.Is there one question you get asked more than anything else you have the answer to in the book?The most interesting question is regarding contract verses salary employment and how to compare them. It should all be evaluated based on monetary value. Salary jobs look good because of benefits. But when looking at pay divided by the hours of work, usually a salary job is lower paid. This is because people usually work longer hours at salary jobs without being paid for it.What’s the best place for people to pick up the book? simpleprogrammer.com/careerguide and it will be sold on Amazon. The book will be 99 cents on kindle – want it to be the best selling software development book ever.PicksJoeWonder WomanAJThe AlchemistCharlesArtificial Intelligence with PythonJohn Algorithms to Live by: The Computer Science of Human Decisions Apple Airpods LinksSimple Programmer YoutubeSpecial Guest: John Sonmez. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donationsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacyBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/javascript-jabber--6102064/support.

18 Jul 20171h 1min

JSJ 269 Reusable React and JavaScript Components with Cory HouseOn today’s episode of JavaScript Jabber, we have panelists Joe Eames, Aimee Knight, Charles Max Wood, and playing the part of both host and guest, Cory House. Encourage your team to investigate reusable components, whether that’d be React, Angular, Vue, or Ember. Tune in![00:01:35] – OverviewWe can finally write reusable components that it is really lightweight. It doesn’t take much framework-specific code to get things done.Around 3 years ago, the idea of web component standard was all front-end developers could share our components with each other whether someone is in Angular or React. Web components continue to be an interesting standard but people continue to reach for JavaScript libraries instead – React, Angular, Vue. [00:04:50] – Browser support issueThe story in JavaScript libraries is easier. You have more power, more flexibility, more choices, and get superior performance, in certain cases, by choosing a JavaScript library over the standard right now. If you try to use the web components standard, you have to Polyfill-in some features so you can run things across browser. You also won’t get JavaScript features like intelligently splitting bundles and lazy load different components.Whether you’re in Angular or React, you have this model of putting your data in your curly braces. That setup is non-existent in standardized web components. You have to play the game of putting and pulling data into and out the DOM using DOM selectors. You actually take a step backward in developer ergonomics when you choose to leverage the platform instead. [00:07:50] – Polymer The reason that Polymer is useful is it adds some goodness on top of web components. One of those things is that it makes it easier to bind in data and not having to do things like writing a DOM query to be able to get your hands on this div and put this text inside of it. With Polymer, you can do something that feels more like Angular, where you can put in your curly braces and just bind in some data into that place. Polymer ends up adding some nice syntactic sugar on top of the web components standard just to make it easier to create web components. Polymer is also used to bundle in Polyfill for the features across browser.   [00:14:20] – Standards are deadNo. The standard itself has been embraced at different levels by different libraries. What you can see for the near future is popular libraries leveraging pieces of the web components platform to do things in a standard-spaced way. Effectively, Angular, Vue, Aurelia, are going to be abstractions over the web components standard. Arguably the most popular way to do components today is React. But React completely ignores the web components standard. When you look at React, you can’t see what piece of the web components standard would fundamentally make React a better component library.Cory can’t seem to run to anybody that is actually using the standard in production to build real applications. People continue to reach for the popular JavaScript libraries that we so often hear about.[00:17:05] – Libraries making reusable componentsThere is a risk that it would have been a waste for people writing components on Angular, for React, for Vue. But it’s not necessarily safer writing on the web component standard when you have so few people leveraging that standard. There’s always the risk that that standard may shift as well.As an example, Cory’s team created approximately 100 reusable components in React. If they end up moving to a hot new library, the components are really just functions that take parameters and contain HTML. There is little there[00:21:20] – Why opt for reusable componentsReusable components are inherently useful in a situation where you’re going to be doing something more than once. If you think about any work that you do as a software developer, we’d like to think that we’re coming in and creating new things but often it is groundhogs day. There are all sorts of opportunities for reuse.As a company, we want to encapsulate our forms in reusable components so it’s literally impossible for our software developers to do something that goes against our standard. That’s the power of reusable components.  [00:31:20] – Rigid component vs. flexible component As component developers, if we try to create a reusable component in a vacuum, bad things happen. If you’re going to do a reusable component, start by solving a specific problem on a given application. If we think that a component’s going to be useful in multiple places, we put it in a folder called reusable right there in our application source folder.We try to follow that rule of three as well. If we’ve taken that component and used it in 3 places, that’s a good sign that we should extract it out, put it in our NPM package, that way, everybody has this centralized component to utilize. At that point, it has been tested. It’s been through the fire. People have used it in the real world in a few places so we can be confident that the API is truly flexible enough.Be as rigid as you can upfront. Once you add features, it’s really hard to take features away. But it’s quite easy to add features later. If you start with something rigid, it’s easier to understand. It’s easier to maintain and you can always add a few more switches later.[00:36:00] – Reusable componentsThe reason that we can’t reuse code is every time a new project comes up, people are spending up their own ideas rather than leveraging standards that should have been put in place previously.We’ve had the technical ability to do this for a long time. We just haven’t been around long enough for consolidation to happen, for standardization to happen. You look at how quickly things are changing in our industry. For instance, a couple of years ago, everybody had pretty much decided that two-way binding was the way to build web applications. And then, React came along and shook that up. So today, you have different ways of thinking about that issue.[00:42:45] – Component development on teamsAimee’s team has component development and they’re using Angular 1.6. All of our base components are sitting in a seed application. We just go in when we want to create a new property and we just extend all of those components with specific functionalities that we need.[00:47:45] – Mobile to web crossoverCory’s team is creating React components but it’s not leveraged on a mobile application. But people use React Native components on the web. And in fact, if you use create-react-app today, you can do that right now. It’s wired up to work in React Native components. In that way, you can literally have these same components running on your Native mobile apps as you do on your web application.[00:50:00] – ChallengeCory’s challenge for everybody listening is sit down with your team and have a quick conversation about whether you think components make sense. Look back at the last few months of development and say, "if we have a reusable component library, what would be in it? How often have we found ourselves copying and pasting code between different projects? How much benefit would we get out of this story?"Once you’ve realized the benefits of the component model, both in the way that makes you think about your application, in a way that it helps you move faster and faster over time, I really think you won’t go back to the old model. I’d encourage people to investigate reusable components, whether that’d be React, Angular, Vue or Ember.PicksCory HouseCreating Reusable React Components on PluralsightTed Talk: Why You Should Define your Fears Instead of Your Goals by Tim FerrissJoe EamesUI-RouterPersistenceAimee KnightAsk HN: People who completed a boot camp 3+ years ago, what are you doing now?NgAtlantaCharles Max WoodUpwork.comJSJ 269 Reusable React and JavaScript Components with Cory HouseOn today’s episode of JavaScript Jabber, we have panelists Joe Eames, Aimee Knight, Charles Max Wood, and playing the part of both host and guest, Cory House. Encourage your team to investigate reusable components, whether that’d be React, Angular, Vue, or Ember. Tune in![00:01:35] – OverviewWe can finally write reusable components that it is really lightweight. It doesn’t take much framework-specific code to get things done.Around 3 years ago, the idea of web component standard was all front-end developers could share our components with each other whether someone is in Angular or React. Web components continue to be an interesting standard but people continue to reach for JavaScript libraries instead – React, Angular, Vue. [00:04:50] – Browser support issueThe story in JavaScript libraries is easier. You have more power, more flexibility, more choices, and get superior performance, in certain cases, by choosing a JavaScript library over the standard right now. If you try to use the web components standard, you have to Polyfill-in some features so you can run things across browser. You also won’t get JavaScript features like intelligently splitting bundles and lazy load differBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/javascript-jabber--6102064/support.

11 Jul 201758min