Tech Guides - Web Development

Developer advocates are people with a strong technical background, whose job is to help developers be successful with a platform or technology. They act as a bridge between the engineering team and the developer community. A developer advocate does not only fill in the gap between developers and the platform but also looks after the development of developers in terms of traction and progress on their projects. Developer advocacy, is broadly referred to as "developer relations". Those who practice developer advocacy have fallen into in this profession in one way or another. As the processes and theories in the world of programming have evolved over several years, so has the idea of developer advocacy. This is the result of developer advocates who work in the wild using their own initiatives. This article is an excerpt from the book Developer, Advocate! by Geertjan Wielenga. This book serves as a rallying cry to inspire and motivate tech enthusiasts and burgeoning developer advocates to take their first steps within the tech community. The question then arises, how does one become a developer advocate? Here are some experiences shared by some well-known developer advocates on how they started the journey that landed them to this role. Is developer advocacy taught in universities? Bruno Borges, Principal Product Manager at Microsoft says, for most developer advocates or developer relations personnel, it was something that just happened. Developer advocacy is not a discipline that is taught in universities; there's no training specifically for this. Most often, somebody will come to realize that what they already do is developer relations. This is a discipline that is a conjunction of several other roles: software engineering, product management, and marketing. I started as a software engineer and then I became a product manager. As a product manager, I was engaged with marketing divisions and sales divisions directly on a weekly basis. Maybe in some companies, sales, marketing, and product management are pillars that are not needed. I think it might vary. But in my opinion, those pillars are essential for doing a proper developer relations job. Trying to aim for those pillars is a great foundation. Just as in computer science when we go to college for four years, sometimes we don't use some of that background, but it gives us a good foundation. From outsourcing companies that just built business software for companies, I then went to vendor companies. That's where I landed as a person helping users to take full advantage of the software that they needed to build their own solutions. That process is, ideally, what I see happening to others. The journey of a regular tech enthusiast to a developer advocate Ivar Grimstad, a developer advocate at Eclipse foundation, speaks about his journey from being a regular tech enthusiast attending conferences to being there speaking at conferences as an advocate for his company. Ivar Grimstad says, I have attended many different conferences in my professional life and I always really enjoyed going to them. After some years of regularly attending conferences, I came to the point of thinking, "That guy isn't saying anything that I couldn't say. Why am I not up there?" I just wanted to try speaking, so I started submitting abstracts. I already gave talks at meetups locally, but I began feeling comfortable enough to approach conferences. I continued submitting abstracts until I got accepted. As it turned out, while I was becoming interested in speaking, my company was struggling to raise its profile. Nobody, even in Sweden, knew what we did. So, my company was super happy for any publicity it could get. I could provide it with that by just going out and talking about tech. It didn't have to be related to anything we did; I just had to be there with the company name on the slides. That was good enough in the eyes of my company. After a while, about 50% of my time became dedicated to activities such as speaking at conferences and contributing to open source projects. Tables turned from being an engineer to becoming a developer advocate Mark Heckler, a Spring developer and advocate at Pivotal, narrates his experience about how tables turned for him from University to Pivotal Principal Technologist & Developer Advocate. He says, initially, I was doing full-time engineering work and then presenting on the side. I was occasionally taking a few days here and there to travel to present at events and conferences. I think many people realized that I had this public-facing level of activities that I was doing. I was out there enough that they felt I was either doing this full-time or maybe should be. A good friend of mine reached out and said, "I know you're doing this anyway, so how would you like to make this your official role?" That sounded pretty great, so I interviewed, and I was offered a full-time gig doing, essentially, what I was already doing in my spare time. A hobby turned out to be a profession Matt Raible, a developer advocate at Okta has worked as an independent consultant for 20 years. He did advocacy as a side hobby. He talks about his experience as a consultant and walks through the progress and development. I started a blog in 2002 and wrote about Java a lot. This was before Stack Overflow, so I used Struts and Java EE. I posted my questions, which you would now post on Stack Overflow, on that blog with stack traces, and people would find them and help. It was a collaborative community. I've always done the speaking at conferences on the side. I started working for Stormpath two years ago, as a contractor part-time, and I was working at Computer Associates at the same time. I was doing Java in the morning at Stormpath and I was doing JavaScript in the afternoon at Computer Associates. I really liked the people I was working with at Stormpath and they tried to hire me full-time. I told them to make me an offer that I couldn't refuse, and they said, "We don't know what that is!" I wanted to be able to blog and speak at conferences, so I spent a month coming up with my dream job. Stormpath wanted me to be its Java lead. The problem was that I like Java, but it's not my favorite thing. I tend to do more UI work. The opportunity went away for a month and then I said, "There's a way to make this work! Can I do Java and JavaScript?" Stormpath agreed that instead of being more of a technical leader and owning the Java SDK, I could be one of its advocates. There were a few other people on board in the advocacy team. Six months later, Stormpath got bought out by Okta. As an independent consultant, I was used to switching jobs every six months, but I didn't expect that to happen once I went full-time. That's how I ended up at Okta! Developer advocacy can be done by calculating the highs and lows of the tech world Scott Davis, a Principal Engineer at Thoughtworks, was also a classroom instructor, teaching software classes to business professionals before becoming a developer advocate. As per him, tech really is a world of strengths and weaknesses. Advocacy, I think, is where you honestly say, "If we balance out the pluses and the minuses, I'm going to send you down the path where there are more strengths than weaknesses. But I also want to make sure that you are aware of the sharp, pointy edges that might nick you along the way." I spent eight years in the classroom as a software instructor and that has really informed my entire career. It's one thing to sit down and kind of understand how something works when you're cowboy coding on your own. It's another thing altogether when you're standing up in front of an audience of tens, or hundreds, or thousands of people. Discover how developer advocates are putting developer interests at the heart of the software industry in companies including Microsoft and Google with Developer, Advocate! by Geertjan Wielenga. This book is a collection of in-depth conversations with leading developer advocates that reveal the world of developer relations today. 6 reasons why employers should pay for their developers’ training and learning resources “Developers need to say no” – Elliot Alderson on the FaceApp controversy in a BONUS podcast episode [Podcast] GitHub has blocked an Iranian software developer’s account How do AWS developers manage Web apps? Are you looking at transitioning from being a developer to manager? Here are some leadership roles to consider

Superior user experience is becoming increasingly important for businesses as it helps them to engage users and boost brand loyalty. Front-end website and app development platforms, namely Bootstrap vs Material Design empower developers to create websites with a robust structure and advanced functionality, thereby delivering outstanding business solutions and unbeatable user experience. Both Twitter’s Bootstrap vs Material Design are used by developers to create functional and high-quality websites and apps. If you are an aspiring front-end developer, here’s a direct comparison between the two, so you can choose the one that’s better suited for your upcoming project. BootStrap Bootstrap is an open-source, intuitive, and powerful framework used for responsive mobile-first solutions on the web. For several years, Bootstrap has helped developers create splendid mobile-ready front-end websites. In fact, Bootstrap is the most popular  CSS framework as it’s easy to learn and offers a consistent design by using re-usable components. Let’s dive deeper into the pros and cons of Bootstrap. Pros High speed of development If you have limited time for the website or app development, Bootstrap is an ideal choice. It offers ready-made blocks of code that can get you started within no time. So, you don’t have to start coding from scratch. Bootstrap also provides ready-made themes, templates, and other resources that can be downloaded and customized to suit your needs, allowing you to create a unique website as quickly as possible. Bootstrap is mobile first Since July 1, 2019, Google started using mobile-friendliness as a critical ranking factor for all websites. This is because users prefer using sites that are compatible with the screen size of the device they are using. In other words, they prefer accessing responsive sites. Bootstrap is an ideal choice for responsive sites as it has an excellent fluid grid system and responsive utility classes that make the task at hand easy and quick. Enjoys  a strong community support Bootstrap has a huge number of resources available on its official website and enjoys immense support from the developers’ community. Consequently, it helps all developers fix issues promptly. At present, Bootstrap is being developed and maintained on GitHub by Mark Otto, currently Principal Design & Brand Architect at GitHub, with nearly 19 thousand commits and 1087 contributors. The team regularly releases updates to fix any new issues and improve the effectiveness of the framework. For instance, currently, the Bootstrap team is working on releasing version 4.3 that will drop jQuery for regular JavaScript. This is primarily because jQuery adds 30KB to the webpage size and is tricky to configure with bundlers like Webpack. Similarly, Flexbox is a new feature added to the Bootstrap 4 framework. In fact, Bootstrap version 4 is rich with features, such as a Flexbox-based grid, responsive sizing and floats, auto margins, vertical centering, and new spacing utilities. Further, you will find plenty of websites offering Bootstrap tutorials, a wide collection of themes, templates, plugins, and user interface kit that can be used as per your taste and nature of the project. Cons All Bootstrap sites look the same The Twitter team introduced Bootstrap with the objective of helping developers use a standardized interface to create websites within a short time. However, one of the major drawbacks of this framework is that all websites created using this framework are highly recognizable as Bootstrap sites. Open Airbnb, Twitter, Apple Music, or Lyft. They all look the same with bold headlines, rounded sans-serif fonts, and lots of negative space. Bootstrap sites can be heavy Bootstrap is notorious for adding unnecessary bloat to websites as the files generated are huge in size. This leads to longer loading time and battery draining issues. Further, if you delete them manually, it defeats the purpose of using the framework. So, if you use this popular front-end UI library in your project, make sure you pay extra attention to page weight and page speed. May not be suitable for simple websites Bootstrap may not be the right front-end framework for all types of websites, especially the ones that don’t need a full-fledged framework. This is because, Bootstrap’s theme packages are incredibly heavy with battery-draining scripts. Also, Bootstrap has CSS weighing in at 126KB and 29KB of JavaScript that can increase the site’s loading time. In such cases, Bootstrap alternatives, namely Foundation, Skeleton, Pure, and Semantic UI adaptable and lightweight frameworks that can meet your developmental needs and improve your site’s user-friendliness. Material Design When compared to Bootstrap vs Material Design is hard to customize and learn. However, this design language was introduced by Google in 2014 with the objective of enhancing Android app’s design and user interface. The language is quite popular among developers as it offers a quick and effective way for web development. It includes responsive transitions and animations, lighting and shadows effects, and grid-based layouts. When developing a website or app using Material Design, designers should play to its strengths but be wary of its cons. Let’s see why. Pros Offers numerous components  Material Design offers numerous components that provide a base design, guidelines, and templates. Developers can work on this to create a suitable website or application for the business. The Material Design concept offers the necessary information on how to use each component. Moreover, Material Design Lite is quite popular for its customization. Many designers are creating customized components to take their projects to the next level. Is compatible across various browsers Both Bootstrap vs Material Design have a sound browser compatibility as they are compatible across most browsers. Material Design supports Angular Material and React Material User Interface. It also uses the SASS preprocessor. Doesn’t require JavaScript frameworks Bootstrap completely depends on JavaScript frameworks. However, Material Design doesn’t need any JavaScript frameworks or libraries to design websites or apps. In fact, the platform provides a material design framework that allows developers to create innovative components such as cards and badges. Cons The animations and vibrant colors can be distracting Material Design extensively uses animated transitions and vibrant colors and images that help bring the interface to life. However, these animations can adversely affect the human brain’s ability to gather information. It is affiliated to Google Since Material Design is a Google-promoted framework, Android is its prominent adopter. Consequently, developers looking to create apps on a platform-independent UX may find it tough to work with Material Design. However, when Google introduced the language, it had broad vision for Material Design that encompasses many platforms, including iOS. The tech giant has several Google Material Design components for iOS that can be used to render interesting effects using a flexible header, standard material colors, typography, and sliding tabs Carries performance overhead Material Design extensively uses animations that carry a lot of overhead. For instance, effects like drop shadow, color fill, and transform/translate transitions can be jerky and unpleasant for regular users. Wrapping up: Should you use Bootstrap vs Material Design for your next web or app development project? Bootstrap is great for responsive, simple, and professional websites. It enjoys immense support and documentation, making it easy for developers to work with it. So, if you are working on a project that needs to be completed within a short time, opt for Bootstrap. The framework is mainly focused on creating responsive, functional, and high-quality websites and apps that enhance the user experience. Notice how these websites have used Bootstrap to build responsive and mobile-first sites. (Source: cssreel) (Source: Awwwards) Material Design, on the other hand, is specific as a design language and great for building websites that focus on appearance, innovative designs, and beautiful animations. You can use Material Design for your portfolio sites, for instance. The framework is pretty detailed and straightforward to use and helps you create websites with striking effects. Check out how these websites and apps use the customized themes, popups, and buttons of Material Design. (Source:  Nimbus 9) (Source: Digital Trends) What do you think? Which framework works better for you? Bootstrap vs Material Design. Let us know in the comments section below. Author Bio Gaurav Belani is a Senior SEO and Content Marketing Analyst at The 20 Media, a Content Marketing agency that specializes in data-driven SEO. He has more than seven years of experience in Digital Marketing and along with that loves to read and write about AI, Machine Learning, Data Science and much more about the emerging technologies. In his spare time, he enjoys watching movies and listening to music. Connect with him on Twitter and Linkedin. Material-UI v4 releases with CSS specificity, Classes boilerplate, migration to Typescript and more Warp: Rust’s new web framework Learn how to Bootstrap a Spring application [Tutorial] Bootstrap 5 to replace jQuery with vanilla JavaScript How to use Bootstrap grid system for responsive website design?  

React.JS is one of the most powerful JavaScript libraries. It empowers the interface of major organisations such as Amazon (an e-commerce giant has recently introduced a programming language of its own), PayPal, BBC, CNN, and over a million other websites worldwide. Created by Facebook, React.JS has quickly built a daunting technical reputation and a loyal fan following. Currently React.js is extensively mentioned in job openings - companies want to hire dedicated react.js developer more than Vue.js engineers. In this post, you’ll find out why React.JS is the right framework to start your remote work, despite the library’s steep learning curve and what are the ways to use it more efficiently. 5 Reasons to learn React.JS Developers might be hesitant to learn React as it’s not a full-fledged framework and a developer needs to handle models and controllers on their own. Nevertheless, there are more than a handful of reasons to become a react js developer. Let’s take a closer look at them: 1. It’s functional There’s no need to use classes in React. The platform relies heavily on functional components, allowing developers not to overcomplicate the codebase. While classes offer developers a handful of convenient features (using life cycle hooks, and such), the benefits provided by the functional syntax are loud and clear: Higher readability. Properties like state functions or lifecycle hooks tend to make reading and testing the code a pain in the neck. Plain JS functions are easier to wrap your head around. A developer can achieve the same functionality with less code. The software engineering team will more likely adhere to best practices. Stateless functional components encourage front-end engineers to separate presentational and container components. It takes more time to adjust to a more complex workflow - in the long run, it pays off in a better code structure. ES6 destructuring helps spot bloated components. A developer can see the list of dependencies bound to every component. As a result, you will be able to break up overly complex structures or rethink them altogether. React.JS is the tool that recognizes the power of functional components to their fullest extent (even the glorified Angular 2 can’t compare). As a result, developers can strive for maximum code eloquence and improved performance. 2. It’s declarative Most likely, you are no stranger to CSS and the SQL database programming language, and, as such, are familiar with declarative programming. Still, to recap, here are the differences between declarative and imperative approaches: Imperative programming uses statements to manipulate the state of the program. Declarative programming is a paradigm that changes the system based on the communication logic. While imperative programming gives developers a possibility to design a control flow step-by-step in statements and may come across as easier, it is declarative programming to have more perks in the long run. Higher readability. Low-level details will not clutter the code as the paradigm is not concerned with them. More freedom for reasoning. Instead of outlining the procedure step-by-step, a  successful React JS developer focuses on describing the solution and its logic. Reusability. You can apply a declarative description to various scenarios - that is times more challenging for a step-by-step construct. Efficient in solving specific domain problems. High performance of declarative programming stems from the fact that it adapts to the domain. For databases, for instance, a developer will create a set of operations to handle data, and so on. Capitalizing on the benefits of declarative programming is React’s strong point. You will be able to create transparent, reusable, and highly readable interfaces. 3. Virtual DOM Developers that manage high-load projects often face DOM-related challenges. Bottlenecks tend to appear even after a small change in the document-object-model. Due to the document object model’s tree structure, there’s a high interconnectivity between DOM components. To facilitate maintenance, Facebook has implemented the virtual DOM in React.JS. It allows developers to ensure the project’s error-free performance before updating an actual DOM tree. Virtual DOM provides extra assurance in the app’s performance - in the long run, it significantly improves user satisfaction rates. 4. Downward data binding As opposed to Angular two-way data binding, React.JS uses the downward structure to ensure the changes in child structures will not affect parents. A developer can only transfer data from a parent to a child, not vice versa. The key components of downward data binding include: Passing the state to the child components as well as the view; The view triggers actions; Actions can update the state; State updates are passed on to the view and the child components. Compared to the two-way data binding, the one implemented by React.JS is not as error-prone (a developer controls data to a larger extent), more comfortable to test and debug due to a clearly defined structure. 5. React Developer Tools React.JS developers get to benefit from a wide toolkit that covers all facets of the application performance. There’s a wide array of debugging and design solutions, including a life-saving React Developer Tools extension for Chrome and Firefox. Using this and other tools, you can define child and parent components, examine their state, observe hierarchies, and inspect props. Advantages of React.js React.JS helps developers systemize the interfaces of their projects by introducing the ‘components’ structure. The library allows the creation of modular views that consist of reusable blocks - pop-ups, tables, etc. One of the most significant advantages of using React.js is the way it improves user experience. A textbook example of library usage on Facebook is the possibility to see the changing number of likes in real-time without reloading the page. Originally, React.JS was released back in 2011 by a Facebook engineer as a way to upscale and maintain the complex interface of the Facebook Ads app. The library’s high functionality resulted in its adoption by other SMEs and large corporations - now React JS is one of the most widely used development tools. How to Use React.JS? Depending on your HTML and JavaScript proficiency, it may take anywhere from a few days to months to get the hang of React. For the basic understanding of the library, take a look at React.JS features as well as the setup process. Getting started with React.JS To start working with React, a developer has to import React and React to DOM libraries using a basic HTML file. Now that you have set up a working space, take your time to examine the defining features of React.JS. Components All React.JS elements are components. Depending on the syntax, they are grouped into the class and functional ones. As, in most cases, both lead to equal outcomes, a React.JS beginner should start by learning functional components. Props Props are the way for React.JS developers to pass data from parent to child structures. Keep in mind that, unlike states, props are immutable under any circumstances. They provide developers with high code reusability as the same message will be displayed on all pages. At times, developers do want components to change themselves. That’s when states come in handy. States States are used when a developer wants the application data to change. The most common operations that have to do with states include: Initialization; Modification; Adding event handlers. These were the basic concepts a React.JS developer has to be familiar with to get the most out of the library. React.JS best practices If you’re already using React.JS, be sure to make the most out of it. Keep track of new trends and best practices in all facets of app management - accessibility, performance, security, and others. Here’s a short collection of React.JS development secret tips that’ll improve the maintenance and development efficiency. Performance: Consider using React.Fragment to avoid extra DOM nodes. To load components on-demand, use React.Lazy, along with React.Suspense. Another popular practice among JS developers is taking advantage of shouldComponentUpdate to avoid unnecessary rendering. Try to keep the JS code as clean as possible. For instance, delete the DOM components you don’t use with ComponentDidUnomunt (). For component caching, use React.Memo. Accessibility Pay attention to the casing and reserved word differences in HTML and React.js to avoid bottlenecks. To set up page titles, use the react-handle plugin to set up page titles. Don’t forget to put ALT-tags for any non-text content. Use ref() functions to pinpoint the focus on a given component. External tools like ESLint plugin help developers monitor accessibility. Debugging Use Chrome Dev Tools - there are dozens of features - reduct logger, error messages handler, and so on. Leave the console open while coding to detect errors faster. To have a better understanding of the code you’re dealing with, adopt a table view for objects. Other quick debugging hacks include marking DOM items to find them quickly in a Google Chrome Inspector. View full stack traces for functions. The bottom line Thanks to a powerful team of engineers at work, React.JS has quickly become a powerhouse for front end development. Its huge reliance on JavaScript makes a library easier to get to know. While React.JS pros and cons are extensive - however, the possibility to express UIs declaratively along with the promotion of functional components makes it a favorite framework for many. A wide variety of the projects it empowers and a large number of job openings prove that knowing React is no longer optional for developers. The good news, there’s no lack of learning tools and resources online. Take your time to explore the library - you’ll be amazed by the order and efficiency React brings to applications. Author Bio Anastasia Stefanuk is a passionate writer and a marketing manager at Mobilunity. The company provides professional staffing services, so she is always aware of technology news and wants to share her experience to help tech startups and companies to be up-to-date.   Getting started with React Hooks by building a counter with useState and useEffect React 16.9 releases with an asynchronous testing utility, programmatic Profiler, and more 5 Reasons to Learn ReactJS

Migrating from Magento 1 to Magento 2 has been one of the most commonly discussed topics in the world of eCommerce. Magento 2 was made available in 2015. Subsequently, Magento declared it will end its official support to Magento 1 in 2020. This makes the migration to Magento not only desirable but also necessary. Why you should migrate to Magento 2 As mentioned above, support to Magento 1 ends 2020. Here’s a list of the six most important reasons why migration from Magento 1.x to Magento 2 is important for your Magento store. Security Once the official support to Magento ends, security patches for different versions of Magento 1.x will no longer be offered. That means, if you continue running your Magento website on Magento 1.x, you’ll be exposed to a variety of risks and threats, many of which may have no official solution. Competition When your store is practically the only store that hasn’t migrated to Magento 2, you are at a severe competitive disadvantage. So while your competitors enjoy all the innovations that will continue happening on Magento 2, your Magento 1 website will be left out. Mobile friendly From regular shopping to special holiday purchases, an increasingly bigger proportion of e-commerce businesses come from mobile devices. Magento 2 is better optimized for mobile phones as compared to Magento 1. Performance In the e-commerce industry, better performance leads to better business, increased revenue and higher conversions. Magento 2 enables up to 66% faster add-to-cart server response times than Magento 1. Hence, Magento 2 becomes your best bet for growth. Checkout The number of steps for checkout has been slashed in Magento 2, marking a significant improvement in the buying process. Magento 2 offers the Instant Purchase feature which lets repeat customers purchase faster. Interface Magento 1 had an interface that wasn’t always friendly. Magento 2 has delved deeper to find the exact pain-points and made the new interface extremely user-friendly. Adding new products, editing product features or simply looking for tools has become easier with  Magento 2. FAQs for Magento migration By when should I migrate my store? All forms of official support for Magento 1 will be discontinued on June 2020, you should be migrating your store before that. Your Magento e-commerce store should be ready well before the deadline, so it’s highly recommended you start working towards the migration right away. How long will the migration take? It’s difficult to answer that question without further information about your store. The size of your store, its database and the kind of customization you need are some of the factors that influence the time horizon. Should I hire a Magento developer for the migration or should I let my in-house team deal with it? As with the earlier question, this question too needs further information. If you’re having your own team do it, allow them a good deal of time to learn a number of things and factor in a few false-starts as well. However, doing the migration all by yourself means you’ll have to divert a lot of in-house resources to the migration. That can negatively impact your ongoing business and put undue pressure on your revenue streams. Nearly all Magento stores have found that instead if they hire an experienced Magento 2 developer, they get better outcomes. Pre-migration checklist for moving from Magento 1 to Magento 2 Before you carry out the actual migration, you’ll want to prepare your site for the migration. Here’s your pre-migration checklist for Magento 1 to Magento 2 Filter your data. As you move to a better more sophisticated technology, you don’t want to carry outdated data or data that’s no way relevant to your business needs. There’s no point loading the new system with stuff that will only hog resources without ever being useful. So begin by removing data that’s not going to be useful. Critique your site. This is perhaps the best time to have a close look at your site and seriously consider upgrading it. Advanced technology like Magento 2 will produce even better results if your site reflects the current trends in e-commerce store design. Magento 2 offers better opportunities and you don’t want to be left out just because your site isn’t equipped to encash them. Build redundancy. Despite all your planning, there’s always a small risk of some kind of data loss. To safeguard yourself against it, make sure you replicate your Magento 1.x database. When you are actually implementing the migration, use this replicated database as your source for migration, without disturbing the original. Prepare to freeze admin activities. When you begin the dry run or the actual migration, continuing your administrative activities can alter your database. That would result in a patchy migration with some loose ends. To prevent this, go through a drill to prepare your business to stop all admin activities when you practice dry run and actual implementation of migration from Magento 1 to Magento 2. Finalize your blueprints. Unless absolutely critical, don’t waver from your original plans. Sticking to what you had planned will produce the best results. Changes that have not been factored in, can slow down or weaken your migration and even make it more expensive. Steps for migration from Magento 1 to Magento Migration from Magento 1 to Magento 2 doesn’t just depend on 1 activity but it is interdependent on multiple activities. They are: Data Migration Theme Migration Customization Migration, and Extension Migration Let’s look at each of them separately. Data Migration Step 1: Download Magento 2 without taking in the sample data. Follow the steps given for the setup and install the platform. Step 2: You will need a Data Migration Tool to transfer your data. You can download it from the official website. Remember, the Data Migration Tool version should be the same as the Magento 2 codebase version. Step 3: Feed the public keys and private keys for authorization. The keys too are available from the Magento site. Step 4: Configure the Data Migration Tool. How you configure it depends on which Magento 2 edition (Community Edition or Enterprise Edition) you would be using. You may not migrate from Enterprise Edition to Community Edition. Step 5: The next step is a mapping between Magento 1 and Magento 2 databases. Step 6: Get into maintenance mode to prepare for the actual migration. This will stop all administrative activities. Step 7: In the final step, you may migrate the Magento site, along with the system configuration like shipping and payments. Theme Migration Unlike Data Migration, Theme Migration in Magento doesn’t have standard tools that will take care of your theme migration. That’s also because of the fact that the frontend templates and their codes are hugely different in Magento 1.x and Magento 2.x So instead of looking for a tool, the best way out will be to get a new theme. You could either buy a Magento 2 theme that suits your style and requirements and customize it or develop one. This is one of the reasons why we suggested, upgrading your entire Magento store. Customization Migration The name customization itself suggests that what works for one online store won’t fit another. Which is why there’s no single way of migrating any of the customizations you might have done for your Magento 1. So you’ll be required to design all the customizations you need. However, there’s an important point to remember. Because of its efficiency and versatility, your store on Magento 2 may need lesser customization than you believe. So before you hurry into re-designing everything, take time to study what exactly you need and to what degree Magento 2 satisfies those needs. As you migrate from Magento 1.x to Magento 2.x, the number of customizations will possibly turn out to be considerably fewer than what you originally planned. Extension Migration Again, the same rule applies for extensions and plugins. What plugins worked for Magento 1 will likely not work for Magento 2 and you will have to build them again. Instead of interpreting it as something that’s frustrating, you can actually take it as an opportunity to correct minor errors and improve the overall experience. A dedicated Magento developer who specializes in Magento migration services can be of great help here. Final remarks on Magento migration If all this sounds a little overwhelming, relax, you’re not alone. Because Magento 2 is considerably superior to Magento 1, the migration may appear more challenging than what you had originally bargained for. In any case, the migration is compulsory; otherwise, you’ll face security threats and won’t be able to handle the competition. From the year 2020, this migration will not be a choice, so you might as well begin early so that you have more time to plan out things better. If you need help, a competent Magento web development company can make the migration more efficient and easier for you. Author Bio Kaartik Iyer is the Founder & CEO at Infigic Technologies, a web and mobile app development company. Kaartik has contributed to sites like Huffington Post, Yourstory, Tamebay to name a few. He's passionate about fitness, entrepreneurship, startups and all things digital. You can connect with him on LinkedIn for a quick chat on any of these topics. Why should your e-commerce site opt for Headless Magento 2? Adobe is going to acquire Magento for $1.68 Billion 5 things to consider when developing an eCommerce website

On-demand apps almost came as a movement in the digital world and transformed the way we avail services and ready-to-use business deliverables. -E-commerce stores like Amazon and eBay were the first on-demand apps and over time the business model penetrated across other niches. Now, from booking a taxi ride online to booking food delivery to booking accommodation in a distant city, on-demand apps are making spaces for every different customer interaction. As these on-demand apps are gradually building the foundation for a fully-fledged on-demand economy, the future of e-commerce will depend on how new and cutting-edge features are introduced and how the user experience can be boosted with new UI and UX elements. But before taking a look into the future of on-demand e-commerce, it is essential to understand the evolution of the on-demand apps in recent years.   Let us have a brief look at various facets of this ongoing evolution.   Mobile-push for change: Already mobile search has surpassed desktop search in both volume and frequency. Moreover, mobile has become a lifestyle factor allowing instant access to services and contents. It is a mobile device’s round the clock connectivity and ease of keeping in constant touch that has made it a key to the thriving on-demand economy.   Overwhelming Social Media penetration: The penetration of social media across all spheres of life has helped people staying connected while communicating almost on anything and everything, giving businesses a never-before opportunity to cater to the customer demands. Addressing value as well as a convenience: With the proliferation of on-demand apps, we can see two gross categories of consumers- the value-oriented and the convenience-oriented consumers. Besides giving priority to more value at a lesser cost, the on-demand apps are now facilitating more convenient and timely delivery of products. Frictionless business process: Allowing easy and smooth purchase with least friction in the business process has become the subject of demand for most consumers. Frictionless and smooth customer experience and delivery are the two most important criteria that on-demand apps fulfill.   How to cater to customers with on-demand e-commerce apps? If as a business you want to cater to your customers with on-demand apps, there are several ways you can do that. When providing customers more value is your priority, you can only ensure this with easier, connected and smooth e-shopping experience. 4 specific ways you can cater to your customers with on-demand e-commerce apps. By trying and testing various services, you can easily get a first-hand feel of how these services work. Next, evaluate what the services do best and what they don’t. Now, think about how you can deliver a better service for your customers. To transform your existing business into an on-demand business, you can also partner with a service provider who can ensure same-day delivery of your products to the customers. You can partner with services like Google Express, Instacart, Amazon, PostMates, Google Express, Uber Rush, etc. You can also utilize the BOPUS (by online, pick up in store) model to cater to many customers who find this helpful. Always make sure to minimize the time and trouble for the customers to pick up products from your store. Providing on-site installation of the product can also boost customer experience. You can partner with a service provider to install the product and guide the customers about its usage. How on-Demand apps are transforming the face of business? The on-demand economy is experiencing a never-before boom and there are too many examples of how it has transformed businesses. The emergence of Uber and Airbnb is an excellent example of how on-demand apps deliver popular service for several daily needs. Just as Uber transformed the way we think of transport, Airbnb transformed the way we conceive booking accommodations and hotels in places of travel. Similarly, apps like Swiggy, Just Eat and Uber Eats are continuing to change the way we order foods from restaurants and food chains. The same business model is slowly penetrating across other niches and products. From the daily consumable goods to the groceries, now almost everything is being delivered through on-demand apps to our doorstep. Thanks to customer-centric UI and UX elements in mobile apps and an increasing number of businesses paving the way for unique and innovative shop fronts, personalization has become one of the biggest driving factors for on-demand mobile apps. Consumers also have got the taste of personalized shopping experience, and they are increasingly demanding products, services and shopping experience that suit their specific needs and preferences. This is one area where on-demand apps within the same niche are competitive in a bid to deliver better customer experience and win more business. The Future of On-demand eCommerce Apps The future of the on-demand e-commerce apps will mainly revolve around new concepts and breakthrough ideas of providing customers more ease and convenience. From gesture-based checkout and payment processing to product search through images to video chat, a lot of breakthrough features will shape the future of on-demand e-commerce apps. Conversational Marketing Unlike the conventional marketing channels that follow the one-way directive, in the new era of on-demand e-commerce apps, conversational marketing will play a bigger role. From intelligent Chatbots to real-time video chat communication, we have a lot of avenues to utilise conversational marketing methods. Image-Based Product Search By integrating image search technology with the e-commerce interfaces customers can be provided with an easy and effortless ways of searching for products online. They can take photos of nearby objects and can search for those items across e-commerce stores.   Real-time Shopping Apps What about getting access to products just when and where you need them? Well, such ease of shopping in real-time may not be a distant thing of the future, thanks to real-time shopping apps. Just when you need a particular product, you can shop it then and there and based upon availability, the order can be accepted and delivered from the nearest store in time. Gesture-Based Login Biometrics is already part and parcel of smart user experience. Gestures are also used in the latest mobile handsets for login and authentication. So, those days are not far when the gestures will be used for customer login and authentication in the e-commerce store. This will make the entire shopping experience easier, effortless and least time-consuming. Conclusion The future of on-demand e-commerce apps is bright. In the years to come, the on-demand apps are going to be more mainstream and commonplace to transform the business process and the way customers are served by retailers across the niches. Author Bio Atman Rathod is the Co-founder at CMARIX TechnoLabs Pvt. Ltd. with 13+ years of experience. He loves to write about technology, startups, entrepreneurship and business. His creative abilities, academic track record and leadership skills made him one of the key industry influencers as well. You can find him on Linkedin, Twitter, and Medium. Declarative UI programming faceoff: Apple’s SwiftUI vs Google’s Flutter What Elon Musk can teach us about Futurism & Technology Forecasting 12 Visual Studio Code extensions that Node.js developers will love [Sponsored by Microsoft]

Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are under constant pressure to deliver substantial results that meet business goals. Planning a project and seeing it through to the end is a critical requirement of an effective development process. In the fast-paced world of software development, getting results is an essential key for businesses to flourish. There is a certain pleasure you get from ticking off tasks from your to-do lists. However, this becomes a burden when you are drowning with a lot of tasks on your head. Signs of inefficient processes are prevalent in every business. Unhappy customers, stressed out colleagues, disappointing code reviews, missed deadlines, and increases in costs are just some of the examples that are the direct result of dysfunctional processes. By streamlining your workflow you will be able to compete with modern technologies like Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. Gaining access to such technologies will also help you to automate the workflow, making your daily processes even smoother. Listed below are 5 steps that can help you in streamlining your development process. Step 1: Creating a Workflow This is a preliminary step for companies who have not considered creating a better workflow. A task is not just something you can write down, complete, and tick-off. Complex, software related tasks are not like the “do-the-dishes” type of tasks. Usually, there are many stages in software development tasks like planning, organizing, reviewing, and releasing. Regardless of the niche of your tasks, the workflow should be clear. You can always use software tools such as Zapier, Nintex, and ProcessMaker, etc. to customize your workflow and assign levels-of-importance to particular tasks. This might appear as micro-management at first, but once it becomes a part of the daily routine, it starts to get easier. Creating a workflow is probably the most important factor to consider when you are preparing to streamline your software development processes. There are several steps involved when creating a workflow: Mapping the Process Process mapping mainly focuses on the visualization of the current development process which allows a top-down view of how things are working. You can do process mapping via tools such as Draw.io, LucidCharts, and Microsoft Visio, etc. Analyze the Process Once you have a flowchart or a swim lane diagram setup, use it to investigate the problems within the process. The problems can range from costs, time, employee motivation, and other bottlenecks. Redesign the Process When you have identified the problems, you should try to solve them step by step. Working with people who are directly involved in the process (e.g Software Developers) and gaining an on-the-ground insight can prove very useful when redesigning the processes. Acquire Resources You now need to secure the resources that are required to implement the new processes. With regards to our topic, it can range from buying licensed software, faster computers, etc. Implementing Change It is highly likely that your business processes change with existing systems, teams, and processes. Allocate your time to solving these problems, while keeping the regular operations in the process. Process Review This phase might seem the easiest, but it is not. Once the changes are in place, you need to review them accordingly so that they do not rise up again Once the workflow is set in place, all you have to do is to identify the bugs in your workflow plan. The bugs can range anywhere from slow tasks, re-opening of finished tasks, to dead tasks. What we have observed about workflows is that you do not get it right the first time. You need to take your time to edit and review the workflow while still being in the loop of the workflow. The more transparent and active your process is, the easier it gets to spot problems and figure out solutions. Step 2: Backlog Maintenance Many times you assume all the tasks in your backlog to be important. They might have, however, this makes the backlog a little too jam-packed. Well, your backlog will not serve a purpose unless you are actively taking part in keeping it organized. A backlog, while being a good place to store tasks, is also home to tasks that will never see the light of day. A good practice, therefore, would be to either clean up your backlog of dead tasks or combine them with tasks that have more importance in your overall workflow. If some of the tasks are relatively low-priority, we would recommend creating a separate backlog altogether. Backlogs are meant to be a database of tasks but do not let that fact get over your head. You should not worry about deleting something important from your backlog, if the task is important, it will come back. You can use sites like Trello or Slack to create and maintain a backlog. Step 3: Standardized Procedure for Tasks You should have an accurate definition of “done”. With respect to software development, there are several things you need to consider before actually accomplishing a task. These include: Ensure all the features have been applied The unit tests are finished Software information is up-to-date Quality assurance tests have been carried out The code is in the master branch The code is deployed in the production This is simply a template of what you can consider “done” with respect to a software development project. Like any template, it gets even better when you include your additions and subtractions to it. Having a standardized definition of “done” helps remove confusion from the project so that every employee has an understanding of every stage until they are finished. and also gives you time to think about what you are trying to achieve. Lastly, it is always wise to spend a little extra time completing a task phase, so that you do not have to revisit it several times. Step 4: Work in Progress (WIP) Control The ultimate factor that kills workflow is multi-tasking. Overloading your employees with constant tasks results in an overall decline in output. Therefore, it is important that you do not exert your employees with multiple tasks, which only increases their work in progress. In order to fight the problem of multitasking, you need to reduce your cycle times by having fewer tasks at one time. Consider setting a WIP limit inside your workflow by introducing limits for daily and weekly tasks. This helps to keep control of the employee tasks and reduces their burden. Step 5: Progress Visualization When you have everything set up in your workflow, it is time to represent that data to present and potential stakeholders. You need to make it clear that all of the features are completed and the ones you are currently working on. And if you will be releasing the product on time or no? A good way to represent data to senior management is through visualizations. With visualizations, you can use tools like Jira or Trello to make your data shine even more. In terms of data representation, you can use various free online tools, or buy software like Microsoft PowerPoint or Excel. Whatever tools you might use, your end-goal should be to make the information as simple as possible to the stakeholders. You need to avoid clutter and too much technical information. However, these are not the only methods you can use. Look around your company and see where you are lacking in your current processes. Take note of all of them, and research on how you can change them for the better. Author Bio Shawn Mike has been working with writing challenging clients for over five years. He provides ghostwriting, and copywriting services. His educational background in the technical field and business studies has given him the edge to write on many topics. He occasionally writes blogs for Dynamologic Solutions. Microsoft Store updates its app developer agreement, to give developers up to 95% of app revenue React Native Vs Ionic: Which one is the better mobile app development framework? 9 reasons to choose Agile Methodology for Mobile App Development

Over the past few years, headless e-commerce has been pretty much in talks often being touted as the ‘future of e-commerce’. Last year, in a joint webinar conducted by Magento on ten B2B eCommerce trends for 2018, BORN and Magento predicted that headless CMS commerce will become a popular type of website architecture in the coming year and beyond, for both B2B and B2C businesses. Magento Headless is one such headless CMS which is gaining rapid popularity. Those who have recently jumped on the Magento bandwagon might find it new and hard to grasp. So, in this the post we will give a brief on what is headless Magento, its benefits, and why should you opt for Headless Magento 2. What is a Headless Browser? Headless browsers are basically software-enabled browsers offering a separate user interface. You can automate various actions of your website and monitor the performance under different circumstances. If you’re working under command line instructions in a headless browser, then there is no GUI. With the help of a headless browser, one can actually view several things such as the dimensions of a web layout, font family and other design elements used in a particular website. Headless browsers are mainly used to test web pages. Earlier, e-commerce websites like Magento, Shopify used to have their back-end and front-end tightly integrated. After the introduction of the headless architecture, front-end separated from the back-end. As a result, both parts work independently. There are various e-Commerce platforms that support a headless approach such as Magento, BigCommerce, Shopify, and many more. With Shopify, if you already have a website you can take the headless approach and use Shopify for your sales with links to it from your main website. Like Shopify, BigCommerce also offers a good range of themes and templates to make sure stores look professional and get up-and-running fast. The platform incorporates a full-featured CMS that allows you to run an entire website, not just your online store. Going headless with browsers means that you are running the output in a non-graphical environment such as Linux terms, without X-Windows or Wayland. For Google search algorithms, headless browsers play quite a crucial role. The search engine strongly recommends using Headless architecture because it helps Google to create Ajax websites on the web. So, websites which integrate the headless browser on the web server get easy access by the search engine. This is because Google can access the Ajax website program on the server before making it available for search engine rendering. What are the benefits of using a Headless browser? Going headless has a variety of benefits. If you are a web designer, the markup in HTML would be simple to understand. This is because PHP code, complex JavaScript, widgets are no longer in use – just a plain HTML with some kind of additional placeholder-syntax is required. This also means that the HTML page could be served statically, bringing the application load time down by a significant amount. From the e-commerce perspective, it acts as a viable channel for sales, where a majority of traffic comes from mobile. With the advent of disruptive technologies such as Headless browser for Magento, the path to purchase has expanded. Today it not only includes mobile traffic but even features a complex matrix of buyer touchpoints. Why use a headless browser for Magento? Opting for Magento featuring a headless browser has benefits of its own. Because in Magento, JavaScript coded parts are loosely coupled but the scope of flexibility widens when it comes to choosing any of frameworks such as AngularJs, VueJs, and others. In other words, one does not need to be a Magento developer to build on Magento. All you have to do is focus on a REST API. For instance, if a single page is loading 15 different resources of course from different URLs, the HTML document would become optimal. Magento is a flexible framework that can be used to create your own logic such as pricing, logins, checkout, etc. With a headless browser, Magento gets a clear performance boost. All static parts of the pages are loaded quickly, and the dynamic parts of the pages are loaded lazily through Ajax. In Magento 2, you have the additional support of full page cache. It may even interest you to know that Magento 2 offers Private Content which is equipped to handle lazy loading more efficiently. Isn't Magento 2 headless already? One of the common misconceptions that I have come across is people believing that Magento 2 is already headless. For Magento to be headless, a JavaScript developer requires knowing KnockoutJS ViewModels to make use of the Magento logic. If the ViewModels do not suffice, a Magento developer should add backend logic to this JavaScript layer. However, this also applies to go 100% headless: Whenever a REST resource won’t be available, professionals must make headless for Magento 2 available. To be or not to be headless will always be in talks because an HTML document not only contains the templating part but also static content that shouldn’t be changed. For me, a headless approach is best suited for businesses who have a CMS website for B2C and B2B storefront. It is also popular among those who are looking to put their JavaScript teams back to work. Author Bio Olivia Diaz is working in eTatvaSoft. Being a tech geek, she keeps a close watch over the industry focusing on the latest technology news and gadgets.

Node.js is one of the easiest platforms for prototyping and agile development. It’s used by large companies looking to scale their products quickly. However, using a platform on its own isn’t enough for most big projects today. Logging is also a key part of ensuring your web or mobile app runs smoothly for all users. Application logging is the practice of recording information about your application’s runtime. These files are usually saved a logging platform which helps identify potential problems. While no app is perfect 100% of the time, logging helps developers cut down on errors and even cyber attacks. The nature of software is complex. We can’t always predict how an application will react to data, errors, or system changes. Logging helps us better understand our own programs. So how do you handle logging in Node.js specifically? Following are some of the best practices for logging in Node.js to get the best results. 1. Understand the Regulations Let’s discuss the current legal regulations about what you can and cannot log. You should never log sensitive information or personal data. That means excluding credentials like passwords, credit card number or even email addresses. Recent changes to regulation like Europe’s GDPR make this even more essential. You don’t want to get tied up in the legal red tape of sensitive data. When in doubt, stick to the 3 things that are needed for a solid log message: timestamp, log level, and description. Beyond this, you don’t need any extensive framework. 2. Take advantage of Winston Node.js is built with a logging framework known as Winston. Winston is defined as transport for your logs, and you can install it directly into your application. Follow this guide to install Winston on your own. Winston is a powerful tool that comes with different logging levels with values. You can fully customize this console as well with colors, messages, and output details. The most recent version available is 3.0.0, but always make sure you have the latest edition to keep your app running smoothly. 3. Add Morgan In addition to Winston, Morgan is an HTTP request logger that collects server logs and standardizes them. Think of it as a logger simplification. Morgan. While you’re free to use Morgan on its own, most developers choose to use it with Winston since they make a powerful team. Morgan also works well with express.js. 4. Consider the Intel Package While Winston and Morgan are a great combination, they’re not your only option. Intel is another package solution with similar features as well as unique options. While you’ll see a lot of overlap in what they offer, Intel also includes a stack trace object. These features will come in handy when it’s time to actually debug. Because it gives a stack trace as a JSON object, it’s much easier to pass messages up the logger chain. Think of Intel like the breadcrumbs taking your developers to the error. 5. Use Environment Variables You’ll hear a lot of discussion about configuration management in the Node.js world. Decoupling your code from services and database is no straightforward process. In Node.js, it’s best to use environment variables. You can also look up values from process.env within your code. To determine which environment your program is running on, look up the NODE_ENV variables. You can also use the nconf module found here. 6. Choose a Style Guide No developer wants to spend time reading through lines of code only to have to change the spaces to tabs, reformat the braces, etc. Style guides are a must, especially when logging on Node.js. If you’re working with a team of developers, it’s time to decide on a team style guide that everyone sticks to across the board. When the code is written in a consistent style, you don’t have to worry about opinionated developers fighting for a say. It doesn’t matter which style you stick with, just make sure you can actually stick to it. The Googe style guide for Java is a great place to start if you can’t make a single decision. 7. Deal with Errors Finally, accept that errors will happen and prepare for them. You don’t want an error to bring down your entire software or program. Exception management is key. Use an asyn structure to cleanly handle any errors. Whether the app simply restarts or moves on to the next stage, make sure something happens. Users need their errors to be handled. As you can see, there are a few best practices to keep in mind when logging in Node.js. Don’t rely on your developers alone to debug the platform. Set a structure in place to handle these problems as they arise. Your users expect quality experience every time. Make sure you can deliver with these tips above. Author Bio Ashley Lipman Content marketing specialist Ashley is an award-winning writer who discovered her passion for providing creative solutions for building brands online. Since her first high school award in Creative Writing, she continues to deliver awesome content through various niches. Introducing Zero Server, a zero-configuration server for React, Node.js, HTML, and Markdown 5 reasons you should learn Node.js Deploying Node.js apps on Google App Engine is now easy

The vastness and the innovativeness of today’s e-commerce websites are converting visitors into potential buyers and come back as returning visitors. Every e-commerce website is designed with high-quality UX (user experience) and the absence of it can hurt the revenue and sales in various stages. If not made simplistic and innovative, a bad UX may have an adverse effect on the website’s rankings as all search engines emphasize on portals that are easy to navigate. This makes e-commerce mobile app development services necessary for website owners. Almost 68% of users utilize smartphone devices in the US and the amount goes up to 88% in the UK. So, if seen from the advertising standpoint, websites need to be mobile-friendly at any cost as 62% of users will never suggest a business that has a poorly designed mobile website. Now if we take a look at the global population that buys online, the percentage comes to around 22.9% and by 2021, the number will hike to 3.15 billion. Hence keeping an up-to-date UX design for mobile apps is an absolute must. Some UX tips to keep in mind These are some UX design tips that an e-commerce website must utilize for making the buying experience worthwhile for the consumers. Horizontal filtering Most websites employ interfaces that carry left-hand vertical sidebar filtering. However, currently, horizontal filtering has gained prominence. Its benefits include: Horizontal filtering is a tablet and smartphone friendly. So, filters can be viewed while scrolling and the full width of a page can also be utilized. Utilizing paragraphs, sliders and tablets along with checkboxes are easier as horizontal filtering is flexible. Page width utilization: With this UX design, bigger visuals with better and useful information can be put in a page. No overloading of websites with CTAs and product information Making product descriptions crisp and understandable is necessary as any user or customer won’t like to go through massive texts. Clear CTAs – Having a clear and compelling call to action is important. Knowing the audience well – The aspects that attract your customers or the ones causing inconvenience to them must be well addressed.   Easy to understand descriptions - Top e-commerce app developers will always offer you with clear descriptions containing a crisp heading, bullet points, and subheadings. Fabricating a user-centric search The search experience that you offer to your customers can break or make your online sales. Your e-commerce businesses must implement these points for fabricating a client-centric search: Image recognition – Pictures or images are extremely important when it comes to e-commerce. Users will always want to see the items before buying. TImage recognition must be implemented in every website so that users can rely on the item they are purchasing. Voice search – As per mobile app design guidelines, voice recognition must also be implemented as it helps online retailers to improve the user experience. This is about ease, convenience, and speed. It makes consumers more comfortable which results in elevated customer engagement. Making the correct choice amid scrolling, loading more buttons and pagination When you engage in e-commerce shopping app development services, you must choose how the products are loading on your website.: Load more buttons – Websites that contain load button option is more favorable as users can discover more products offering them a feeling of control. Pagination – This is a process by which a small amount of information is offered to the customer so that he can emphasize on specific parts of a page. With pagination, users can overview entire results that will tell them how long the search is going to take. Endless scrolling - This technique can lead to seamless experiences for users. By enabling endless scrolling,  content loads continuously as a customer scrolls the page downwards. This works best for websites that contain an even content structure. It is not suitable for websites that need to fulfill goal-oriented jobs. Simple checkouts and signups required Among the various mobile app design elements, this point holds quite an importance. Making the procedures of checkouts and signups simple is paramount as website users are quick to run out of patience. Single-column structure – A user’s eye will move naturally from top to the bottom along a solitary line. Making on-boarding simple – Asking too many questions at the very beginning is not recommended. Registration simply calls for the user’s email and name. Later, personal information like, address and phone number can be asked. Colors Color is an often overlooked part of UI design. It is, in fact, hugely important - and it's beginning to become more important to designers. When you think about it, it seems obvious. Color is not only important from a branding perspective, allowing you to create a unified and consistent user experience within a single product (or, indeed, set of products). Color can also have consequences for hardware too. A white interface, for example, will use less battery power as the device won't require the resources that would otherwise be needed to load color. Accessibility and color in design Another important dimension to this is accessibility. With around 4.5% of the population estimated to suffer from color blindness (most of them male), it could be worth considering how the decisions you make about colors could impact these users. In a nutshell While implementing the entire e-commerce application development process, you have to make sure as a merchant that you are delivering experiences and products that fulfill real requirements. A lot of emphasis needs to be put on visual appeal as it marks as a vital element in fulfilling customer needs and is also an establishment of credibility. A customer’s first impression must be good no matter what. When talking about mobile user experience, credibility must be taken into account that can be ensured when you capture the attention of your users by informing them about what you exactly have to offer. The about page must be clear containing information like physical address, email address, phone number, etc. Following these UX tips is adequate for your E-commerce business to take flight and do wonders. Get hold of a professional team today and get started. Author Bio   Manan Ghadawala is the founder of 21Twelve Interactive which is a mobile app development company in India and the USA. You may follow him on @twitter. Why Motion and Interaction matter in a UX design? [Video] What UX designers can teach Machine Learning Engineers? To start with: Model Interpretability Align your product experience strategy with business needs

Bill Gates is quoted as saying that we tend to overestimate the pace of change over a period of 2 years, but underestimate change over a decade. It’s an astute observation: much of what will matter in 2019 actually looks a lot like what we said will be important in development this year. But if you look back 10 years, the change in the types of applications and websites we build - as well as how we build them - is astonishing. The web as we understood it in 2008 is almost unrecognisable. Today, we are in the midst of the app and API economy. Notions of surfing the web sound almost as archaic as a dial up tone. Similarly, the JavaScript framework boom now feels old hat - building for browsers just sounds weird... So, as we move into 2019, progressive web apps, artificial intelligence, and native app development remain at the top of development agenda. But this doesn’t mean these changes are to be ignored as empty hype. If anything, as adoption increases and new tools emerge, we will begin to see more radical shifts in ways of working. The cutting edge will need to sharpen itself elsewhere. What will it mean to be a web developer in 2019? But these changes are enforcing wider changes in the industry. Arguably, it’s transforming what it means to be a web developer. As applications become increasingly lightweight (thanks to libraries and frameworks like React and Vue), and data becomes more intensive, thanks to the range of services upon which applications and websites depend, developers need to expand across the stack. You can see this in some of the latest Packt titles - in Modern JavaScript Web Development Cookbook, for example, you’ll learn microservices and native app development - topics that have typically fallen outside of the strict remit of web development. The simplification of many aspects of development has, ironically, forced developers to look more closely at how these aspects fit together. As you move further into layers of abstraction, the way things interact and work alongside each other become vital. For the most part, it’s no longer a case of writing the requisite code to make something run on the specific part of the application you’re working on, it’s rather about understanding how the various pieces - from the backend to the front end - fit together. This means, in 2019, you need to dive deeper and get to know your software systems inside out. Get comfortable with the backend. Dive into cloud. Start playing with microservices. Rethink and revisit languages you thought you knew. Get to know your infrastructure: tackling the challenges of API development It might sound strange, but as the stack shrinks and the responsibilities of developers - web and otherwise - shift, understanding the architectural components within the software their building is essential. You could blame some of this on DevOps - essentially, it has made developers responsible for how their code runs once it hits production. Because of this important change, the requisite skills and toolchain for the modern developer is also expanding. There are a range of routes into software architecture, but exploring API design is a good place to begin. Hands on RESTful API Design offers a practical way into the topic. While REST is the standard for API design, the diverse range of tools and approaches is making managing the client a potentially complex but interesting area. GraphQL, a query language developed by Facebook is said to have killed off REST (although we wouldn’t be so hasty), while Redux and Relay, two libraries for managing data in React applications, have seen a lot of interest over the last 12 months as two key tools for working with APIs. Want to get started with GraphQL? Try Beginning GraphQL. Learn Redux with Learning Redux.       Microservices: take responsibility for your infrastructure The reason that we’re seeing so many tools offering ways of managing APIs is that microservices are becoming the dominant architectural mode. This requires developer attention too. That’s not to say that you need to implement microservices now (in fact, there are probably many reasons not to), but if you want to be building software in 5 years time, getting to grips with the principles behind microservices and the tools that can help you use them. Perhaps one of the central technologies driving microservices are containers. You could run microservices in a virtual machine, but because they’re harder to scale than containers, you probably wouldn’t be seeing the benefits you’d be expecting from a microservices architecture. This means getting to grips with core container technologies is vital. Docker is the obvious place to start. There are varying degrees to which developers need to understand it, but even if you don’t think you’ll be using it immediately it does give you a nice real-world foundation in containers if you don’t already have one. Watch and learn how to put Docker to work with the Hands on Docker for Microservices video.  But beyond Docker, Kubernetes is the go to tool that allows you to scale and orchestrate containers. This gives you control over how you scale application services in a way that you probably couldn’t have imagined a decade ago. Get a grounding in Kubernetes with Getting Started with Kubernetes - Third Edition, or follow a 7 day learning plan with Kubernetes in 7 Days. If you want to learn how Docker and Kubernetes come together as part of a fully integrated approach to development, check out Hands on Microservices with Node.js. It's time for developers to embrace cloud It should come as no surprise that, if the general trend is towards full stack, where everything is everyone’s problem, that developers simply can’t afford to ignore cloud. And why would you want to - the levels of abstraction it offers, and the various services and integrations that come with the leading cloud services can make many elements of the development process much easier. Issues surrounding scale, hardware, setup and maintenance almost disappear when you use cloud. That’s not to say that cloud platforms don’t bring their own set of challenges, but they do allow you to focus on more interesting problems. But more importantly, they open up new opportunities. Serverless becomes a possibility - allowing you to scale incredibly quickly by running everything on your cloud provider, but there are other advantages too. Want to get started with serverless? Check out some of these titles… JavaScript Cloud Native Development Cookbook Hands-on Serverless Architecture with AWS Lambda [Video] Serverless Computing with Azure [Video] For example, when you use cloud you can bring advanced features like artificial intelligence into your applications. AWS has a whole suite of machine learning tools - AWS Lex can help you build conversational interfaces, while AWS Polly turns text into speech. Similarly, Azure Cognitive Services has a diverse range of features for vision, speech, language, and search. What cloud brings you, as a developer, is a way of increasing the complexity of applications and processes, while maintaining agility. Adding in features and optimizations previously might have felt sluggish - maybe even impossible. But by leveraging AWS and Azure (among others), you can do much more than you previously realised. Back to basics: New languages, and fresh approaches With all of this ostensible complexity in contemporary software development, you’d be forgiven for thinking that languages simply don’t matter. That’s obviously nonsense. There’s an argument that gaining a deeper understanding of how languages work, what they offer, and where they may be weak, can make you a much more accomplished developer. Be prepared is sage advice for a world where everything is unpredictable - both in the real world and inside our software systems too. So, you have two options - and both are smart. Either go back to a language you know and explore a new paradigm or learn a new language from scratch. Learn a new language: Kotlin Quick Start Guide Hands-On Go Programming Mastering Go Learning TypeScript 2.x - Second Edition     Explore a new programming paradigm: Functional Programming in Go [Video] Mastering Functional Programming Hands-On Functional Programming in RUST Hands-On Object-Oriented Programming with Kotlin     2019: the same, but different, basically... It's not what you should be saying if you work for a tech publisher, but I'll be honest: software development in 2019 will look a lot like it has in 2018.  But that doesn't mean you have time to be complacent. In just a matter of years, much of what feels new or ‘emerging’ today will be the norm. You don’t have to look hard to see the set of skills many full stack developer job postings are asking for - the demands are so diverse that adaptability is clearly immensely valuable both for your immediate projects and future career prospects. So, as 2019 begins, commit to developing yourself sharpening your skill set.

The decentralized web refers to a web which is not dominated by powerful monopolies. It’s actually a lot like the web we have now, but with one key difference: its underlying architecture is decentralized, so that it becomes much difficult for any one entity to take down any single web page, website, or service. It takes control away from powerful tech monopolies. Why are people excited about the decentralized web? In effect, the decentralized web is a lot like the earliest version of the web. It aims to roll back the changes that came with Web 2.0, as we began to communicate with each other and share information through centralized services provided by big companies such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon. The decentralized web aims to make us less dependent on these tech giants. Instead, users will have control over their data enabling them to directly interact and exchange messages with others in their network. Blockchain offers a perfect solution to helping us achieve a decentralized web. By creating a decentralized public digital ledger of transactions, you can take the power out of established monopolies and back to those who are simply part of the decentralized network. We saw some advancements in the direction of decentralized web with the launch of Tim Berners-Lee’s startup, Inrupt. The goal of this startup is to get rid of the tech giant’s monopolies on user data. Tim Berners-Lee hopes to achieve this with the help of his open source project, Solid.  Solid provides every user a choice of where they want to store their data, which specific people and groups can access the select elements in a data, and which apps you use. Further examples are Cloudflare introducing IPFS Gateway, which allows you to easily access content from InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), and, more recently, Origin DApp, which is a true peer to peer marketplace on the Ethereum blockchain with origin-js. A note of caution Despite these advances, the decentralized web is still in its infancy. There are still no “killer apps” that promises the same level of features that are we used to now. Many of the apps that do exist are clunky and difficult to use. One of the promises that decentralized makes is being faster, but there is a long way to go on that. There are much bigger issues related to governance such as how the decentralized web will come together when no one is in charge and what is the guarantee that it will not become centralized again. Is the decentralized web a treat… or a trick? Going by the current status of decentralized web, it seems to be a trick. No one likes “change” and it takes a long time to get used to the change. The decentralized web has to offer much more to replace the current functionalities we enjoy. Cloudflare’s decentralized vision of the web: InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) Gateway to create distributed websites Origin DApp: A decentralized marketplace on Ethereum mainnet aims to disrupt gig economy platforms like Airbnb and Uber Tim Berners-Lee plans to decentralize the web with ‘Solid’, an open-source project for “personal empowerment through data”

Google apparently wants all the web developers to adopt the AMP approach for their websites. The AMP project was announced by Google on October 7, 2015, and AMP pages first became available to web users in February 2016. Mobile search is more popular presently as compared to desktop search. It is important for web pages to appear in Google’s mobile search results, and this is why AMP is not optional for web publishers. Without AMP, a publisher’s articles will be extremely unlikely to appear in the Top Stories carousel on mobile search in Google. This means the developers will have two options for them, either to design the complete app in the AMP format, or have two formats ready, one as per their own design considerations, the other as per the Google AMP format. Does that really work for the developers? We will try to address that question here in this article. The trouble with Web content - Searchability and Indexing The searchability of your application is heavily dependent on the structure & format of your app. To be found on Google search is dependant on how easily Google can crawl and index your application. The main challenge for indexing is the vast nature of internet and the wide variety of applications that exist. The absence of a structure or a particular format makes the task of checking website content and categorizing them very difficult. This was the primary reason why Google had come up with the idea of Accelerated Mobile Pages. The purpose of adopting AMP is to make all web and mobile applications conform to a certain structure, so that they can be easily classified and categorized. Since the implementation of ‘mobile first’ approach - an approach that puts more emphasis on the mobile platform and UI considerations for mobile devices, the AMP way has been slowly becoming the most preferred way of app designing. But the real question here is are developers adopting this particular design thinking willingly or are they finding themselves running out of other options with Google forcing its hand on how they design their apps. The Ground Realities of the Web - Diversity vs Uniformity The truth is that the internet is a diverse playing ground. It’s a place for information sharing. As such, the general consensus is not exactly in line with Google’s vision of a uniform web. Google started off as a search engine whose main task was to be the gateway of information - to lead people to the specific web addresses. From there on, they have evolved to be one of the leading beneficiaries of the world wide web. The next step in Google’s evolution seems to be quite natural to take control over content and hosting. Google has also recently announced that they are going to lay down undersea internet cable from Japan to Guam, and from Guam to Australia. They are portraying this decision as an economic decision which will save them money eventually after the cables are laid. But some are seeing this as a step to remove external dependencies and as a step closer to total control over the internet. Google’s recent partnering deal with WordPress is a proof that Google is taking steps towards owning up the web hosting space. AMP specification means that Google will have the final say over design specifications. The diversity in design will suffer as you would not want to spend time to design a site that won’t be indexed by Google. Hence the developers will only have two options, use the pre-designed template provided by Google, or make two specific website designs, one as per their own design consideration and the other one as per AMP. But Google will keep showing you error signs if your AMP version doesn’t match the main design. Hence the choice finally narrows down to choosing AMP. The trouble with AMP Your content published using AMP is stored in a Google cache and hence repeated views are loaded from the cache. This also means that the user will actually spend more time in Google’s own page and will see Google’s ads and not the ones which the content creator had put up. This by extension means loss of revenue for the actual content creator. Using Analytics is far more difficult in AMP-based pages. The AMP pages are difficult to customize and hence difficult to design without looking similar. So the web might end up with similar looking apps with similar buttons and UIs all across. The AMP model takes its own decisions as per how it actually shows your content. So you don’t get to choose your metadata being displayed, but Google does. That means less control over your content. With Google controlling the extent to which your website data is displayed, all the pages are going to look similar with very little metadata info shown, fake stories will appear parallel to normal news thumbnails because there will be very little text displayed to enable to make a call, whether a story is true or false. All of these come with the caveat that AMPed up pages will rank higher on Google. If that’s the proverbial carrot used to lure web publishers to bring their content under Google’s umbrella, then we must say that it’s going to be a tricky choice for developers. No one wants a slow web with irregular indexing and erroneous search results. But how far are we prepared to let go of individuality and design thinking in this process, that’s a question to ponder about. Google wants web developers to embrace AMP. Great news for users, more work for developers. Like newspapers, Google algorithms are protected by the First Amendment Implementing Dependency Injection in Google Guice

Tomorrow, on Wednesday 12 September, the European Parliament will vote on amendments to the EU Copyright Bill, first proposed back in September 2016. This bill could have a huge impact on open source, software engineering, and even the future of the internet. Back in July, MEPs voted down a digital copyright bill that was incredibly restrictive. It asserted the rights of large media organizations to tightly control links to their stories, copyright filters on user generated content. https://twitter.com/EFF/status/1014815462155153408 The vote tomorrow is an opportunity to amend aspects of the directive - that means many of the elements that were rejected in July could still find their way through. What parts of the EU copyright directive are most important for software developers? There are some positive aspects of the directive. To a certain extent, it could be seen as evidence of the European Union continuing a broader project to protect citizens by updating digital legislation - a move that GDPR began back in May 2018. However, there are many unintended consequences of the legislation. It's unclear whether the negative impact is down to any level of malicious intent from law makers, or is simply reflective of a significant level of ignorance about how the web and software works. There are 3 articles within the directive that developers need to pay particular attention to. Article 13 of the EU copyright directive: copyright filters Article 13 of the directive has perhaps had the most attention. Essentially, it will require "information society service providers" - user-generated information and content platforms - to use "recognition technologies" to protect against copyright infringement. This could have a severe impact on sites like GitHub, and by extension, the very philosophy of open collaboration and sharing on which they're built. It's for this reason that GitHub has played a big part in educating Brussels law makers about the possible consequences of the legislation. Last week, the platform hosted an event to discuss what can be done about tomorrow's vote. In it, Marten Mickos, CEO of cybersecurity company Hacker One gave a keynote speech, saying that "Article 13 is just crap. It will benefit nobody but the richest, the wealthiest, the biggest - those that can spend tens of millions or hundreds of millions on building some amazing filters that will somehow know whether something is copyrighted or not." https://youtu.be/Sm_p3sf9kq4 A number MEPs in Brussels have, fortunately, proposed changes that would exclude software development platforms to instead focus the legislation on sites where users upload music and video. However, for those that believe strongly in an open internet, even these amendments could be a small compromise that not only places an unnecessary burden on small sites that simply couldn't build functional copyright filters, but also opens a door to censorship online. A better alternative could be to ditch copyright filters and instead opt for licensing agreements instead. This is something put forward by German politician Julia Reda - if you're interested in policy amendments you can read them in detail here. [caption id="attachment_22485" align="alignright" width="300"] Image via commons.wikimedia.org[/caption] Julia Reda is a member of the Pirate Party in Germany - she's a vocal advocate of internet freedoms and an important voice in the fight against many of the directive (she wants the directive to be dropped in its entirety). She's put together a complete list of amendments and alternatives here. Article 11 of the EU Copyright Directive: the "link tax" Article 11 follows the same spirit of article 13 of the bill. It gives large press organizations more control over how their content is shared and linked to online. It has been called the "link tax" - it could mean that you would need a license to link to content. According to news sites, this law would allow them to charge internet giants like Facebook and Google that link to their content. As Cory Doctorow points out in an article written for Motherboard in June, only smaller platforms would lose out - the likes of Facebook and Google could easily manage the cost. But there are other problems with article 11. It could, not only, as Doctorow also writes, "crush scholarly and encyclopedic projects like Wikipedia that only publish material that can be freely shared," but it could also "inhibit political discussions". This is because the 'link tax' will essentially allow large media organizations to fully control how and where their content is shared. "Links are facts" Doctorow argues, meaning that links are a vital component within public discourse, which allows the public to know who thinks what, and who said what. Article 3 of the EU Copyright Directive: restrictions on data mining Article 3 of the directive hasn't received as much attention as the two above, but it does nevertheless have important implications for the data mining and analytics landscape. Essentially, this proportion of the directive was originally aimed at posing restrictions on the data that can be mined for insights except in specific cases of scientific research. This was rejected by MEPs. However, it is still an area of fierce debate. Those that oppose it argue that restrictions on text and data mining could seriously hamper innovation and hold back many startups for whom data is central to the way they operate. However, given the relative success of GDPR in restoring some level of integrity to data (from a citizen's perspective), there are aspects of this article that might be worth building on as a basis for a compromise. With trust in a tech world at an all time low, this could be a stepping stone to a more transparent and harmonious digital domain. An open internet is worth fighting for - we all depend on it The difficulty unpicking the directive is that it's not immediately clear who its defending. On the one hand, EU legislators will see this as something that defends citizens from everything that they think is wrong with the digital world (and, let's be honest, there are things that are wrong with it). Equally, those organizations lobbying for the change will, as already mentioned, want to present this as a chance to knock back tech corporations that have had it easy for too long. Ultimately, though, the intention doesn't really matter. What really matters are the consequences of this legislation, which could well be catastrophic. The important thing is that the conversation isn't owned by well-intentioned law makers that don't really understand what's at stake, or media conglomerates with their own interests in protecting their content from the perceived 'excesses' of a digital world whose creativity is mistaken for hostility. If you're an EU citizen, get in touch with your MEP today. Visit saveyourinternet.eu to help the campaign. Read next German OpenStreetMap protest against “Article 13” EU copyright reform making their map unusable YouTube’s CBO speaks out against Article 13 of EU’s controversial copyright law

Although chatbots have been under development for at least a few decades, they did not become mainstream channels for customer engagement until recently. Due to serious efforts by industry giants like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, IBM, and Amazon, and their subsequent investments in developing toolkits, chatbots and conversational interfaces have become a serious contender to other customer contact channels. In this time, chatbots have been applied in various sectors and various conversational scenarios within sectors like retail, banking and finance, governmental, health, legal, and many more. This tutorial is an excerpt from a book written by Srini Janarthanam titled Hands-On Chatbots and Conversational UI Development. This book is organized as eight chatbot projects that will introduce the ecosystem of tools, techniques, concepts, and even gadgets relating to conversational interfaces. Over the last few years, an ecosystem of tools and services has grown around the idea of conversational interfaces. There are a number of tools that we can plug and play to design, develop, and manage chatbots. Mockup tools Mockups can be used to show clients as to how a chatbot would look and behave. These are tools that you may want to consider using during conversation design, after coming up with sample conversations between the user and the bot. Mockup tools allow you to visualize the conversation between the user and the bot and showcase the dynamics of conversational turn-taking. Some of these tools allow you to export the mockup design and make videos. BotSociety.io and BotMock.com are some of the popular mockup tools. Channels in Chatbots Channels refer to places where users can interact with the chatbot. There are several deployment channels over which your bots can be exposed to users. These include Messaging services such as Facebook Messenger, Skype, Kik, Telegram, WeChat, and Line Office and team chat services such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, and many more Traditional channels such as the web chat, SMS, and voice calls Smart speakers such as Amazon Echo and Google Home. Choose the channel based on your users and the requirements of the project. For instance, if you are building a chatbot targeting consumers, Facebook Messenger can be the best channel because of the growing number of users who use the service already to keep in touch with friends and family. To add your chatbot to their contact list may be easier than getting them to download your app. If the user needs to interact with the bot using voice in a home or office environment, smart speaker channels can be an ideal choice. And finally, there are tools that can connect chatbots to many channels simultaneously (for example, Dialogflow integration, MS Bot Service, and Smooch.io, and so on). Chatbot development tools There are many tools that you can use to build chatbots without having to code even a single line: Chatfuel, ManyChat, Dialogflow, and so on. Chatfuel allows designers to create the conversational flow using visual elements. With ManyChat, you can build the flow using a visual map called the FlowBuilder. Conversational elements such as bot utterances and user response buttons can be configured using drag and drop UI elements. Dialogflow can be used to build chatbots that require advanced natural language understanding to interact with users. On the other hand, there are scripting languages such as Artificial Intelligence Markup Language (AIML), ChatScript, and RiveScript that can be used to build chatbots. These scripts will contain the conversational content and flow that then needs to be fed into an interpreter program or a rules engine to bring the chatbot to life. The interpreter decides how to progress the conversation by matching user utterances to templates in the scripts. While it is straightforward to build conversational chatbots using this approach, it becomes difficult to build transactional chatbots without generating explicit semantic representations of user utterances. PandoraBots is a popular web-based platform for building AIML chatbots. Alternatively, there are SDK libraries that one can use to build chatbots: MS Bot Builder, BotKit, BotFuel, and so on provide SDKs in one or more programming languages to assist developers in building the core conversational management module. The ability to code the conversational manager gives developers the flexibility to mold the conversation and integrate the bot to backend tasks better than no-code and scripting platforms. Once built, the conversation manager can then be plugged into other services such as natural language understanding to understand user utterances. Analytics in Chatbots Like other digital solutions, chatbots can benefit from collecting and analyzing their usage statistics. While you can build a bespoke analytics platform from scratch, you can also use off-the-shelf toolkits that are widely available now. Many off-the-shelf analytics toolkits are available that can be plugged into a chatbot, using which incoming and outgoing messages can be logged and examined. These tools tell chatbot builders and managers the kind of conversations that actually transpire between users and the chatbot. The data will give useful information such as the conversational tasks that are popular, places where conversational experience breaks down, utterances that the bot did not understand, and the requests which the chatbots still need to scale up to. Dashbot.io, BotAnalytics, and Google's Chatbase are a few analytic toolkits that you can use to analyze your chatbot's performance. Natural language understanding Chatbots can be built without having to understand utterances from the user. However, adding the natural language understanding capability is not very difficult. It is one of the hallmark features that sets chatbots apart from their digital counterparts such as websites and apps with visual elements. There are many natural language understanding modules that are available as cloud services. Major IT players like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and IBM have created tools that you can plug into your chatbot. Google's Dialogflow, Microsoft LUIS, IBM Watson, SoundHound, and Facebook's Wit.ai are some of the NLU tools that you can try. Directory services One of the challenges of building the bot is to get users to discover and use it. Chatbots are not as popular as websites and mobile apps, so a potential user may not know where to look to find the bot. Once your chatbot is deployed, you need to help users find it. There are directories that list bots in various categories. Chatbots.org is one of the oldest directory services that has been listing chatbots and virtual assistants since 2008. Other popular ones are Botlist.co, BotPages, BotFinder, and ChatBottle. These directories categorize bots in terms of purpose, sector, languages supported, countries, and so on. In addition to these, channels such as Facebook and Telegram have their own directories for the bots hosted on their channel. In the case of Facebook, you can help users find your Messenger bot using their Discover service. Monetization Chatbots are built for many purposes: to create awareness, to support customers after sales, to provide paid services, and many more. In addition to all these, chatbots with interesting content can engage users for a long time and can be used to make some money through targeted personalized advertising. Services such as CashBot.ai and AddyBot.com can integrate with your chatbot to send targeted advertisements and recommendations to users, and when users engage, your chatbot makes money. In this article, we saw tools that can help you build a chatbot, collect and analyze its usage statistics, add features like natural language understanding, and many more. The aforementioned is not an exhaustive list of tools and nor are the services listed under each type. These tools are evolving over time as chatbots are finding their niche in the market. This list gives you an idea of how multidimensional the conversational UI ecosystem is and help you explore the space and feed your creative mind. If you found this post useful, do check out the book, Hands-On Chatbots and Conversational UI Development, which will help you explore the world of conversational user interfaces. How to build a chatbot with Microsoft Bot framework Facebook’s Wit.ai: Why we need yet another chatbot development framework? How to build a basic server side chatbot using Go

The history of web has seen a few major events in the past three decades. One of them was the launch of JavaScript 22 years ago on December 4, 1995.  Since then JavaScript has slowly evolved to become the de-facto standard of front-end web development. The present day web is much more dynamic and data intensive. Heavy graphics based games and applications require a much more robust browser.  That is why developers are going crazy over the concept of WebAssembly. Is it here to replace JavaScript? Or is it like any other hype that will fade away with time? The answer is neither of the two. Why use WebAssembly when you have JavaScript? To understand the buzz around WebAssembly, we will have to understand what JavaScript does best and what its limitations are. JavaScript compiles into machine code as it runs in the browser. Machine code is the language that communicates with the PC and instructs it what to do. Not only that, it also parses, analyzes, and optimizes the Emscripten-generated JavaScript while loading the application. That’s what makes the browser slow in compute heavy applications. JavaScript is a dynamically typed language. It doesn’t have any stored functions in advance. That’s why when the compiler in your browser runs JavaScript, it doesn’t know which function call is going to come next. That might seem very inconvenient. But that feature is what makes JavaScript based browsers so intuitive, and interactive. This feature ensures that your system would not have to install a standalone desktop application. The same application can be run from the browser. Graphical Representation of an Assembler-Source: logrocket The above image shows how an assembly level language is transformed into machine code when it is compiled. This is what exactly happens when WebAssembly code runs in browser. But since WebAssembly is in binary format, it becomes much easier for the compiler to convert it into machine code. Unfortunately JavaScript is not suitable for every single application. For example, gaming is an area, where running JavaScript code in the browser for a highly interactive multiplayer game is not the best solution. It takes a heavy toll on the system resources. That’s where WebAssembly comes in. WebAssembly is a low level binary language that runs parallel to JavaScript. Its biggest advantages are speed, portability and flexibility. The speed comes from the fact that Webassembly is in binary. JavaScript is a high level language. Compiling that to the machine code puts significant pressure on the JavaScript engine. Compared to that, WebAssembly binary files are much smaller in size (in Kb) and easy to execute and convert to machine code. Functioning of a WASM: Source: logrocket The code optimization in WebAssembly happens during the compilation of source code, unlike JavaScript. WebAssembly manages memory manually, just like in languages like C and C++, so there’s no garbage collection either. This enables code compiler performance similar to native code. You can also compile other languages like Rust, C, C++ into WASM format. This enables developers to run their native code in the browser without knowing much of JavaScript. WASM is not something that you can write as a code. It’s a format which is created from your native code, that transcompiles directly into machine code. This allows it to run parallel to HTML5, CSS and JavaScript code, giving you the taste of both worlds. So, is WebAssembly going to replace JavaScript? JavaScript is clearly not replaceable. Just that for heavy graphics/ audio/ AI based apps, a lot of function calls are made in the browser. This makes the browser slow. WebAssembly eases out this aspect. There are separate compilers that can turn your C, C++, Rust code into WASM code. These are then used in the browser as JavaScript objects. Since these are very small in size, they make the application fast. Support for WebAssembly has been rolled out by all major browsers. Majority of the world is using WebAssembly currently in their browsers. Until JavaScript capabilities improve, WebAssembly will work alongside Javascript to make your apps perform better and in making your browser interactive, intuitive and lightweight. Golang 1.11 rc1 is here with experimental port for WebAssembly! Unity switches to WebAssembly as the output format for the Unity WebGL build target Introducing Life: A cross-platform WebAssembly VM for decentralized Apps written in Go  Grain: A new functional programming language that compiles to Webassembly