Tech News - Full-Stack Web Development

Developers will now find it easier to build interactive web applications using R, with RStudio formally announcing that the release of Shiny 1.1.0 is on the horizon. This is expected to be a major release, with support for asynchronous operations and quite a few other important feature updates. What’s new in Shiny 1.1.0 Shiny 1.1.0 brings asynchronous programming capabilities to R, with the integration of the promises package. The main aim of this is to move away from R’s single-threaded nature and increase the scalability and overall responsiveness of the web application. This is quite an important enhancement, considering a web application traditionally designed in R was quite slow and one-dimensional. Users running a long calculation or task on a web app using Shiny would bring the process to a halt for other users. This will not be the case anymore, with the introduction of asynchronous programming features. Some of the other significant features introduced in this release include: The functions extractStackTrace and formatStackTrace are deprecated and will be removed in the future versions of Shiny Improved support for JavaScript, with a new function for comparing version strings called Shiny.compareVersion() Improved functionality of stack traces and support for deep stack traces for efficient memory allocation File drag and drop feature breaking in the presence of jQuery 3.0 has been fixed Improved error handling Bug fixes for significant performance improvement, and a lot more. You can check the full changelog for Shiny 1.1.0 on Shiny’s official Github page. Shiny has been R’s premier package for designing interactive graphics for web applications, and has been rivalling the likes of Tableau and other Business Intelligence tools. It will be interesting to see how users receive the new features introduced in 1.1.0, especially the asynchronous programming features allowing the web apps to perform faster and more efficiently. Introducing R, RStudio, and Shiny When do we use R over Python? Top 5 programming languages for crunching Big Data effectively

Full stack developer has been named as one of the most common developer roles according to the latest stack overflow survey. But what exactly does a full stack developer do and what does a typical full stack developer job description look like? Full stack developers bridge the gap between the font end and back end Full stack developers deal with the full spectrum of development, from back end to front end development. They are hugely versatile technical professionals, and because they work on both the client and server side, they need to be able to learn new frameworks, libraries and tools very quickly. There’s a common misconception that full stack developers are experts in every area of web development. They’re not – they’re often generalists with broad knowledge that doesn’t necessarily run deep. However, this lack of depth isn’t necessarily a disadvantage. Because they have experience in both back end and front end development they know how to provide solutions to working with both. But most importantly, as Agile becomes integral to modern development practices, developers who are able to properly understand and move between front and back ends is vital. From an economic perspective it also makes sense – with a team of full-stack developers you have a team of people able to perform multiple roles. What a full stack developer job description looks like Every full-stack developer job description looks different. The role is continually evolving and different organizations will require different skills. Here are some of the things you’re likely to see: HTML / CSS JavaScript JavaScript frameworks like Angular or React Experience of UI and API design SQL and experience with other databases At least one backend programming language (python, ruby, java etc) Backend framework experience (for example, ASP.NET Core, Flask) Build and release management or automation tools such as Jenkins Virtualization and containerization knowledge (and today possibly serverless too) Essentially, it’s up to the individual to build upon their knowledge by learning new technologies in order to become an expert full stack developer. Full stack developers need soft skills But soft skills are also important for full-stack developers. Being able to communicate effectively, manage projects and stakeholders is essential. Of course, knowledge of Agile and Scrum are always in-demand; being collaborative is also vital, as software development is never really a solitary exercise. Similarly, commercial awareness is highly valued - a full stack developer that understands they are solving business problems, not just software problems is invaluable.