We had a great talk with Bjarne Stroustrup, the designer and original implementer of C++. He is also the author of The C++ Programming Language (Fourth Edition), A Tour of C++ (Second Edition), Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++ (Second Edition), and many popular academic publications.
Enjoy the full interview below!
In the early days of software development, anyone seeking to develop a web, mobile, or backend application had to own the hardware required to run a server, which is an expensive process.
Then, when cloud computing came, it became possible to lease server space or a number of servers remotely. The developers and companies who rent these fixed units of server space generally overbuy to ensure that a spike in traffic or activity won’t exceed their monthly limits and break their applications. Because of this, a lot of the server space that gets paid for can be wasted.
A combination of AWS Lambda and Amazon API Gateway is a widely-used architecture for serverless microservices and API-based solutions. They enable developers to focus on their applications, instead of spending time provisioning and managing servers.
API Gateway is a feature-rich offering that includes support for different API types (HTTP, REST, WebSocket), multiple authentication schemes, API versioning, canary deployments, and much more! However, if your requirements are simpler and all you need is an HTTP(S) endpoint for your Lambda function (for example, to serve as a webhook), you can use Lambda Function URLs! When you create a function URL, Lambda automatically generates a unique HTTP(S) endpoint that is dedicated to your Lambda function.
Bored with the same old design tools? There are plenty of new toys to experiment with, from fun divots to functional design tools that could become your new go-to’s.
Here’s what is new for designers this month…
Kosmo is a new project management and invoicing system designed just for freelancers. Designers and developers will love it because the interface is sleek and modern. The tool lets you send invoices, track time, manage projects, send proposals and contracts, and manage billing. You can customize everything from your brand to colors so that your invoices reflect your business style. The platform has a free option as well, making it easy to have the tools you need to run your business. (Plus, there’s a very affordable premium plan if you want more features.)
STUDIO lets designers layout and publish responsive websites, including the ability to connect to backend data, all with a low learning-curve GUI and no coding knowledge prerequisites. You can publish to a free URL with free hosting on the cloud. The free version also includes forms. STUDIO also has premium plans if you like the tool for websites of all sizes and bandwidth needs.
NFT.JS allows you to deploy an ERC721 contract that can perform all the required functions without writing a single line of code. Interact with the contract by calling functions and sending transactions to the contract with a couple of lines of NFT.JS. Provide the input file into the metadata object, and NFT.JS uploads all the files provided in the metadata to IPFS as well as uploads the metadata.json file to IPFS and mints the NFT.
Color Morph is a fun little tool to help you generate mesh gradients in SVG format, or generate CSS, that you can snag and use in projects. The patterns are trendy and fun to use.
Scripts Organizer is an advanced code editor for WordPress. This premium tool helps you make workflow scripts work for you with scheduling, advanced functionality, live previews, safe mode, SCSS partials, code injections, import and export, and more.
Texture is a fun web project that creates generative art that you can use for backgrounds or pretty much anything else. Preview the textures, pull the JavaScript or CSS or even edit and continue to play with them on CodePen.
Avvvatars are a set of unique placeholder avatars that are free. The tool is easy to use, includes 40 colors, is accessible and lightweight, comes with 60 shapes, and is customizable. You can grab it on GitHub or as a Figma file.
Epic Ruler is a premium design utility tool that measures distance, dimensions, position, pick colors, test contrast, and align on-screen elements anywhere on your screen. You can also create alignments, and it comes with a great color picker that helps you pinpoint hues down to the pixel.
Jotform Apps is a new set of app tools from the company you may know for form-building tools. The free no-code app builder lets you add forms, links, widgets, and branding to one fully customized app that can be downloaded onto any smartphone, tablet, or computer. Get started with a template to jumpstart projects.
Spruce is an open-source, lightweight CSS design system that’s built on Sass. The tool, which is in beta, is designed to help you start with a solid foundation for projects. It includes structure and code, typography, tables, and buttons.
Yaade is an open-source, self-hosted, collaborative API development environment. It’s made for those who want self-hosting in security – if you don’t know the password, there’s no way in! You can import OpenAPI v3 files, there’s data import and export, and a dark mode default.
Agnostic UI is one stylesheet that works with multiple frameworks. The user interface components work in React, Vue 3, Svelte, and Angular. It includes semantic and accessible HTML with unprocessed CSS so you can code on the platform to get ahead of web standards.
Turbulent Buttons is a button-and-hover animation that goes the extra mile. This is a fun button and animation that is anything but boring.
Never Install is a cloud platform that allows you to run any application from the browser without installing it on your device. It is an alternative to traditional desktop application usage and enables people to stream applications over the web. The developers are working on a next-generation cloud platform to bring any GUI application regardless of the operating system, device, and system requirements to the browser. The tool is free to use.
Photoinsight is a tool (free and paid) to manage digital assets, including photos, videos, and 3D elements, in one place. You can search, filter, and group views based on your preferences. Plus, there are tools such as batch renaming and statistics and trends to help you manage files.
Formspector answers that nagging question – are my forms working? Use the tool to set automated tests that will notify you if anything stops working, from newsletter signups to contact forms to support requests.
Wikifox.js is a lightweight, powerful, and restful JavaScript library that connects to the Wikipedia API. This library can be used to get content from Wikipedia.
Lightning Builder is a free browser-based drag and drop website builder. You can design a mockup in minutes so that you can show developers or writers what you are thinking when you are planning a new design or website project. Use it to ease communication for teams with new project builds.
Waaard is a tiny tool with a lot of practical applications. Use it to create a protected link or file that only people you want to access it can open. With plenty of verification methods, you’ll know your links are safe.
Doodle Ipsum is the lorem ipsum of illustrations. Customize doodles, grab the code, and use them on web prototypes, landing pages, or no-code tools.
FF Din Stencil is a fun display typeface for just the right application with a distinct style. It comes in a variety of weights and styles and is part of a greater FF Din family.
Fontanella is a typeface designed by Coto Mendoza, which emerged from calligraphy and manual drawing exploring the skeleton and classic proportions of Roman capital letters. It has an easy-to-read style with interesting sans serif characters.
Sarlotte is a statuesque typeface with long tails, swashes, and flourishes. From the type designer: It seduces your eyes with its curves yet still manages to maintain its classy serenity, it’s perfect for branding, logos, invitations, and more.
The post Exciting New Tools For Designers, April 2022 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.
Zato is an integration platform and backend application server which means that, during most of their projects, developers using Zato are interested in a few specific matters.
The platform concentrates on answering these key, everyday questions that Python backend developers routinely ask:
import this in a Python console, it will recite a little poem:
Beautiful is better than ugly. Explicit is better than implicit. Simple is better than complex. The complex is better than complicated. The flat is better than nested. Sparse is better than dense. Readability counts…
N by N grid of point-masses, where adjacent points are linked by springs. The following image, provided by Matthew Fisher, illustrates this structure:
t = 0. Then, at each step of the simulation, it advances time by a small constant dt. The program estimates what happens to the system in this small period of time by evaluating the effect of each of the 4 factors above, and updates the position and velocity of each mass point at the end of the timestep. The updated positions of mass points are then used to update the image rendered on the screen.
pip install taichi.
ti:
import taichi as ti
ti.init(arch=ti.cuda)
If you don’t have a CUDA GPU, Taichi can still interact with your GPU via other graphics APIs, such as ti.metal, ti.vulkan, and ti.opengl. However, Taichi’s support for these APIs is not as complete as its CUDA support, so, for now, use the CPU backend: ti.init(arch=ti.cpu)And don’t worry, Taichi is blazing fast even if it only runs on the CPU. Having initialized Taichi, we can start declaring the data structures used to describe the mass-spring cloth. We add the following lines of code:
N = 128 x = ti.Vector.field(3, float, (N, N)) v = ti.Vector.field(3, float, (N, N))
Jamstack (JAMstack), is one of the most popular (and rapidly growing) tools for app and website creation. A unique ecosystem of functionality, Jamstack promises developers the support they need to create powerful websites and progressive applications.
For a while, Jamstack was mostly written off as just another buzzword in the developer space. However, today, it’s growing to become a powerful investment for many business leaders. Even big companies are getting involved, like Cloudflare, with Cloudflare pages, and Microsoft with Azure Static Web Apps. Elsewhere, we’ve seen brands like Shopify, PayPal, and Nike getting involved too.
So, what exactly is Jamstack, and is it time you transitioned over? Let’s find out…
Jamstack, otherwise known as “JAMstack,” is the name of a developer ecosystem made up of JavaScript, APIs, and Markup (hence: JAM). The solution is a web development architecture allowing developers to access static website benefits, such as higher security and better performance, while still unlocking dynamic database-oriented CMS.
The Jamstack solution allows companies and developers to build a dynamic website where real assets are pre-rendered static files in a CDN. The dynamic environment runs on JavaScript client-side, through serverless functions.
For a better insight, let’s compare Jamstack to the LAMP stack development strategy, which originated from the four open-source components many developers used to build sites: Linux, Apache HTTP, MySQL, and PHP.
With LAMP, each user request for a page forces the server to query a database — unless the page is cached — and combine the result with page markup data and plugins. Jamstack websites serve pre-built optimized assets and markup solutions quickly because the files are already compiled on a CDN. There’s no need to query the database.
Jamstack workflows dramatically reduce cumbersome issues with development and excess maintenance, making them highly appealing to developers.
Jamstack won’t be the ideal development tool for everyone, but it has a lot of benefits to offer. By fetching HTML from a CDN, the system doesn’t have to wait for HTML to be combined and returned to clients. The solution also provides an improved developer experience with static methods.
Using Jamstack, developers can build fantastic static files ready to serve by request, hosted on a global CDN. Some of the biggest benefits of Jamstack include:
In a lot of ways, Jamstack is an innovative and revolutionary solution for development. It can help you to create a far more engaging website and present your company in an incredible way. Of course, that doesn’t mean there are no limitations to be aware of.
Jamstack is developer-friendly, for instance, but it’s not beginner-friendly. You will need at least some knowledge of web development to start unlocking the benefits. You’ll need to understand things like Vue or React, but you should develop a tool anyone can use with a bit of work.
There’s also a handful of things you can’t pre-generate, like user-specific and real-time data. So, this means you may not be able to use Jamstack effectively on projects requiring these kinds of data. Building an analytics dashboard, for instance, probably isn’t a good idea with Jamstack. Other issues for some developers may include:
Now you know the basics of Jamstack, let’s look at some of the tools you can use to design an incredible website or application within the Jamstack environment.
There are tons of tools within the Git ecosystem common among Jamstack developers. Starting with Git itself. Git represents a powerful free, and open-sourced distributed version control system. With this solution, companies can handle everything from small to enterprise-level projects with efficiency and speed. The solution is extremely easy to use and learn, and outclasses a range of tools like Perforce, ClearCase and Subversion.
GitHub Pages and GitLab pages are two hosting services for Git repositories with built-in services to host static pages from out of your codebase. This makes the two solutions fantastic for when you’re building a Jamstack website. You can access the functionality for free too.
GitLab gives you a comprehensive DevOps platform to work with, where you can enjoy a comprehensive CI/CD toolchain out of the box. The comprehensive solution, delivered as a single application, changes the way security, development, and Ops teams integrate and collaborate. Gitlab helps to accelerate software delivery on a massive scale.
AWS Amplify, created by Amazon Web Services, is a development platform packed full of useful features for people in the Jamstack environment. The Amplify offering aims to reduce the complexities associated with Amazon Web Services for mobile and web deployment. You get 12 months of hosting for free with new accounts, and you get Storage with Amplify too.
The Amazon Amplify solution dramatically improves the regular AWS workflow, especially if you’re just a novice user. There’s a huge documentation hub to help you too, which is way more convenient than Amazon’s usual documentation solutions. Amplify is still accessed from a somewhat bloated console, however.
With AWS Amplify, companies can access features like a comprehensive data store to sync data between the cloud and websites. There’s also easy-to-use interface access across all different categories of cloud operations. The service works well with a range of JavaScript central tools.
Netlify is a pioneering solution in the Jamstack environment, allowing users to go dynamic with their websites and applications on their own terms. You can access a range of add-ons and integration, access your favorite tools, and make your own. The flexible environment enables developers to run websites on a multi-cloud infrastructure designed for speed and scale automation.
Built to be entirely secure from the ground up, Netlify makes it easy to build a site that’s custom-made for performance and deployed directly. You don’t need to worry about managing, scaling and patching web services, which means you can more quickly implement your Jamstack architecture.
Unlike other large legacy apps, Jamstack projects are neatly separate from your front-end pages and UI from the backend databases and apps with Netlify. Using this service, the entire front-end can be pre-built with highly optimized static assets and pages, and developers can deliver new web projects faster than ever before.
Inspired by the functionality of PHP, Next.JS is a solution for pre-rendered JavaScript modules. The solution allows developers to easily export the components of their apps and perform individual tests to determine how each element works. You can also access a wide range of components and modules from NPM. The Next offering allows developers to save time, removing the need to use webpack bundles and transform with compilers.
The full solution is extremely intuitive, ensuring developers can create solutions quickly. What’s more, the technology you build will allow you to load only the bundle needed from your JavaScript workflow, rather than all the JavaScript at once. Pre-fetching, one of the features of Next.JS, also picks up where standard code-splitting leaves off, allowing for optimized bundles of code to load seamlessly.
Next.JS also supports hot-module replacement. This means instead of reloading an entire application when you change the code, you only recreate the modules you’ve altered.
Probably the most widely-recognized of all the JavaScript frameworks, Angular, designed by Google engineers, appeared first in 2012, offering developers a new way to create dynamic pages. Before this technology, there were other opportunities for creating dynamic pages, but they were nowhere near as convenient or speedy.
Angular is probably one of the most essential tools companies can use when building a Jamstack website or environment. The front-end web development tool attracts developers from all over the world. Every version is packed with features and constantly upgraded to ensure you can generate the best results.
Angular extends HTML file functionality with powerful directives, and it requires very little effort to enable these directives too. All you do is add the ng- prefix to your HTML attributes and you’re ready to go. Angular also allows developers to create widgets leveraging editable data with two-way binding. This means developers don’t have to write code that syncs constantly between the model and view.
With Angular, developers also get access to things like virtual scrolling, which can help with displaying large lists of elements performantly, rendering on the items that fit on the screen to reduce loading times.
Another must-have tool in the JavaScript world for Jamstack, the React solution was launched first in 2013, and has won thousands of customers across the globe thanks to fantastic functionality. Today, the full landscape is maintained by Facebook, along with all the members of the standard developer community. The solution is used by some of the biggest giants in the tech industry, like Netflix, PayPal, and Apple.
React is a true pioneer in the Jamstack ecosystem, with its sensational approach to simple and straightforward solutions for JavaScript management. You’ll be able to access batched and virtual DOM updates, which makes it easier to unlock components quickly, and write your components the way you see them. There’s also the added benefit that React is compatible with a lot of tools.
You can build a comprehensive app or website with the help of React, and you’ll have no trouble accessing some of the top features, particularly with plenty of support available from the React community.
Created from the ground up to improve user experience on a comprehensive level, Gatsby is a static site generator with heavy focus on things like SEO, performance, and accessibility. The solution offers plenty of out-of-the-box features to help developers deliver the most immersive solution for their users, without unnecessary complexity.
Gatsby users pre-configuration to develop static websites giving developers faster loading pages, stronger code splitting, and server-side rendering. You can also access features like data prefetching, asset optimization, and quick image loading. Gatsby boasts excellent documentation and starter packs to help you get your site up and running more quickly.
The GraphQL data layer of Gatsby also means the system can collect your data from anywhere, including your CMS, JSON, Markdown, and APIs. More than just your standard site generator, this is a tool built specifically with performance in mind.
Developing an effective Jamstack website means having access to the right CMS technology. Agility CMS wasn’t the first CMS solution to support Jamstack, but it is one of the better-known options. As one of the first headless CMS solutions to hit the market, the company has quickly captured the attention of a huge range of developers worldwide.
Agility CMS is a Jamstack pioneer, capable of helping developers to build a foundation for any online ecosystem. The technology is an API-first CMS with support for REST APIs, so developers can connect all the third-party apps and front-end frameworks they like.
The technology also gives developers the freedom to code their solutions their way. You don’t have to follow a specific set of guidelines for how content is created, but templates are available to fast-track development. Agility CMS also hosts and abstracts your database, so you don’t have to worry about connection strings, backups, and maintenance.
With a strong content architecture to help companies manage digital content and a partnership with Gatsby, Agility is ideal for Jamstack development strategies.
The Jamstack solution is more than just a buzzword in today’s development world. This unique approach to building incredible development experiences delivers an excellent advantage to both developers and their end-users. Fast, scalable, and full of solutions for customization, Jamstack is a powerful way to bring websites to life with simplicity and speed.
Every day, more companies take advantage of the Jamstack environment, and we’re constantly seeing a wide selection of new tools, APIs and offerings emerging to help enhance the Jamstack landscape too. This environment is definitely worth consideration for any developer looking to significantly speed up their development strategy.
Featured image via Pexels.
The post Is it Time to Transition to JAMStack? first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.
There are some spook-tacular finds in this month’s October collection of resources and tools for designers and developers. From interesting tools that can help in the design process to boo-tiful typefaces, there’s something for everyone here.
Here’s what is new for designers this month…
Atropos is a lightweight, open-source JavaScript library to create touch-friendly, three-dimensional hover effects. The results are stunning and have a nice parallax style. Everything is highly configurable and customizable. It’s available for JavaScript, React, and Vue.js and has zero dependencies.
CSS Gradient Editor helps you create the perfect gradient style – you can start from presets – that you can use in projects. Design a background, fill, or almost any other gradient element you might need, make adjustments or customizations, and then get the CSS with one click so you can use it right away.
Octopus.do is a fast visual sitemap builder that lets you work in real-time using the content brick method. Share and collaborate in real-time and there’s no signup required to use it.
Pirsch Analytics is a privacy-friendly, open-source alternative to Google Analytics — lightweight, cookie-free, and easily integrated into any website or directly into your backend. It includes filters to see metrics in the way you want and light and dark modes.
Basic Pattern Repository is a collection of simple SVG patterns for projects. Everything is rooted in a simple style to help push projects along quicker. You can get it via GitHub or as a Figma Library.
Blobr is a way to get a branded API portal, manage access, and monitor usage all in one place. Customize everything to fit your brand and the tool grows as you do with the ability to increase or change capacity. Plus, it is easy to set up and free to use.
HEXplorer helps you better understand something you use all the time – HEX colors. This pen by Rob DiMarzo shows how the values for different colors come together to provide greater comprehension when it comes to this color format.
CCCreate is a curated collection of tools and resources for web creators. It includes some tools that have been around for a while as well as some newbies. Everything is grouped and sorted by type of resources – color, icons, type, layouts, animation, shapes, docs, and miscellaneous so you can find what you are looking for faster.
Glass is a photo-sharing app for photographers. It’s a social network of sorts that lets you share images with the greater photography community without “likes.” Just great images.
Revolt is a chat app that’s still in beta and designed for easy communication without having to download apps. It’s an open-source project that is customizable and with an intuitive and recognizable interface. The thing that’s different about this app is that it is built on a privacy-first model.
Doodle Ipsum is the illustrated version of placeholder elements. Customize your doodles, grab the code, and use them on your web prototypes, landing pages, or no-code tools.
Mechanic is an open-source framework that helps you create custom, web-based tools that export design assets in your browser. The best part is you can try it right on screen using the “poster generator.” If you like what you see, there’s plenty of documentation to help you along the way.
Medio is an agency-style website design template for Bootstrap 5. The layout is perfect for a design agency or marketing group but can be adjusted for almost any multi-purpose design. The free template includes a minimal design and includes features such as parallax, popup video, and more.
This tutorial is a life-saver when it comes to using and understanding the new CSS accent-color property. This quick lesson will help make your life easier and is simple to use. It starts with setting an accent-color property on the root element and then applying it.
Houdini.how is a worklet library that is full of CSS and code examples to help you work smarter. See how different elements look cross-browser and learn to adjust the code and put them together in just the way you want. Houdini is a set of low-level APIs that exposes parts of the CSS engine, giving developers the power to extend CSS by hooking into the styling and layout process of a browser’s rendering engine.
Chainstarters is a powerful, rapid, Web3-enabled platform for software developers. It eliminates the burden of setting up and maintaining a secure and scalable infrastructure, allowing you to focus on creating amazing technology.
Web Vitals Robot is a search optimization tool that monitors SEO metrics for you – so you can prevent your business from disappearing from Google.
Searchable is a unified search tool that looks at local, cloud storage, and apps to find the files you are looking for. It returns results in a jiffy with previews so you don’t have to open every file to find what you are looking for.
Athlone is a fun serif with lots of personality. The free demo version includes a limited character set for personal use only and the full version has everything you need for fun display or branding with this typeface.
Capitana is a Geometric Sans typeface with humanistic proportions and open apertures. This means that all shapes are constructed from basic forms, the circle, triangle, and square, and are designed according to the classic proportions of the Roman Antiqua. Distinct ascenders and pointed apexes with deep overshoot give it a cool beauty and classic elegance. It includes 784 characters per style in nine weights from Thin to Black, it offers both light and extremely heavy weights for striking headlines.
Colours is a funky script with just enough texture to keep it interesting. The free version includes a partial character set and is for personal use only.
Flexible is a variable typeface that includes 18 styles in the family. It’s made for creativity and display use. This typeface is made for experimenting because there are so many things you can do with this single family.
Singo Sans Serif is a simple and strong typeface that would make an excellent display option. The free version is for personal use only. Fun fact: Singo means Lion in Indonesia, which is where the name of this strong font comes from.
The post Exciting New Tools For Designers, October 2021 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.
In the “Leveraging Salesforce Using Spring Boot” article, I navigated the course for introducing a Spring Boot service that would leverage the well-established Salesforce RESTful API. The goal of this service is to act as a middleware layer to allow clients not written in Salesforce to retrieve and update contact data stored in Salesforce. This backend service implements its own caching layer to provide a faster response time and also cut down on the number of times Salesforce needed to be called.
In the “Leveraging Salesforce Using a Client Written In Svelte” article, I introduced a simple client written in Svelte, which provided the ability to make updates to the Salesforce data using an inline editor—again, without actually using the Salesforce client.
Thinking of building the next big mobile application? The time to market of a mobile application is critical in the current fast-paced industry. Deciding if it’s an Android or an iOS application is just one part of the problem. Most of today’s applications need a backend system to carry out their operations. Features like remote data storage/syncing, authentication, and user communication require a set of backend services to be available.
So, how can we develop these backend systems for mobile applications? There are two main patterns for doing this. The first is to do direct integration.
