Day: July 19, 2019 | The Blog Pros

July 19, 2019

Evolving Integration Strategy at a Major Canadian Bank, Part 1

Key Takeaways

CIBC is a major Canadian Bank with more than 150 years of history. The technology landscape is highly heterogeneous. Modernization of such a diversified environment is a tremendously difficult task. CIBC adopted an API strategy and developed Integration Pattern to support it. The article discusses major decisions an architect must make to apply the Pattern.
Having design patterns, recommendations, and best practices is not enough. Technology must support and enforce them through platforms and frameworks developers use to create products.
CIBC developed API Foundation Platform (APIF) to support and enforce CIBC Integration Pattern. It implements service mesh to support Cross-Cutting Concerns (XCC) in a unified manner across all Lines Of Business. APIF supports both sync and async (messaging and event-based) communication.
APIF implements recently emerged patterns to support eventual consistency; however, even with all these patterns, tools, and frameworks, eventual consistency remains an extremely difficult problem to solve. Some alternatives must be considered.
CIBC adopted an iterative approach to build new functionality or decompose legacy applications to (micro)services. For some use-cases, modular monolith architecture will be perfectly fine. Modules that meet defined microservices criteria might be extracted, packaged and deployed as independent (micro)services.

Executive Summary

With emerging new devices and technologies in the last years, CIBC, as the entire industry, goes through enormous changes in all aspects of developing new capabilities and delivering business value. To address the new requirements CIBC embraced and promotes API Strategy which in turn requires new Integration Strategy. CIBC developed a generalized Integration Pattern to reflect these changes and related standards to enforce the pattern. The pattern is directly supported by the API Foundation Platform built in our organization. Successful implementation of the pattern requires a steep learning curve and critical thinking to navigate through zillions of buzzwords to understand what would be the best possible solution for a concrete use-case.

The article discusses major decisions architects and designers should make to apply the pattern: what API protocol to choose? What would be the right architectural style to implement the API? What is the recommended roadmap, and the best strategy to progress from one architectural style to another one, say from a legacy application to a structured monolith, and then, if required to microservices? What are the options to implement the isolation layer? What design patterns to use to implement Cross-cutting concerns (XCC)? And what about eventual consistency?

July 19, 2019

NativeScript 6.0 Release Focuses on Developer Productivity

NativeScript 6.0 is now available. The open-source framework for building cross-platform native Web and mobile applications specifically focused on developer productivity with the 6.0 release. Examples of increased developer productivity include faster patch delivery, additional out of the box functionality, additional pre-built scenarios that avoid custom development, and specific tools driving the development experience.

July 19, 2019

DevOps: Making Life on Earth Fantastic

photo: Engin Akyurt

DevOps is taking over business. Not because technology permeates business, but because it has broadened to include the entire business value stream. Different best practices throughout the enterprise are incorporating principles of DevOps to deliver better outcomes to customers.

July 19, 2019

Handling Java Errors in Mule 4

Mule 4 handles Java code through Java Module. The following new features have been added in Mule 4 for Java:

Java static methods can now be called using an "Invoke Static" component in Java module.

July 19, 2019

7 Powerful Chatbot Building Platforms

Some of the popular chatbot publishing platforms are FB Messenger, Kik, Slack, Telegram, and WeChat.

A chatbot publishing platform is a medium through which a chatbot can be accessed and used by users.

July 19, 2019

Running Multiple Services Inside a Single Container using Supervisord

In this blog, I am going to explain how to run multiple services inside a single container and how to effectively use Docker compose and persistent volume in a local development environment — using Supervisord and Docker compose. A container is a light-weight platform for running applications along with its dependencies in an isolated environment. It is good to run a single service inside a container.

Though we can access the different services hosted in different containers using a container network, we can get the same benefits by running multiple services in a single container. There are some situations where we need to run more than one service inside a container and it should be accessible from the container host or network. For example, apache/nginx http server along with an FTP server or some microservices that are running inside the same container with different processes.

July 19, 2019

Evolving Integration Strategy at Major Canadian Bank, Part 4

Migration From Monolith to MSA

If you can't build a monolith, what makes you think microservices are the answer?[10]

Decomposition of a System Into Microservices

Migration to MSA is a painful and long journey, involving a steep learning curve, and requiring a different mindset and cultural changes.

July 19, 2019

What Product Teams Can Learn From Trader Joe’s About Listening to the Customer

My colleague Michael told me about a great story he heard on a podcast from U.S. grocery store Trader Joe’s about why they sell bananas for 19 cents each instead of by the pound (not surprisingly, the episode is titled, “It’s About The Products”).

CEO Dan Bane said he was watching customers in a Sun City, Arizona store, which was near a retirement complex.

July 19, 2019

Open Letter to all the People Being Forced to do Scrum

I've been thinking about the people who complain about being forced to do Scrum.

I agree that forcing self-organizing teams to do something seems counterproductive; however, even in that scenario, there are only a few hard and fast Scrum rules. Anything else I'm being made to do is not Scrum's fault:

July 19, 2019

Is JIRA a Counterproductive Project Management Software In Today’s Market?

There are numerous complaints about project management software since the inception of the IT industry. Some of the complaints elicit the counter-productivity factor of task management tools. I know that being an Agile project manager at nTask sounds like a bit of cliché’, but at the same time, I cannot help but think otherwise.

Sometimes, Project Management Tools are Overrated

Yep, they are not only overrated, but there is a very real possibility that you don’t have to rely on project management software to get by with your business activities. Why so? Consider a small business brick n’ mortar environment with old-school work aesthetics. They are running their business fine.

July 19, 2019

Computers Understand Me [Comic]

July 19, 2019

When Transitioning to Agile, Let Value Be Your Guide

As companies old and new transition to Agile methodologies, different challenges present themselves. For some, it’s process. For others, it’s buy-in. For most; however, improving communication is a crucial step.

Adam Auerbach, the VP of quality engineering at EPAM Systems, has led a number of company transformations throughout his career. When transitioning to Agile, Auerbach recommends starting with a value stream analysis.

July 19, 2019

Importance of Content Management System

A content management system (CMS) is software that enables end-users to create and manage content on a website. They are designed to make content management easy for non-technical users. One of the key features of a good content management system is that no coding is needed to create or modify content. CMS handles all the basic coding, so users can concentrate on what visitors to the website will see, rather than what goes on behind the scenes.

A content management system consists of two main elements. First, there is the content management application (CMA). The CMA is the part of the application that allows users to add content and manage it. The second element is a content delivery application (CDA). This is the backend application that formats the content and makes it available to visitors to the site.

July 19, 2019

Streaming Data With Spring Boot RESTful Web Service

Streaming data is a radical new approach to sending data to web browsers, as it provides for dramatically faster page load times. Quite often, we need to allow users to download files in web applications. When the data is too large, it becomes quite a challenge to provide users a good experience.

Spring offers support for asynchronous request processing via StreamingResponseBody. In this approach, the application writes data directly to the response OutputStream without holding up the Servlet container thread. There are a few other methods in Spring to handle asynchronous request processing.

July 19, 2019

Getting Started With Python

In this article, we will install Python and create the first “Hello World” application using Python.

What Is Python?

Python is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, Cross-Platform, Case Sensitive, and Object-Oriented programming Language. Python was created by Guido van Rossum and first released in 1991. It uses an Object-Oriented approach which makes the programmer write clear, logical code for projects. Python has become one of the most popular programming languages used in the world. It is easy to learn because its syntax is similar to the English language. It uses a new line to complete commands and indentation to indicate a block of code. Python is derived from C, C++, Algol-68, Unix Shell, and other scripting languages, etc. The latest version of the Python is Python 3.

July 19, 2019

Monthly Web Development Update 7/2019: Modern Techniques And Good Trouble

Anselm Hannemann

2019-07-19T14:00:00+02:00 2019-07-20T01:35:01+00:00

What can we do to cause “good trouble”? First of all, I think it needs to be friendly, helpful and meaningful actions that don’t impact other peoples’ lives. Secondly, it’s something we strongly believe in — it might be using simpler JavaScript methods, reducing the application size, a better toggle UI, publishing a book or building a business without selling user data to others. Whatever it is, it’s good to have a standpoint of view and talk about it.

It’s good to advocate others about accessibility problems, about how to listen better to others in a conversation, how to manage projects, products or even a company better. The most important thing on all these actions is to remember that they are helping other people and not impacting them as well as animals or our environment in general.

Doing something useful — as small as it might seem — is always a good thing. And don’t forget to honor your action just by smiling and being thankful for what you did!

News

Chrome 76 removes a couple of things like feature policy: lazyload, insecure usage of DeviceMotionEvent and the DeviceOrientationEvent. If you use them, please ensure you use a secure context by now or replace them by their successors.
Firefox 68 is out and this is new: BigInts for JavaScript, Accessibility Checks in DevTools, CSS Scroll Snapping and Marker Styling, access to cameras, microphones, and other media devices is no longer allowed in insecure contexts like plain HTTP. It’s now possible to resend a network request without editing the method, URL, parameters, and headers via DevTools, and a lot of (compatibility) fixes are included for CSS features as well.
Chrome 76 brings image support for the async clipboard API, making it easy to programmatically copy and paste image/png (currently, this is the only supported format though, unfortunately) images.
Tracking prevention is now available in Microsoft Edge preview, following other browsers like Safari and Firefox.

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Have you heard of the concept of “good trouble”? Frank Chimero defines it as questioning and re-imagining the status quo, and having your actions stand in contrast to the norm. But the interview with the designer shows much more than a new concept, it’s challenging how we work today and how to do your own thing that doesn’t match the norm of the society.

Particularly, I like this quote here:

“Slow down, find a quiet place and create time for solitude so you can hear yourself. It’s so noisy out there.”

What if control is only an illusion? We would realize that the true nature of an experience is revealed only in the interplay with the people who use it and that an invalidated design is nothing but an opinion. Quite a thought that puts our assumptions and approach on projects into a different light.

UI/UX

Many single toggle buttons fail at either showing the current state or making the unselected option visible — here’s how to do toggle buttons and indicators the right way.

Accessibility

Lindsey Kopacz shares how we can create custom, yet keyboard accessible checkboxes with modern CSS techniques.

JavaScript

Marta Wiśniewska shares how flat(), flatMap(), and fromEntries() and other ES2019 features work and when to use them.
Addy Osmani on the cost of JavaScript in 2019. An article (or video, if you prefer) for everyone who builds JavaScript applications.

CSS

Miriam Suzanne explains CSS Custom Properties and their role in the cascade in a deep dive article.

Work & Life

Active Listening is a skill that helps us listening for meaning, and how the other person is feeling instead of that usual listening that focuses on ‘how can I reply or comment on this or how will we solve this?’. Buffer’s guide written by Marcus Wermuth is a great resource to learn and practice Active Listening.
Christoph Rumpel shares what he learned from self-publishing a book and shows interesting insights into finances of it and what to avoid or do better.
Ben Werdmüller on doing well while doing good: This is a personal story about struggling with revenue, investments, third-party capital, trying to earn money on your own by selling your product while having free competitors and how to still produce good things while doing financially well.
Shape Up — Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters is a new, free online book by Ryan Singer about project management, leading a company and product. It’s amazing and while I only had time to flick through it quickly and read some individual chapters and sections, this will definitely become a resource to save and refer to regularly.

Going Beyond…

I was in the cinema last week to watch a movie about some people who created a farm. The trailer was nice and while I wasn’t 100% convinced of it, it was an evening where I was up to go out to watch a movie. So I did and it was good that I went to see “The Biggest Little Farm”. The farmer made the film himself as he’s a wildlife filmmaker so expect some quite stunning pictures and sequences of wildlife animals in there!

The most revealing part was how much of an impact only a handful of people can make out of desert land in a few years of time, and how much we as humans can influence wildlife, give a habitat to insects, and produce quality food while including CO2 from the air into our soil to make plants grow better, in order to restore nature and make an impact in the effort to fight climate change.

At several points during the movie, I was close to tears and I was extremely thankful that I’m able to have my little garden space as well where I can do similar things (though way smaller than their farm). If you’re up for something new, to learn something about food, meat, economy and how it all connects or how to create a beautiful green space out of desert, this movie is for you.

Last but not least, solar panels are a good way to produce renewable energy and it’s good usage of roofs. In China though, air pollution is currently so bad that solar panels sometimes stop working. Another reason to act quickly! If solar panels don’t work due to missing sunrays, our bodies will suffer the same lack of sunlight and we need it for our health.

(il)

July 19, 2019

23 Best Elementor Themes and Templates (2019)

Are you looking for the best Elementor themes and templates?

Elementor is a popular WordPress page builder plugin. It allows you to easily create custom layouts for your WordPress pages with a drag & drop interface.

You can use any of their pre-made templates as a starting point and then edit it using a simple point and click user interface.

Due to Elementor’s popularity, there are many WordPress themes made specifically with support for Elementor.

In this article, we will share some of the best Elementor themes and templates that you can use to build professional looking websites.

What is Elementor Page Builder?

Elementor is one of the most popular and best drag and drop WordPress page builder plugins. You can use it to build websites and landing pages instantly without using the WordPress editor.

It allows you to customize every aspect of your website. Elementor comes with over 80 design elements to add text, images, icons, maps, posts, testimonials, and more with live preview. It also includes separate modules for online stores, which help you instantly create beautiful sales pages.

Elementor page builder integrates third-party WordPress services for analytics, email marketing, and performance optimization of your website. It’s compatible with most of the WordPress themes and offers premium templates with the page builder for your ease.

Related: How to create custom WordPress layouts and themes with Elementor Builder (no code required)

Difference Between WordPress Theme vs. Template

A WordPress theme comes with all the basic features and layout design to create a website, blog, or online store.

On the other hand, a template is a layout for a specific page or part of a website. You can use the template to design custom web and landing pages easily.

Best Elementor Themes and Templates

Many premium and free WordPress themes are made specifically to work well with the Elementor. There are also several templates that you can use with your existing WordPress theme.

Let’s take a look at some of the best Elementor themes and templates that you can use.

1. OceanWP

OceanWP is a popular WordPress theme that works great with Elementor builder. It comes with many page templates and 1-click demo content installer for easier setup.

Using the premium extensions, you can extend the features and functionality of your website. It has the fastest page load time and supports WooCommerce out of the box.

2. Astra Theme

Astra Theme is a powerful WordPress theme designed to create any kind of website. It fully integrates with Elementor page builder and allows you to customize every aspect of your website.

It is packed with dozens of ready-made demos and starter sites. Astra Theme is highly optimized for performance and speed.

3. Atmosphere Pro

Atmosphere Pro is a beautiful WordPress theme powered by the Genesis Framework. It’s fully compatible with Elementor drag and drop builder to customize your website. It has a widgetized homepage to add your content and images quickly.

Other noticeable features include a customizable header, theme options panel, and custom page templates. This theme supports WooCommerce to start an online store.

StudioPress is now part of WP Engine, the most popular managed WordPress hosting company. You can get this theme and all 35+ other StudioPress themes if you sign up for WP Engine hosting to build your website.

Bonus: WPBeginner users also get an additional 20% off. Get started with WP Engine.

We hope this article helped you find the best Elementor themes and templates. You may also want to see our list of the best Beaver Builder themes and templates.

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