Day: February 20, 2023

Introduction

Supabase is an open-source Firebase alternative.

In databases, change data capture (or CDC) is a set of software design patterns used to determine and track the data that has changed so that action can be taken using the changed data or because of it.

Aloha, guys. Today, we will address more frequently asked questions and solve a few problems using the two-pointers technique. 

This approach is widely used in interview tasks. It is crucial to read the patterns in the condition of the problem and use them when solving it. This approach aims to create two-pointers, usually fast and slow pointers. After that, depending on the condition of the problem, we will move the fast/slow pointers.

At first glance, testing a mobile app may not seem to be very different from testing a conventional desktop app. Mobile and desktops are often written in the same languages and hosted on the same servers. They must also meet the same basic user expectations in areas like loading speed and accessibility.

But when you dive into the details, you realize that mobile apps are fundamentally different beasts from desktop apps – and that, by extension, mobile testing requires a unique approach. You can't simply take a software testing strategy that works for desktop apps and graft it onto your mobile apps.

When testing a plugin for IntelliJ-based IDEs using a UI test, the plugin gets to operate within a fully-featured instance of the IDE. Most tests will therefore require a project to perform their actions on. This opens a question: How do you deal with modifications to test projects made by tests? Add undo logic at the end of every test? Revert using a version control system? Those options sound like easy ways to make new mistakes.

We faced the same problem when writing tests for our own plugin, Symflower, for IntelliJ IDEA and GoLand, but we’ve opted for a simpler solution. We don’t run tests on the canonical source of our test projects but rather copy the entire project directory and use that copy instead. This avoids relying on repetitive cleanup logic or VCS-based reverting that could undo legitimate changes to the source files.

In the first part of this article, we have seen how to set up a simple scenario with a Spring Cloud Config server and the client counterpart. The server was set with a native profile, and the configuration was stored in the classpath, in a subfolder named config. The demo was made of a single instance of a server and client. 

In part two, we will show how to configure Spring Cloud Config to connect and use an external Git repository. Then, in the next sections, we will talk about refreshing the configuration data without restarting the services.

Angular is an open-source, free TypeScript JavaScript framework from Google. The primary purpose of the Angular stack is the development of Single Page Applications (SPAs). It is also valuable for creating large applications that are easy to maintain. Developers love the standard structure of Angular, and Google has been releasing updates to its original framework.

The latest release is Angular 14, which has many new features and updates that have changed how Angular components are written. It was released on 2nd June 2022. The latest version enables any software development company to build lighter and faster applications. This article deepens the new features and updates that greatly help deliver application development services.

In assessing the enterprise landscape and planning for a digital transformation (Dx) transition project, every organization will certainly focus on technology and infrastructure. Technology is, after all, inherent in the very nature of a Dx discussion. Infuture Institute recently published a study that describes the critical factors in a digital transformation (Dx), and one of the most provocative insights states that, "What we need is…the change of attitude in the approach to digital transformation — from a technological approach to the humanistic approach (human over technology, not technology over human), i.e., focus on the employees within the organization and the needs and expectations of customers and consumers."

Business managers might disagree with that conclusion, believing that if we plan appropriately for technology changes and upgrades, we will logically support the needs of the team and customers and stakeholders. But that belief is flawed. The very technology and infrastructure you are planning will be used and leveraged by people (business users, customers, suppliers, and so on). People use technology to achieve goals, monitor results, process requests, collaborate and more. 

Most developers are probably aware that OpenAI provides an API at this point. By intelligently using this API, you can actually “create your own ChatGPT chatbot.” Your own private ChatGPT that answers questions the way you want it to answer questions. To see an example of this, check out our ChatGPT chatbot. If you’re too lazy to click the link, there’s a screenshot below.

The basic idea is really simple. You point it at a website, our system scrapes your site, and you get your own custom ChatGPT version that knows everything about YOU and YOUR COMPANY and only speaks nicely about your services. Watch the video below to understand the process.

TL; DR: The ChatGPT Product Owner Job Interview

A few weeks ago, I ran a simulated job interview with ChatGPT for a fictitious Scrum Master position. Admittedly, I would not have invited this “interviewee” for an interview with other team members; however, the interview produced some remarkable answers. 

Consequently, I tried the same with a Product Owner position, aware of the challenges this would pose, as the Product Owner role is significantly fuzzier than the one of a Scrum Master. So, I took a few questions from the "Hiring: 82 Scrum Product Owner Interview Questions" guide and ran a ChatGPT Product Owner job interview. 

Coding conventions are a set of guidelines for writing code that is consistent, readable, and comprehensible. They are also sometimes called programming conventions, style guides, or coding standard. These conventions cover various aspects of the code, such as naming conventions, indentation, commenting, and formatting. By following these conventions, developers can quickly understand the structure and purpose of the code, which makes it easier to debug and maintain the code. Additionally, conventions ensure the code is consistent across a team or organization, which can improve collaboration and communication among developers.

The term “clean code” refers to a programming style that also prioritizes maintainability and scalability by following principles like clarity, simplicity, consistency, and modularity. Clean code is important for the main developers and other developers who will read and maintain it in the future. Writing it requires discipline and attention to detail, but the benefits are well worth the effort. It can improve the speed and efficiency of development, reduce bugs and errors, and make the codebase more scalable and maintainable.

How about some accessibility quick hits!

It’s a bit hard to keep track of when using certain CSS value types is bad. For a while, using pixel (px) values in media queries was considered a bad practice as the breakpoints didn’t trigger as expected when a user zoomed in. But then that changed, and media queries do now, and using pixels for media queries isn’t really a bad practice any more.

But is using px still a bad practice in other cases? Yes, says Josh Collingsworth.

… when or if the user changes their preferred font size, if you’re using em and rem, all the text on your website will change accordingly, like it should. 2rem is still double that font size; 0.5rem is still half of it.

By contrast, px values are static. 20px is just 20px, regardless of the container’s, browser’s, or user’s font size. No matter how large or small the user’s font preference may be, when you set a value in static pixels, it clobbers that choice and overrides it with the exact value you specified.

Critically, that means if your stylesheet uses px to set font-size anywhere in it, any and all text based on that value will be impossible for the user to change.

Did you know that it was, up until fairly recently, specced that heading elements (e.g. <h1>, <h2>, etc) would “reset” inside of a new <section> (and similar) elements? I admit I thought that was kind of a neat idea. For example, if you’re building a site with HTML partials, and one of those as a little <aside> that I plunked into a sidebar or something, that I could have an isolated set of headings that would be valid and squoosh into the proper hierarchy going on on the rest of the page, without knowing or caring about headers scattered around the rest of the page.

Well, despite being specced, and despite general liking of that idea, no browser ever implemented it, and it was removed from the spec. Pour one out for the Document Outline Algorithm.

Doesn’t make me want to hold my breath for browsers implementing a tab order fixer-upper that follows the visual order of grid or flex items, like has been tossed around a bit.

Léonie Watson:

… you may be surprised to learn that there is no way for authors to design the aural presentation of web content, in the way they can design the visual presentation.

Why we need CSS Speech

All the major browsers now have “listening” features built right into them, and still no way to control that experience.

The good news is that there is a spec for CSS speech. Léonie thinks it’s too old and too big, so offered to take it on and trim it down (hopefully into something browsers will take on). Looks like that’s starting to happen based on the names on the spec.

This is a wild story: Safari’s date-picker is the cause of 1/3 of our customer support issues.

Shortly after I read it, I had to use this exact date picker a number of times while filling out online forms on an iPad at a doctor office and I friggin get it. Using that date picker for birthdays is horrible. Even knowing exactly how to do it, I tripped up several times in a row.

The danger of all this is companies, sometimes rightfully, going “screw it we’ll just build our own”, and having that home-grown picker perhaps solve this one UX issue, but cause accessibility issues that harm another group of people.

A smidge of good news. We can Use the dialog element (reasonably) says Scott O’Hara. There have been some recent updates that solve some the focus handling issues that apparently gave it a red flag before. I’m glad about this, as I think it suffers from exactly what I described above: people build dialogs in-house instead and get some (if not most) of the accessibility requirements wrong. Focus-trapping alone is brutally difficult to get right, and it’s just a freebie with <dialog>.

The post Chris’ Corner: Font Size, Document Hierarchy, and Dialog appeared first on CodePen Blog.

A decades-old physical goods manufacturing concept is being applied to modern dev teams with great results. What can software development learn from the past?

Value Stream Management (VSM) has been a focus of business and manufacturing for years, but big tech has only recently taken notice.