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In defense of the modern storyboard
Since the release of iOS 5 and Xcode 4.2 in 2011, developers have had a choice when making an iOS project: should I build my interface using a storyboard or just entirely in code? Programmers, of course, when faced with…
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Selling yourself as a self-taught developer: It’s not as hard as you might think
The idea of telling a potential employer that you are a self-taught developer and have no formal qualifications sounds crazy, right? Well, it might not be as crazy as it seems. Think about it. You need huge amounts of determination,…
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Your First Hackathon: A Survival Guide
Your First Hackathon: A Survival Guide At some point in your life as a programmer, a friend or colleague will tell you about a hackathon. You may imagine green code racing down a black background as someone frantically types at…
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Data Security: You don’t need to worry so much.
Security. The word alone is enough to stress you out. It’s easy to understand why; we have all heard teeth-grinding tales of breaches in security devastating companies and individuals alike. As our jobs and everyday lives — even our homes —…
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Clean Up Your Code with Modular CSS
CSS. It’s a web designer’s playpen. With so many colors, type settings, layout options, and responsive possibilities, it’s easy to turn a stylesheet into a million line nightmare. However, with a few simple actions you can clean up the mess…
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Active Record Without a Rails App
When you want to work with Ruby on Rails models, even if you’re just playing around, you have to go through a few steps: Create an app directory Create a database Generate model classes Run migrations But sometimes you need…
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New Features in React 16
Facebook recently announced the release of React 16, a complete rewrite of the React library. The new core architecture, codenamed “Fiber,” keeps most of the API intact and backward compatible. You can update your existing apps to React 16 without…
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Hugo Templates for WordPress Designers
Last year I wrote an article introducing the general concepts behind static site generators. This time around I’d like to dive into some specific (yet still basic) details about a popular static site generator called Hugo, comparing it to its…
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Try Docker with One Command
Heard of Docker, but still don’t know exactly what it is? I’ll fix that in one sentence: Docker lets developers bundle an app, together with services it depends on (like databases), into a runnable package called a container. Okay, maybe…
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An Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Kotlin
What’s Kotlin? Kotlin is a modern programming language maintained as an open source project by JetBrains, a world leader in IDEs. Back in 2011, JetBrains was writing primarily Java code and looking for a new programming language to help make…
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Getting Started with Create React App
Setting up the tools to develop a React application can be intimidating and time-consuming. There are a lot of moving parts. For example, setting up Babel to transpile JSX into browser-ready code, and configuring Webpack to bundle your project assets….
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Goroutines Make Concurrency (Almost) Easy
A program that supports concurrency can carry out several operations at the same time. That’s especially important on today’s multi-core computer processors. A program that uses 4 cores at once could theoretically run almost 4 times as fast (well, for…