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How to Deploy Your Lambda Functions with CloudFormation

AWS Lambda is a powerful tool for developing serverless applications and on-demand workflows. However, this power comes at a cost in terms of flexibility and ease of deployment, as the manual deployment process that AWS Lambda recommends can be error-prone and hard to scale. 

CloudFormation revolutionizes this process, replacing copied zip files with dependable and repeatable template-based deployment schemes. With CloudFormation, your Lambda functions will be easier to maintain, easier for your developers to understand, and easier to scale as your application grows.

Reviewing AWS Lambda Deployments

AWS Lambda function deployments are based around file handling—namely, by zipping your code into an archive and uploading the file to AWS. At its core, all AWS Lambda functions follow this pattern:

  • Create a zip file.
  • Upload to an S3 bucket.
  • Set the function to active.

This takes place whether you’re manually deploying the code, have outsourced your deployments to a tool, or are following any protocol in-between.

Once the file is received, AWS unzips your code into the appropriate folder structure, making it available to run when the Lambda container is spun up. This approach is a key point to remember as we discuss Lambda deployments and also exposes one of the first holes in the manual deployment process—AWS Lambda functions have an unstated structure that you need to follow. 

Simply put, you do not want to right-click on a file and create an archive; otherwise, you’ll encounter an error when you try to run your deployed Lambda code. The following screenshots illustrate this issue:

Figure 1: Do not zip the folder using this method

If you examine the zip files produced by the above method, you’ll find that their root level consists of your code folder:

Figure 2: This zip file will not be parsable by AWS Lambda

The issue this introduces is specifically related to how AWS Lambda deploys the code—namely, it simply unzips the provided code archive to an executable folder, then routes invocation requests to the application code found in that folder. When you provide a zip archive with a folder at the root level, instead of the application code itself, AWS Lambda has no idea what to do and throws errors. So, make sure that you zip the folder contents themselves, as follows:

Figure 3: Zipped at the appropriate level, the function code should be the root of the archive

When you do this, your code is put at the root level of the zip folder. This allows AWS Lambda to easily deploy your published code:

Figure 4: The code file is present at the root of the zip archive

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Each Lambda function exists independently, meaning that you cannot easily share resources between Lambda functions—shared libraries, source data files, and all other information sources that need to be included with the zip archive you upload. This additional fragility and duplication can be resolved with Lambda layers. Lambda layers provide you with a common base for your functions, letting you easily deploy shared libraries without the duplication that would be required when using only the base container.

While you can set up a scriptable and maintainable deployment process, once the project size grows, the brittleness of the above steps will quickly become apparent. AWS CloudFormation solves this very complex problem by categorizing infrastructure as code; this lets your developers and development operations teams create, deploy, and tear down resources with simple configuration-file modifications. These configuration files are human-readable and can be modified in any text configuration, programming language, or UI tools that you desire. 

Furthermore, CloudFormation lets you centralize the deployment of your infrastructure, creating a build process for your serverless functions that is both repeatable and predictable.

Improving Lambda Deployments with CloudFormation

Moving from the error-prone manual process of Lambda deployment to the superpowered CloudFormation model is a straightforward process of translating your function’s infrastructure needs into the appropriate CloudFormation template language. CloudFormation lets you then consolidate the disparate resource deployments for your application into a small set of configuration files, allowing your infrastructure to be maintained alongside your application code.

All in all, CloudFormation makes deploying AWS Lambda functions incredibly simple.

Start by creating the template file that will define your resources. This will be your working folder for your code. Next, create your function in the appropriate file for your desired Lambda runtime. Finally, create an S3 bucket and provide its address to your Lambda function; once you’ve done this, you can deploy functions simply by copying your zip file to the correct S3 bucket.

CloudFormation will be the tool that ties together all the resources your function requires. In CloudFormation, you will define the function, the function’s IAM role, the function’s code repository in S3, and execution policies to ensure that your function can do everything it needs to do within the AWS ecosystem. CloudFormation further gathers these resources together, centralizing all of your infrastructure definitions in a single template file that lives alongside your code.

Running Through a Sample Deployment

In this section, we’ll run through a quick example of creating a CloudFormation-driven deployment process for an AWS Lambda function. Start with the following Node.JS code to create a simple Lambda function using the nodejs12.x runtime:

exports.handler = async (event) => {
        // TODO implement
        const response = {
            statusCode: 200,
            body: JSON.stringify('CloudFormation deployment
     successful!'),
         };
         return response;
      };

This code is deliberately simple, allowing you to highlight the deployment process itself. Once you’ve created the function code, you can begin creating all of the items that will allow you to deploy and run the code with CloudFormation.

First, create a new file in the same directory as the function. These instructions assume that your file will be named template.yml. Once you‘ve created the empty template file, start including resources needed to get your function running. You can begin with defining an S3 bucket to hold your function code:

 AWSTemplateFormatVersion: '2010-09-09'
     Description: 'Example Lambda zip copy'
     Resources:
        LambdaZipsBucket:
          Type: AWS::S3::Bucket

Then, create the resources needed for your function, including an IAM role and the function definition itself:

MyFunctionRole:
          Type: AWS::IAM::Role
          Properties:
             AssumeRolePolicyDocument:
                Version: '2012-10-17'
                Statement:
                   - Effect: Allow
                     Principal:
                        Service: lambda.amazonaws.com
                     Action: sts:AssumeRole
              ManagedPolicyArns:
                -
arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/service role/AWSLambdaBasicExecutionRole
        MyFunction:
            DependsOn: CopyZips
            Type: AWS::Lambda::Function
            Properties:
               Description: Example
               Handler: index.handler
               Runtime: nodejs12.x
               Role: !GetAtt 'MyFunctionRole.Arn'
               Timeout: 300
               Code:
                   S3Bucket: !Ref 'LambdaZipsBucket'
                   S3Key: !Sub '${QSS3KeyPrefix}/lambda.zip

Once you’ve created the template file and modified it to reflect the resources above, you can deploy your functions from the command line with a single call:

aws cloudformation deploy --template-file template.yml
    --stack-name your-stack-name-here

This basic configuration will allow you to deploy your functions once they‘ve been uploaded to the S3 bucket specified in the function definition. You can now build upon this basic set of deployment functionality to automate any aspect of your stack creation. For a fully functional deployment sample, you can clone the excellent quickstart repo from AWS.

Some Tips and Additional Resources

As you work CloudFormation into your Lambda development pipeline, you’re bound to encounter headaches. Here are a few tips to help avoid unnecessary frustration from this immensely helpful AWS blog article on the topic:

  • Did you know that you can deploy in-line Lambda code? Simply include your (small) Lambda function code as lines appended after the zipfile key.
  • If you only need to release your functions to a small subset of AWS regions, you can provide a list of regional buckets to populate with your code; simply expand the resource listing when defining your source Lambda zip files.
  • With a simple name format policy and some custom code, you can create a system that allows you to upload your S3 file once, then publish it to any AWS region that supports AWS Lambda.

In addition to the AWS blog post above, my fellow IOD experts also had a few thoughts on the best ways to achieve serverless deployment zen:

Once again, the excellent Quickstart repo provided by AWS also offers a useful CloudFormation-driven tool for deploying your AWS Lambda code across multiple regions from a single bucket.

Wrapping Up

AWS Lambda deployments are brittle and prone to error out-of-the-box, requiring you to wade through numerous user interfaces and dialog flows to create your function, associated execution roles, and the resources you need to host your deployable code. 

With CloudFormation, you can convert all of this manual configuration into a single template file with the power to describe an entire application stack. CloudFormation replaces the complex and error-prone manual process of deploying Lambda functions with a repeatable, maintainable process that can be maintained alongside your code.

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Community Tips

Understanding developer personalities

Personality theories provide a blueprint for understanding why people behave the way they do. In the latest edition of our State of the Developer Nation 22nd Edition – Q1 2022, we incorporated a measure of the widely accepted ‘Big Five’ personality dimensions. We did this in order to better understand the personality traits of software developers. Here, we share some of our findings on developer personalities. Our aim is to discuss how this kind of information can help to support interactions with developers.

Personality measures are a powerful tool for understanding people’s preferences and behaviours. Software teams need diversity not only in terms of skills, experience, and knowledge, but also require a variety of personalities. This will help teams collaborate effectively on complex and challenging projects.

The Ten-Item Personality Inventory

We used the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) methodology in order to measure the ‘Big Five’ personality dimensions. These dimensions are: emotional stability, extraversion, openness to experiences, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. The TIPI method is well-suited for situations where short measures are required. The results have been shown to have good alignment with other widely used Big Five measures1. Although more comprehensive and accurate personality measures than TIPI exist, they typically require an entire survey to themselves.

The TIPI method presents respondents with ten pairs of personality traits and asks them to rate how strongly these traits apply to them. Below, we show responses to these items for over 12,000 developers. We find that developers, in general, see themselves as complex and open to new experiences (86% agree or strongly agree that this applies to them), dependable and self-disciplined (79%), calm and emotionally stable (76%), and sympathetic and warm (74%). 

Developer personalities - developers are most likely to agree that they are dependable, self-disciplined, and open to new experiences

Diving deeper into the TIPI data allows us to identify more specific personality types within the general developer population. We collapsed these ten items into five distinct measures, one for each of the Big Five personality dimensions. For example, statements about being ‘sympathetic, warm’ and ‘critical, quarrelsome’ combine to give an overall measure of agreeableness. We then derived a score for each developer on each of the five dimensions. This helped us identify the developer personalities at the polar ends of each dimension, e.g. labelling those who are at the top end of the agreeableness scale as ‘agreeable’ and those at the bottom end as ‘disagreeable’. 

Finally, we segmented all developers into a set of distinct personality types. We did this by using the personality labels that they had been assigned as inputs to our segmentation algorithms.

Approximately 8% of all developers differ from the aforementioned group. They showcase a higher level of openness to experiences – often related to intellectual curiosity. These software developers have personality traits that suggest they are likely to investigate new tools and technologies. They are also more likely to stay up to date with the cutting edge of technology.

The Five Developer Personalities

The following charts show the characteristics of five example developer personalities revealed within our data. A well-rounded, ‘balanced’ personality type accounts for 52% of the developer population. These are developers who sit firmly at the centre of each dimension. They are neither introverted nor extroverted, highly agreeable nor disagreeable, emotionally unstable nor lacking emotion, etc.

5% of developers fit a ‘responsible and cooperative’ personality type. These developers score highly in conscientiousness, openness to experiences, and agreeableness in comparison to the majority of developers. Increased conscientiousness often relates to setting long-term goals and planning routes to achieve them, e.g being career-driven. Higher scores for openness to experiences reflects a preference for creativity and flexibility rather than repetition and routine. Our data backs this up. These developers are more receptive to personal development-related vendor resources. For example, 35% engage with seminars, training courses, and workshops compared to 25% of ‘balanced’ developers. Their high scores for agreeableness also correlate with greater engagement with community offerings. For example 23% attend meetup events compared with 17% of ‘balanced’ developers.

5% of developers conform to an ‘achievement-driven and emotionally stable’ profile. As with the previous personality type, they are conscientious and open to experiences. However, they score much higher in terms of emotional stability but slightly lower in terms of agreeableness. Developers who score high in emotional stability react less emotionally. For example they favour data over opinions. Lower agreeableness can be a useful trait for making objective decisions, free from the obligation of pleasing others.

We also find a segment of developers with an ‘introverted and unreliable’ profile. They indicate that they are less involved in social activities, disorganised, closed to new experiences, and less agreeable than other developers. Fortunately, these developers, who are likely hard to reach and engage in new activities and communities, are a very small minority, at 2% of all developers.

Common developer personality profiles
Common developer personality profiles

Developer Personalities, Roles and Content Preferences

Finally, we show how the characteristics of these developer personalities vary, in terms of both associations with developer roles and the kinds of information and content that they consume. Developers in the ‘balanced’ profile are most likely to have ‘programmer/ developer’ job titles. However, those who fit the ‘responsible and cooperative’ profile are disproportionately more likely to occupy creative (e.g UX designer) roles. This aligns with their increased creativity/openness, and senior CIO/CTO/IT manager positions, reflecting their self-discipline and achievement striving.

Those who are ‘achievement-driven and emotionally stable’ are less likely than other personality types to have ‘programmer/developer’ job titles, but disproportionately more likely to be data scientists, machine learning (ML) developers, or data engineers. They tend to deal mainly in facts and data rather than opinions and emotions. Those in the ‘introverted and unreliable’ profile are more likely to have test/QA engineer and system administrator job titles than those in other personality types. 

Developer personalities - achievement-driven developers with high emotional stability are 50% more likely to be data scientists than those with a balanced personality

When it comes to where developers go to find information and stay up to date, perhaps unsurprisingly, the ‘introverted and unreliable’ personality type uses the fewest information sources overall, affirming that they are a difficult group to engage via community-focussed events and groups. However, their use of social media is in line with other personality types, suggesting that this may be a suitable channel for catching the attention of this hard-to-reach group.

Both of the high-conscientiousness and high-openness personality types use the widest range of information sources overall, however, those who are more cooperative are considerably more likely to turn to social media for information about software development (53% of the ‘responsible and cooperative’ type vs. 44% of the ‘achievement-driven and emotionally stable’ type).

‘Intellectually curious’ developers are the most likely to make use of official vendor resources and open source communities. Hence, the audience that vendors reach via these resources may be slightly more keen to experience new products and offerings, than the typical ‘balanced’ developer.

What’s Next with Developer Personalities

We just began to scratch the surface of developers’ personality profiles. The personality types we have shown are indicative of just a few of the differences that exist among developers. By capturing this kind of data, we’ve opened the door for more extensive profiling and persona building, along with a deeper analysis of how the many other developer behaviours and preferences that we track align with personality traits. If you’re interested in learning more about developer personalities and how this can help you to reach out to developers, then we’re very excited to see how our data can support you.

Developer personalities - Achievement-driven developers use more information sources than those with a balanced personality
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Analysis

Are Low/No-Code tools living up to their disruptive promise?

You may be wondering why software development is a slow and expensive exercise. Its complexity and the need for technical resources may be hard to find or very expensive to hire. Due to this, low/no-code tools have become increasingly popular among developers today. In this article, we explore low/no-code development, the advantages/disadvantages, and try to understand if it is disrupting the software industry today with data-driven facts.

What is low/no-code tools software?

Low/no-code tools are visual software development platforms. Unlike traditional software development, which involves programmers writing lines of code, the low-code/no-code platforms encapsulate all this behind the tool.

As per the State of the Developer Nation 22nd Edition – Q1 2022 report,  46% of professional developers use low/no-code tools for some portion of their development work.

The difference between Low-code and No-code development platforms

Before we proceed further, hope you know the difference between low-code and no-code software.

Low-code platforms require technical knowledge and it helps the developers to code faster. The main benefit is that these platforms have powerful tools that speed up technical software development activities and are built for coders. 

No-code platforms are built for standard business users. There are no options for manually editing code and rather focus on the user experience aspect in creating functionality and abstracting the technical details away from the user. 

Despite some level of automation in low-code platforms, coding is still core to the development process. Openness is a key difference between low-code platforms and no-code ones. As a developer, you can modify existing code or add new ones to change the application. The ability to add code provides flexibility with more use cases and customization possibilities. However, it limits backward compatibility.

Any new version changes to the low-code platform may affect custom code developed and may need a proper review before an upgrade. That means whenever there is a launch of a new version of the low-code platform, customers will need to test if their customized code functionality works well after the upgrade. 

In the case of no-code versions, customers do not have to worry about any functionality or breaking changes due to the platform being a closed system.

Low-code platforms offer easy integration capabilities. Unlike No-code which can lead to users creating programs without proper scrutiny with risks like security concerns, integration, and regulatory challenges besides increasing technical debt.

How do you use low/no-code tools and software?

As a user, you visually select and connect reusable components representing the steps in a process. You then link them to create the desired workflow. The code is very much present behind the steps, which drives the functionality.

Low-code/no-code tools enable non-technical staff at workplaces or anyone to develop business workflow applications. Moreover, low-code/no-code platforms allow easy integration with other business applications. For example, a sales staff could use a low-code/no-code application to develop qualified leads or opportunities into a database. They could then set triggers to send out targeted communications based on the occurrence of specified events.

Advantages and disadvantages of low code/no-code software.

Low-code/no-code platforms have both advantages and disadvantages. Here are some of them.

Lower costs & faster development: Time is money, and you can reduce your costs when you create more applications faster that automate and help improve productivity. You save costs on recruiting additional developers as applications that took a few months can be completed in a few days leading to faster availability of business applications.

Integration feasibility & challenges: Today’s application programming interfaces, or APIs, enable a high level of integration between applications. Integration works seamlessly in many cases. However, when we look at scalability and speed, custom integration is preferred for critical enterprise business applications.

Creating APIs is not easy and requires a better understanding of the IT landscape and related applications. Hence creating significant and sizeable applications will require experienced developers rather than non-technical hands-on low code/no-code software.

Time to market gains: As low code/no-code software replaces conventional hard coding with drag and drop functionality, reusable components, ready-to-use templates, and minimal coding, organizations can deliver applications faster to the market. It, therefore, helps organizations gain a competitive edge and improve productivity.

Performance: The standard view on low code/no-code software is that it focuses on saving time and is effective and successful. However, low code/no-code software platforms are not designed for performance and limit the number of functions one can implement. Moreover, adding new features to an application built using low code/no-code software can get challenging.

Privacy and Security Issues: With low-code/no-code software, there are limitations to configuring data protection and privacy aspects. You do not have access to all the source code, making it challenging to detect any security gaps.

The future of software development

Low-code/no-code software platforms offer many advantages in creating business applications faster. There are some disadvantages to its limitations in coding functions and features. What is the ground situation today with low-code/no-code software platforms?

The State of the Developer Nation 22nd Edition – Q1 2022 report has some interesting insights on the actual usage of low-code/no-code software platforms. Here are some findings:

Who is using low-code/no-code tools?

  • 46% of professional developers use low-code/no-code (LCNC) tools for some portion of their development work.
  • Experienced developers, particularly those with more than ten years of experience, are the least likely to use LCNC tools.
  • Most developers that use LCNC tools do so for less than a quarter of their development work.
  • The Greater China area has the highest LCNC tool adoption rate. 69% of developers in this region report using LCNC tools, compared to the global average of 46%.
  • 19% of developers in North America use LCNC products for more than half of their coding work – almost twice the global average of 10%. This provides strong evidence that these tools can supplant traditional development approaches

Wrapping up

Low-code/No-code tools have great potential and disrupt the traditional software industry but at a slower rate. State of the Developer Nation 22nd Edition – Q1 2022 report shows us fascinating insights.

Experienced developers with ten or more years of experience are less likely to use low-code/no-code tools. It could probably be due to the flexibility that coding offers the experienced developers and their comfort with it. It may also have an angle related to the job security of software developers and the risks of automated LCNC tools taking away significant parts of programming activity. Experienced developers work on complex tasks and the low-code tools are more suited for simple programming tasks, which the experienced hands may find easy to do.

On the other hand, North American developers seem to be progressive in using LCNC products for half of their coding (twice the global average of 10%), showing massive potential for LCNC tools to supplement software development activities. A lot of initiative in using LCNC tools also rests with the software organizations leading initiatives and implementing these solutions. Younger developers may find it easier to automate some parts of coding using LCNC tools and speed up their development activities. 

The adapted LCNC approach each programmer takes to code and develop a feature can come from their learning experience. A younger developer may prefer to use LCNC for about 25% of their development work as they are familiar with using the tools and it is a way of working. An experienced developer may shun the tools as he has always been building applications from scratch by coding and no LCNC tools. 

As technology advances, and pressure to have business solutions quicker build up, organizations will need to use the latest LCNC tools. Developing robust functional and secure software solutions faster to get competitive gains will be a mandate amid the rapid pace of digital transformation. Today LCNC tools are progressing successfully in that direction and programmers irrespective of their experience need to adapt LCNC tools where an opportunity to improve productivity exists.

Categories
Analysis

How Developers Generate Revenues

How businesses and developers as individuals make money from software projects is one of the most important decisions they have to make. Of all the business models and strategies available, companies and freelancers need to pick the ones that best match their market and goals. This post focuses on the popularity of revenue models among professional developers and the companies they work for.

Of all the revenue models we track in our surveys, contracted development / consulting is the most popular model. As of Q1 2022, 31% of professional developers are using this model, 7 percentage points more than the next closest revenue model – selling apps or software. Contracted development can span months or even years, allowing for developers and companies to properly plan out resources during the project. In addition, professional developers and their companies may find the clients they contract for require additional services, thus leading to additional revenue. Contracted development is tried-and-true as it’s been the most popular revenue model for the past five surveys.

Selling apps/software through an app store or their own portal is the second most popular revenue model, with almost a quarter (24%) of professional developers making money in this way. Furthermore, adoption of this model has been stable over two and a half years, despite “Epic” lawsuits against Apple and Google in 2021, which argued that these app stores had excessive fees and restrictive payment collection processes. App stores and portals are popular now, but other technologies, such as progressive web apps (PWAs), could start to impact the popularity of app stores. PWAs can work across multiple platforms, provide a native experience, and can help developers avoid high commission fees from app stores; all of which are big incentives to embrace the power of the web.

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7% of professional developers are generating revenue from selling data

Interestingly, less than a tenth (7%) of professional developers are generating revenue by selling data. Data has often been referred to as the new gold and data breaches are heavily covered in news articles as well. If data is so valuable, why are so few professional developers using this model? Regulatory measures, such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), could be hampering developers’ ability to sell user data based on the “right to be informed” principle. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) also has multiple restrictions for selling user data including an earnings cap based on a company’s total revenue. These are just a couple of examples of why selling data is difficult, which impacts its popularity as a revenue model.

Next, we will look at how the industries that developers are active in influence their revenue models. Contracted development is the most popular revenue model across all sectors, further emphasising the effectiveness of this model.

Developers active in the software products and services, data analytics, and financial services verticals tend to have the same revenue strategies. Professional developers in all three of these sectors have the same top-three revenue model choices. In addition to contracted development, app stores and selling services/APIs are the more popular methods for generating revenue in these sectors.

In-app purchases break into the top three among developers in the entertainment and media sector. 28% of professional developers in this vertical are using this method, double the percentage of the general developer population. In-app purchases are strongly associated with the freemium strategy where users are able to use/download applications for free with some features restricted to micro-purchases. This strategy has become quite popular in game development for building a base of users and incrementally generating revenue, as long as the quality of production is high. 

Contracted development is the revenue model of choice across all industry verticals

For professional developers working for companies in the marketing and advertising sectors, the advertising revenue model rises to second place, but it’s unable to unseat contracted development as the most used model. Looking across industries, there’s an apparent lack of usage of advertising as a revenue model among most other developers. On average, advertising is ranked eighth among professional developers outside of the marketing and advertising industry, being used about three times less often. Again, privacy protection may be hindering developers’ ability to use this revenue model effectively.

Finally, we evaluate revenue model usage among developers in different-sized companies. Again, contracted development remains the most popular model across every size of company. This strategy is the status quo for developers, and, with such popularity, it’s presumed to be the expectation by customers seeking professional development.

Developers working for micro-businesses are the most likely to report that they generate revenue from contracted development, with over a third (36%) of developers who work in them using this model. Professional developers in micro- businesses are also using multiple revenue models slightly more often than other developers. This indicates that companies of this size are trying to maximise their earning potential while relying heavily on the industry standard of contracted development. That being said, contracts don’t sell themselves, and micro-businesses have only 2-20 employees, so developers in these companies will likely be a close part of sales conversations.

Usage of the advertising revenue model declines as companies grow in size

Developers at large enterprises have a slightly different profile, as they tend to use the contracted development model less often than developers in other company sizes. We also see less use of the multiple revenue model, indicating that companies of this size have a more focused strategy for generating revenue.

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Tips

Git Internals Part 2: How does Git store your data?

In this article, we’ll be learning about the basics of the data storage mechanism for git. 

The most fundamental term we know regarding git and data storage is repositories. Let’s first understand what a git repository is and where it stands in terms of data storage in git.

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Repositories

A git repository can be seen as a database containing all the information needed to retain and manage the revisions and history of a project. In git, repositories are used to retain a complete copy of the entire project throughout its lifetime. 

Git maintains a set of configuration values within each repository such as the repository user’s name and email address. Unlike the file data or other repository metadata, configuration settings are not propagated from one repository to another during a clone, or fork, or any other duplication operation. Instead of this, git manages and stores configuration settings on a per-site, per-user, and per-repository basis.

Inside a git repository, there are two data structures – the object store and the index. All of this repository data is stored at the root of your working directory inside a hidden folder named .git. You can read more about what’s inside your .git folder here.

As part of the system that allows a fully distributed VCS, the object store is intended to be effectively replicated during a cloning process. The index is temporary data that is private to a repository and may be produced or edited as needed.

Let’s discuss object storage and index in further depth in the next section.

Git Object Types

Object store lies at the heart of the git’s data storage mechanism. It contains your original data files, all the log messages, author information, and other information required to rebuild any version or branch of the project.

Git places the following 4 types of objects in its object store which form the foundation of git’s higher-level data structures:

  1. blobs
  2. trees
  3. commits
  4. tags

Let’s look a bit more about these object types:

Blobs

A blob represents each version of a file. “Blob” is an abbreviation for “binary big object,” a phrase used in computers to refer to a variable or file that may contain any data and whose underlying structure is disregarded by the application.

A blob is considered opaque it contains the data of a file but no metadata or even the file’s name.

Trees

A tree object represents a single level of directory data. It saves blob IDs, pathnames, and some metadata for all files in a directory. It may also recursively reference other (sub)tree objects, allowing it to construct a whole hierarchy of files and subdirectories.

Commits

Each change made into the repository is represented by a commit object, which contains metadata such as the author, commit date, and log message. 

Each commit links to a tree object that records the state of the repository at the moment the commit was executed in a single full snapshot. The initial commit, also known as the root commit, has no parents and the following most of the commits have single parents.

A Directed Acyclic Graph is used to arrange commits. For those who missed it in Data Structures, it simply implies that commits “flow” in one way. This is usually just the trail of history for your repository, which might be very basic or rather complicated if you have branches.

Tags

A tag object gives a given object, generally a commit, an arbitrary but presumably human-readable name such as Ver-1.0-Alpha.

All of the information in the object store evolves and changes over time, monitoring and modeling your project’s updates, additions, and deletions. Git compresses and saves items in pack files, which are also stored in the object store, to make better use of disc space and network traffic.

Index

The index is a transient and dynamic binary file that describes the whole repository’s directory structure. More specifically, the index captures a version of the general structure of the project at some point in time. The state of the project might be represented by a commit and a tree at any point in its history, or it could be a future state toward which you are actively building.

One of the primary characteristics of Git is the ability to change the contents of the index in logical, well-defined phases. The indicator distinguishes between gradual development stages and committal of such improvements.

How does git monitor object history?

The Git object store is organized and implemented as a storage system with content addresses. Specifically, each item in the object store has a unique name that is generated by applying SHA1 to the object’s contents, returning a SHA1 hash value.

Because the whole contents of an object contribute to the hash value, and because the hash value is thought to be functionally unique to that specific content, the SHA1 hash is a suitable index or identifier for that item in the object database. Any little modification to a file causes the SHA1 hash to change, resulting in the new version of the file being indexed separately.

For monitoring history, Git keeps only the contents of the file, not the differences between separate files for each modification. The contents are then referenced by a 40-character SHA1 hash of the contents, which ensures that it is almost certainly unique.

The fact that the SHA1 hash algorithm always computes the same ID for identical material, regardless of where that content resides, is a significant feature. In other words, the same file content in multiple folders or even on separate machines produces the same SHA1 hash ID. As a result, a file’s SHA1 hash ID is a globally unique identifier.

Every object has an SHA, whether it’s a commit, tree, or blob, so get to know them. Fortunately, they are easily identified by the first seven characters, which are generally enough to identify the entire string.

One fantastic benefit of saving only the content is that if you have two or more copies of the same file in your repository, Git will only save one internally.

Conclusion

In this article, we learned about the two primary data structures used by git to enable data storage, management, and tracking history. We also discussed the 4 types of object types and the different roles played by them in git’s data storage mechanism. 

This was all for this article, I hope you find it helpful. These are the fundamental components of Git as we know it today and use on a regular basis. We’ll be learning more about these Git internal concepts in the upcoming articles.
Keep reading. In case you want to connect with me, follow the links below:

LinkedIn | GitHub | Twitter | Dev

Categories
Community

From Interpreted Basic to Swift UI – Part 2

Developer Nation Community Stories

Part 2

Check out Deborah’s story as it started out here

Week of WWDC 2022 

Monday – Mapping down the journey

Apple’s WorldWide Developers Conference (WWDC) for 2022 kicked off with the Keynote (1 hour and 48 minutes) where I sat and enjoyed the presentation and did not take any notes. The Platforms State of the Union sessions (1 hour 10 minutes) was next, after an hour for lunch on the West Coast. This also is a session I watch and do not take notes. They also had the Apple Design Awards (18 minutes) and a Day 1 recap (3 minutes).

During the week, I looked over the list of sessions available each day and jotted down the ones that I was most interested in, listed by the days the videos would be available. I figured I would start with those and potentially watch others based on what I learned from the first set and how much energy I had left from the day.

Tuesday – The Swift Cookbook of Navigation 

On June 7, I was ambitiously planning on watching the following sessions, once they because available that day:

  • Build Your First App in Swift Playgrounds
  • Dive into App Intents
  • Get to Know Developer Mode
  • Implement App Shortcuts with App Intents
  • The SwiftUI Cookbook for Navigation
  • What’s New in SwiftUI

I opened a Word document and copied the transcript of each session and any code that was attached and pasted it into the document. I figured it might come in handy to look for terms, ideas, or code snippets someday. 

The first session, Build Your First App in Swift Playgrounds, was interesting, and I do not have a lot of hand-written notes about it, as it did not directly apply to my goal, to learn how to use SwiftUI to update my way-out-of-date-app. 

The second one, Dive into App Intents sounded promising and yet…it was about how to make it easier for a user to RUN your app, not how to describe what I intended it to do for me. I took lots of notes from Implement App Shortcuts with App Intents because I was determined to make them work for me somehow. 

Now, the SwiftUI Cookbook for Navigation was exactly what I needed. It talked about three-column navigation split view, and showed Recipe Categories, Recipe List, and Recipe Detail. This would work fine for me. I need to implement this! Yippee! I found what I came for! 

Now, I just needed to dig deeper and find out how to implement what they were cooking up! It talked about new container types: NavigationStack and NavigationSplitView. 

I did not watch the last session I had planned for Monday. I saved that for Tuesday morning, as the new sessions were not available when I get up early (I live on the East Coast of the United States and Apple and their timeline is based on their West Coast location) and I wanted to have something to do so I wasn’t tempted to log into my full-time job and check on some things. This was my “vacation” week after all. 

Wednesday- Design App Shortcuts & Privacy Nutrition Label

On June 8, I added to the one left-over session with the following choices:

  • Create Your Privacy Nutrition Label
  • Design App Shortcuts

Swift UI & Swift Charts 

I started with What’s New in Swift UI from Monday’s list. It was a list of sessions that talk about the details of new items in SwiftUI, such as The SwiftUI Cookbook for Navigation, which was the last session I watched the previous day, so I congratulated myself on that choice. 

The session also mentioned Swift Charts, and this was not of interest to me because I had no immediate plans to add charts to my app. It then talked about sharing, and since this is broken in my app currently, it peaked my interest until they talked about Mail, Messages, Air Drop, Notes, Add to Photos etc and  not  Facebook or Twitter, that are not not considered sharing now. The session ended with a peek at layout and how a mixed layout can be achieved with Grid, GridRow and GridColumn. 

Create your Privacy Nutrition Label

Next up was Create Your Privacy Nutrition Label. I went into this thinking there was an actual label that would need to be filled out to submit an app to the store. The areas are Data Used to Track You, Data Linked to You, Data Not Linked to You, and Data Not Collected. If the developer selects the last one, the label reads, “This developer does not collect any data from this app” and that applies to my app. So, that was all I really needed from this session.

Thursday – What’s new in Xcode

On June 9, I added just two more to my original list:

  • What’s New in AppStore Connect
  • Writing for Interfaces

I still have not watched either of those sessions. I started the day with What’s New in Xcode which gave me a list of other sessions to take a look at when I have time. Some new code was introduced and hints and tricks were shared to make coding faster by using code completion and using simple icons in a single size instead of needing all the sizes for all the different versions of pixel count now available. 

The new sessions I added to the watch list are:

  • Use XCode to Build a Multiplatform App
  • Meet Swift Package Plans
  • Create Swift Package Plugins
  • Building Global Apps: Localization by Example

Localization do or don’t?

I decided to watch the last one on that list first, Building Global Apps: Localization by Example. This sounded promising, and I was interested in how well the translation would work for my app. I thought it was  too much AI and not enough about how you will need to hire translators who would take the text you send them and return it in different languages, which you reference in code to use the localized version of the text. 

My small little app is not going to be translated. Not for this next version. 

Custom Layouts and Swift Playground 

Next, I watched the session Compose Custom Layouts with SwiftUI and learned about grids and geometry reader and the layout engine. It was way over my head, and not really relevant to what I was hoping I needed to do. I thought  starting in Swift Playgrounds is where I should turn my attention. I watched Create Engaging Content for Swift Playground only to find out that this was not relevant either since it was about how to write an app for learners.It was interesting though!

Friday  – Having a Design Lab appointment 

I had signed up for a Design Lab appointment so someone from the Apple Design department would take a look at my app currently available and make suggestions on how to improve it and bring it up-to-date. I took lots of notes on what he found when he used the app, and I have a few things to think about when re-designing the app that I hope to incorporate into the final product. Then, as I was looking around for sessions to watch, I noticed that my all-time favorite SwiftUI online instructor, Paul Hudson (@twostraws) had recorded a session at Apple Headquarters in their new developer lab podcast space so I just had to watch it. It was What’s New in SwiftUI for iOS16 and this is the session I took the most notes from and, as usual, after watching his session, I wanted to jump right in and start coding. 

Well, WWDC is over for the year. There are still sessions I would like to watch…you know, that magical time we all have called “someday”. It is time to get the app updated and into the app store before the time runs out and Apple pulls it from the App Store. That story was in part 1 and documents now I spent most of my Saturday after WWDC, all psyched up to get going with this new-found knowledge and enthusiasm for a redesigned version of my personality test app (Which 1 Are You). 

Sunday

After spending way too much time on Saturday downloading the Beta version of Xcode, making sure the app works, and then finding out I can’t submit to the App Store from Beta, and all the other pitfalls I tripped over, I was not too enthusiastic about redesigning the app. So, I reread some of my notes, and remembered that I had had a dream over night about how exactly I could do this.

 I started a new project in XCode, called TestingCode. To use as a proof of concept It has three structs, some state variables, and the body consists of a NavigationSplitView from the Cookbook session and Paul’s podcast. I thought I had understood it, and yet I cannot get it to work. And it’s back to my full-time job, too!

Coming up next : Debugging, NagivationSplitView and more

And that is where this blog ends, for now. Tune in for part 3, where I debug the issue, and learn more about this intriguing NavigationSplitView and how it actually should work. This is where the transcripts and code samples from the sessions I copied should come in handy to see what the pieces of the NavigationSplitView actually should be and how they work together.

Any comments? Suggestions? Email me at FromInterpretedBasicToSwiftUI@gmail.com.

Categories
Tips

Tips for Choosing a Programming Language for your IT Career & Projects

Choosing a programming language can be complicated as many aspects need consideration. You might wish it was as easy as choosing between various flavors of ice cream or pizza. Ask any developer or technical manager to understand what drives popular choices in the tech world. In this article, you can learn what drives a choice of programming languages and the data-driven decisions developers should take to safeguard their careers while ensuring success in the projects they deliver.

Technology changes rapidly in today’s digital race, and the chosen language must get future potential to remain in use with strong developer communities, or else organizations can face maintenance and integration issues. Even young developers are keen to know which languages have excellent career potential, so they invest their time wisely.

Young developers may make the mistake of choosing a programming language because it’s trendy and cool. As a young developer, you can avoid these mistakes by referring to various tech forums and authentic sources like Slashdata’s – 22nd edition of The State of the Developer Nation (Q1 2022) that offer insights into popular programming languages and their growth trends.

Choosing a programming language

The choice of a programming language gets intertwined between your career aspirations and work experience. You learn a programming language and need to work on projects to gain relevant industry experience. So as a developer, you need to have a holistic approach to choosing a suitable language.

Choosing a programming language depends on various factors, and you should know all the components to get a better view and then make a choice. A good selection of programming languages will lead to spending less time on scaling, maintenance, and other aspects like security in projects.

Here are some typical questions you must ask when choosing a programming language for a project.

  • Does the programming language have proper community ecosystem support? Is it going to work over the long term? Is vendor support available?
  • What is the type of environment for the project – web solution, mobile, cross-platform, etc.?
  • Are there any infrastructure considerations like new hardware or particular deployment needs?
  • What do the clients prefer?
  • Are there any specific requirements for the programming language’s libraries, tools, or features?
  • Are experienced developers available for the programming language?
  • Are there any performance considerations, and can the language accommodate this performance?
  • Is there a security consideration or requirement for any third-party tool?

It would help if you remembered that irrespective of the chosen programming language, you can write good or bad code with any language. Besides the typical questions above, it’s advisable to consider a few critical factors in-depth before choosing a programming language. In programming, adherence to widely accepted design principles and philosophies is essential.

Some critical considerations driving the choice of a language include the following:

1. Type of application

The type of application varies from complicated embedded firmware to web and mobile. Common programming languages like Java, Python, JavaScript and C# can build different types of applications on various platforms. There are also situations where specific languages work better. With the rise in mobile apps, for example, you would choose Java for building a native Android app or a C and C++ combination for an embedded firmware project.

2. Complexity of applications

Identifying the application’s size and complexity helps determine the choice of programming language. The smaller and simple applications like marketing websites or webforms can use content management systems (CMS) like WordPress that may need minimal programing. On the other hand, complex applications like e-commerce websites or enterprise applications or emerging technology applications like IoT devices or AI-based applications may require Java or C#. As a technical manager, you can be an expert in gauging complexity with various experiences.

3. Organization culture

The choice of Open source technologies vs. proprietary software tends to rest with the organization’s culture and a direction often set by management. All programming languages have a trade-off, and some companies may choose one that is scalable, while others may pick one that has a shorter learning curve and is easy for the developers. Whatever the culture, the priority should be on choosing a language that optimally addresses the project needs. You can easily understand an organization’s choice once you start working on their technology stack.

4. Time to market:

Businesses rely on getting their product to the market early for competitive gains. Choosing new programming technologies and languages is better for a project with longer timelines. You can complete your project faster by leveraging the developers’ existing skills. For example, if you already have an AWS-based cloud environment and relevant team expertise, it will be quicker to work on it than move to another technology environment.

5. Maintainability

Technology stacks have their library ecosystems and vendor support. Choose a programming language with regular update releases that will stay current for some time. Maintaining the codebase is essential, and maintenance costs depend on the availability of developers. For example, as per today’s trends hiring Java, C#, Python, or PHP developers is easy and cost-effective. Organizations can make a data-driven decision by looking at the size of programming language communities from various industry reports from Slashdata.

6. Scalability, performance, and security:

The performance of the application depends on your choice of programming languages. It becomes essential when the development environment has limitations on scaling. Some popular tech stacks with great scalability include Ruby on Rails (RoR), .NET, Java Spring, LAMP, and MEAN.

It would be best if you protected applications from cyber threats. Following the security guidelines are crucial before choosing any programming language for your application. For example, a financial application needs PCI compliance, while healthcare-related applications need HIPAA compliance. Your choice of programming languages must be able to deliver application compliance.

Insights – Slashdata – 22nd edition of The State of the Developer Nation (Q1 2022)

You know the factors that drive the choice of programming languages. Let us look at findings from the Slashdata – 22nd edition of The State of the Developer Nation (Q1 2022). It offers exciting statistics that can help you as a developer know if your skills are up to date or need an upgrade.

JavaScript remains the most prominent language community, with close to 17.5M developers worldwide using it.

Python has remained the second most widely adopted language behind JavaScript, with the gap between the two largest communities gradually closing. Python now counts 15.7M users after adding 3.3M net new developers in the past six months alone.

The rise of data science and machine learning (ML) is an apparent factor in Python’s growing popularity. About 70% of ML developers and data scientists report using Python versus only 17% using R.

Java is one of the most critical general-purpose languages and the cornerstone of the Android app ecosystem. Although it has been around for over two decades, it is experiencing strong and steady growth. Nearly 5M developers have joined the Java community since 2021. 

Data shows that Java’s growth gets fueled by the usual suspects, i.e., backend and mobile development, and its rising adoption in AR/VR projects.

Wrapping up

We hope you have more clarity and data-driven insights in choosing programming languages for your career and projects. We encourage you to regularly read the whole SlashData – 22nd edition of The State of the Developer Nation (Q1 2022) report and stay updated on trending technologies.

Categories
Community

From Interpreted Basic to SwiftUI – Part 1

Developer Nation Community Stories

Part 1

It is with great excitement that we are now kicking off our new section of stories coming right from our Developer Nation community members.

Our first piece comes from Deborah Graham who recently attended Apple’s WWDC and decided to put her learnings from that experience into immediate action. 

This is the first part of Deborah’s story, recorded in her own vivid style.

Taking 250 pages of notes at Apple’s WWDC

Well, another WWDC (Apple’s WorldWide Developers Conference) has come and gone (week of June 6-10, 2022). I took a week off my regular, full-time job as a Finance BI Specialist (yeah, doesn’t really explain what I do, let’s say I work with Access, VBA, and SQL a lot and some source systems to get data into reports and SQL tables so others can create Tableau reports for employees to consume) to “attend” the conference and I watched 12 sessions(so far)  and a surprise video from my favorite Swift online teacher, Paul Hudson (@twostraws).

I took a lot of notes, and then created a Word document with the transcripts and code segments attached to the sessions. This Word document is over 250 pages already (and I have sessions I haven’t seen yet that will be added to the document). Why did I do that? It’s actually already come in handy…but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Rewriting my app to Swift

For starters: Using Xcode and Figma

Over the weekend, after the WorldWide Developers Conference concluded, I started working on getting my current, old app (written in Objective-C and hard to maintain and update) updated to reset the clock so the app would stay available in the App Store. It’s “Which 1 Are You”, if you are inclined to download it and see the “before” version as I work though re-writing it into Swift and using updated standards and design expectations. 

I downloaded the latest Beta version of Xcode to make sure the app would actually still run (if not, I had a LOT of work ahead of me to get this app updated before the deadline Apple set before they yanked it off the App Store due to not having updated it since June of 2017…yikes, it IS old!). 

I found out that I needed an App Store Icon (1024 by 1024). I wanted to find a free program to create an icon. A quick search found a video which suggested some paid programs and a free one called Figma. I figured that would work for me. I created the simplest icon I could. Luckily, it built and ran without changes. 

I figured I needed something different before I could submit to the App Store, so I marked it as working Upside down, too. I ran into a long list of issues during Archive and they were all small items.

Submitting to the App store

Then I ran into issues when submitting to the App Store. I found out that I could not submit an app from a Beta version of Xcode. So, it was back to the other version I had and tried again.

It seems, since I said I don’t collect data on users, the frameworks I used originally for ads, which no longer work, do collect (or might collect) data, so I either needed to revamp my statement or remove the frameworks. So, I removed the frameworks and tested it again. All was good. Back to submitting to the App Store. 

Then, I needed screenshots in all sorts of different sizes. Luckily, another search showed me that the Simulator Tool allows for screenshots. I spent an hour running the program in different device simulators to take screenshots and upload them to the App Store Connect page to get all the images I needed. 

It was late Sunday night when I finally got the green light that the app was in for review. I went to sleep wondering if the review would find anything else I needed to do. Woke up Monday and checked my email. My updated app was available on the App Store! Version 1.6.3 was a go! 

This means, I have some time to work on getting the app into Swift and taking the knowledge and advice I received at WWDC 2022 and re-vamping the app.

This blog will document the progress, insights, inspirations, and setbacks as I encounter them. Hope you enjoy the journey!

About the Author – Deborah Graham

Deborah Graham is a professional developer. She has over 20 years of experience with various programming languages. It all started while attending Community College to get an Associate degree in Electronics technology (hardware). One day, they delivered some Apple IIe computers to the computer room to keep the PDP-11s company. There was a pong-like game written in Interpreted Basic where the source code was available. She quickly figured out that by increasing her paddle to 99% of the goal area and the opponent’s to 1% and turning up the speed of the ball, it was a fun way to a win. One small change, one big difference. And a love of programming was born. When not in class, she could usually be found sitting at that Apple IIe and tweaking the program a little to see the changes. After graduating, she held several hardware-related jobs to match the degrees (two Associates: Electronics Technology and Computer Maintenance Technology, both hardware-based degrees), including Test Technician, Manager of the Test Department, Customer Support (where she created the Customer Support Newsletter that would collect errors in the hardware or documentation and send it out to the local sales and support reps to cut down on support calls to the home office) and then she went to the documentation department to correct all the errors and to create technical documentation with the hardware engineers. She was a Technical Writer for an automated testing machine manufacturer. The documentation software (this was WAY before Word) used LISP (now just Lisp) as the extension tool. The writing team found they needed/wanted to extend the documentation software to do things like index across all documents and spell-check all documents. Luckily, there was a class happening and she flew up to Montreal to attend the week-long class and the love of programming continued! When she got back, all sorts of extensions were created and shared with other users of the software. 

One day, during the yearly performance review and plan for next year, her manager said to get a promotion, she would need to get a bachelor’s degree. Didn’t matter in what, it was one of the requirements to move up in the company. So, she called the local state school and asked what degrees they offered. And BSCS (Bachelor of Science, Computer Science) was one of the choices. It was either that, or Nursing or Teaching. Easy choice!

Right before graduating (and being eligible for a promotion), she was laid off! But now, with a degree to go with her love of programming, she was hired by the documentation software provider as a technical writer. After that, she worked for an early browser-based distance learning provider as a technical writer. One Friday, the boss asked her if the online help she was writing in HTML could pop up when links where clicked instead of completing replacing the main help. Granted, that’s a no-brainer now…but this just wasn’t available in HTML at the time. On the way home, she went to the local bookstore, went to the Computer Science section, and checked the index on all the books to find one that would be of help. She bought the book, read it on Saturday and Sunday (yes, she reads programming books for fun!) and on Monday, she got into the office before the boss, coded up come JavaScript and when he walked in, she said, “like this?” and he was amazed. The thrill of writing some code and seeing the result is very motivating. She went on to teach a class called “JavaScript for Technical Writers” at various places. As she was creating the class and with a vacation scheduled, she emailed the author of her JavaScript book asking his permission to use the book and the sample code in her class, promising to give him credit for the code. When she received his okay, that started her habit of bringing a programming book to take on vacation with her to learn a new language. Some people may take a romance novel to read at the beach…she falls in love with a new programming language!

That leads to the list of the programming languages that she was used to professionally write code:

  • M/MUMPS/Caché ObjectScript
  • HTML
  • XML
  • ASP
  • Lisp
  • Pascal
  • Certified AES
  • Visual Basic/VBA
  • JavaScript
  • Postscript
  • PCL
  • Python
  • SQL

And some that she uses for her hobby

  • Objective-C
  • Swift

Which brings us to the hobby. One team she was on had a meeting habit of taking personality tests before the meeting and then declaring which one of something each team member was. Which flower are you? Which Major city? Which cartoon character? Each week, someone on the team would find an online test, and they would all take the test and report the results for the icebreaker at the start of the meeting. One week, she was looking for a test on which character from Scorpion (a television show about geniuses that solved problems for the US government each week and learned a little more about how to function in society with a help of their “normal” assistant and her genius son). Anyway, she could find tests on which genius, but not specifically about that show. When she mentioned this difficulty to the team manager, she was told to write one herself. Apple had just opened the AppStore to developers, so here was another opportunity to learn a new language. It took a few years of reading books, finding online classes on Objective-C, and finally getting an app into the AppStore. The CIO of her company mentioned it at a few All-Hands meetings, and he shared his test results. There are 15 tests available for a variety of TV, movies, cartoons, and general interest. If you are at all inclined, it is called “Which 1 Are You” and it has her name as the developer. 

As an Apple Developer, she is invited to attend Apple’s WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference). Before the pandemic, it was almost impossible to get tickets. Since the last few years have been online, it opened the gates and allowed anyone to participate. She has “attended” WWDC for two years in a row now and looks forward to attending them each year. She takes a week off from her full-time job as a SQL and VBA Programmer and soaks in the new information and the enthusiasm from the presenters and other attendees.

She was asked by Developer Nation to document her journey from WWDC 2022 to an updated version of the app, totally re-written in SwiftUI, into the AppStore. Follow along and see what works, what doesn’t work, and let’s see if she can get the app ready for version 2.0! You can email the author at  FromInterpretedBasicToSwiftUI@gmail.com

Categories
Tips

How To Make It As A New Blockchain Developer

Crypto, Blockchain and Web3 are buzzwords these days and while you might already hold some Bitcoin on Coinbase or Binance, you might also be wondering how you can move your career into this new industry as a developer.

Good blockchain developers are highly sought after and becoming an expert in these new technologies can bring you an exceptionally high income as well as job security.

It’s easy to google “How to become a blockchain developer” to find out what technical skills you will need and what programming languages you will have to learn. You will find lots of helpful information e.g. here and here

According to the latest State of the Developer Nation Report, blockchain applications, cryptocurrencies, and NFTs have the highest share of developers learning about them.

Blockchain developer - graph to show that blockchain apps, cryptocurrencies, and NFTs have the highest share of developers learning about them.

More specifically with regards to Cryptocurrencies, out of a sample of 13,939 developers, 50% stated they are interested in them, 34% said they are learning about them while 16 % have already adopted the technology. 

But what actually is Crypto, Blockchain and Web3? And – once you have the skills – how are you going to get your foot in the door and create long-term success? 

Ecosystem Education

If you are a complete newbie, I’d suggest educating yourself on the origins and philosophy of bitcoin and blockchain first, as well as the evolution of Web3. There are some great free courses that will give you a solid foundation and might help you find a niche to focus your efforts on. 

UnitMasters.org for example is an engaging 6-week course that will give you a good high-level overview of the Web3 ecosystem. It is very welcoming to participants from all walks of life and underrepresented backgrounds.

The free MOOC on Digital Currencies by the University of Nicosia, which is taught by prominent bitcoin educator Andreas Antonopoulos, is a great place to start if you really want to understand how bitcoin works and why it is here. 

Crypto Job Boards

There are a number of job boards dedicated to Web3, but simply submitting your CV has never been the best way to go about this, in my opinion. Nevertheless, it’s helpful to know about them, so here are a few you can check out: 

  1. Cryptojobslist.com
  2. Bitcoinerjobs.com
  3. pompcryptojobs.com
  4. offthechain.xyz
  5. hirevibes.io
  6. AngelList
  7. web3.career 
  8. dotjobs.net
  9. Braintrust

Building Your Network

The best positions are often filled before they make it to a job board, since candidates are being hired from within the network of the recruiter or the organization hiring. That’s why it is important to connect with others in the space. If the term “networking” makes you cringe or sounds like a chore to you, here are some easy ways to go about that: 

  1. Attend crypto meet-ups or blockchain conferences to learn about all the things that are being built in this space. You’ll be amazed what some teams are creating out there and you will surely find something that excites you, or sparks your own ideas.
  2. Join the online communities of the projects that you are most interested in. Most of them have a Discord community, which you can find on their websites. Start chatting with other developers in there who may be looking for team members and look out for vacancies in their announcement channels.

Start using some DApps (Decentralized Applications) – whether it’s a simple wallet to send and receive cryptocurrency or blogging platforms like Hive that allow you to earn cryptocurrency for your content. If you’re a gamer, check out games like Splinterlands or Axie Infinity. It’s easiest to start with something you already know. 

No matter what your background is, begin using Web3 apps so you gain personal experience as a user. This will help you learn about their challenges or short-comings and you can begin thinking about solutions for them – whether it is UX design or their token economy. You could begin contributing to their improvements, or you could join (or create) a team that will build something better.

Many people get hired by companies because they have proven their knowledge, engagement and contribution in their communities already.

Web3 projects don’t hire staff, they recruit members.

This goes not only for other stakeholders like customers, users, block producers and investors. Crypto projects are win-win-win communities. All stakeholders are equally important in their contributions to help the project succeed.

4. Join Hackathons and coding bootcamps. Stay in touch with the people you meet there. They might all end up in different projects, so this is a great way to build your professional network. 

5. Start creating content! Whether it’s your own blog, a Hive account, or your Github account. Begin creating a public track record of your thoughts or technical contributions to the space.

“Don’t trust. Verify.” This famous crypto slogan applies not only to the blockchain but also to you. Creating a verifiable track record is worth so much more than a fancy CV. Your track record will speak for itself and send projects your way, rather than you having to look for them. Project teams don’t care about your CV, they care about your proven experience and contributions to the industry.

6. Join a DAO and see how you can begin contributing. DAO’s – Decentralised Autonomous Organisations – are an essential part of the Web3 space and might just become the way we will all work and organize ourselves in the future. You can submit proposals and get your contributions funded by the DAO’s treasury, if your fellow DAO members vote for it. Check out LobsterDAO or HerDAO (for womxn developers) to get started. 

7. Check out Gitcoin where projects post small tasks that you can earn cryptocurrency for. It will help you build a track record, too.

Community Is The New Currency

Everything in the crypto and Web3 space revolves around communities. There is very little of the top down structures you may be used to. The value of crypto tokens comes from their community of developers and users, and you will also end up choosing your project by the community it already has, or the potential it has to create one. (Are they building something that you think will be adopted by a large number of people? Is it going to make a difference to anyone?)

Make Everyone Want To Work With You

You may be highly intelligent, but intellectual intelligence is not the only ingredient for success. You can be a genius, but it will be of little use if nobody likes working with you. 

Emotional intelligence is a highly important part in communities. Web3 is all about “we” rather than “me”. People like to surround themselves with people they like and get along with. Even though everyone can code from their bedroom or a hammock on a remote island these days – be kind, be agreeable, be generous in your communication with others. Online and offline. Be a team player. Be someone that CEO’s, investors and HR or customer service staff enjoy working with. 

Making interpersonal communication skills just as important as your technical skills will help you become a highly valued and sought-after contributor and create lasting success!

Already a developer interested in Blockchain? Take the Developer Nation survey, share your views on new technologies, tools or platforms for 2023 and shape the future of the Developer Ecosystem. You will get a virtual goody bag with free resources, plus a chance to win an iPhone 13, a Samsung Galaxy S22, Amazon vouchers and more. Start here

Anja Schuetz is an Operations Management Consultant who has worked for several crypto wallets and blockchain projects. She also mentors first-time crypto investors and helps newcomers move their careers into Web3. Learn more about Anja at https://linktr.ee/consciouscrypto

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[Live Updates] Prize Winners – 23rd Developer Nation Survey

The 23rd Developer Nation Survey is live and running full speed and we already have our first winners to announce! Those that were lucky enough to win one of our amazing prizes!

What are the Developer Nation Prize draws?

If you’re new to our prize draws: developers who take our surveys earn 100 points for every new survey completed, plus 10 points for providing their feedback about the survey. And in return they become eligible for benefits and rewards – you can see a full list here.

Now, this is a survey that covers many technologies and participants may choose to participate in different ways. Some of them are members of our Community as well – so they are entitled to additional prizes.

This is why we run several prize draws. In this blog we will be adding all prize winners from our prize draws, so keep an eye on it as it will be constantly updated.

48 hour prize draw

iPhone 13 developer prize draw winner

iPhone 13 – @FergusonTreash of Nigeria

Nintendo Switch developer prize winner

Nintendo Switch – @thienanh2009 of Vietnam

Week 1

$20 gift cards

$20 developer prize draw winners

@WismarR of USA “Thanks”

Dolapo of Nigeria

A. of Croatia

Seona of Australia “Thank you!”

Jeswin of Saudi Arabia “I’m excited to accept this kind gift from developernation. Kindly please help me if I face any issues in redeeming it.”

Eduardo of Uruguay

o**************7@g***l.c*m of Nigeria

c*************9@1*3.c*m of China

SitePoint Premium License

SitePoint premium license developer prize

a*********1@g***l.c*m of Belarus

@adamdevbone of Australia “Thanks so much!”

h**********1@g***l.com of India

State of AR/VR Survey Prize Draw – Week 1

$500 towards your AR/VR project

$500 towards your AR/VR project @JoshuaH47169834 of United States

SitePoint Premium License – Ricardo of Brazil

SitePoint Premium License – James of United States “I’m so happy”

Week 2

Xiaomi RedMi 11 5G developer prize draw winner

Xiaomi RedMi 11 5G – 李文君 of China

$1,000 towards the desktop set up of your choice - developer prize

$1,000 towards the desktop set up of your choice – @marcellusm2 of Brazil

$100 gift card – Neba of Cameroon “I’m really grateful for you choosing me as a winner???”

$50 gift cards

$50 gift cards - developer prize draw winners

Cyrus of United States “Thank you”

@theddiya of Nigeria “Thank you for it”

Emilian of Romania

n********l.g*****a@g***l.c*m of Portugal

@doddsy5544 of Australia

h*********d@g***l.c*m of Indonesia

z********i@f*****l.c*m of China

State of AR/VR Survey Prize Draw – Week 2

$30 gift cards

J of Canada

R of United Kingdom

Gajendran of India

Week 3

Nintendo Switch

Armeiro of United States “I am euphoric the first time I win something for sharing my ideas and my profession “

$20 gift cards

$20 gift cards for developers

h**.a*****@g****.c** of United States

m**********@m**.c** of South Africa

Rémy of Belgium

J of Spain

Hamilton of Australia

n********@g****.c** of Philippines

w*******@b************.w****.w*** of China

e*****.l*********@g****.c** of New Zealand

State of AR/VR Survey Prize Draw – Week 3

$20 gift cards

Ian of Canada

p********@i*****.c** of Greece

Muhammad Dinar Aulia Rahman of Indonesia

Week 4

Docker 12 Months Pro Plan

s*********@y****.c** of India

$100 gift cards

c**************@g****.c** of Mexico

Godwin of Nigeria

$50 gift cards

j****************@g****.c** of Philippines

d*********@g****.c** of Poland

s*****************@g****.c** of Colombia

$20 gift card

m***********@g****.c** of South Africa

State of AR/VR Survey Prize Draw – Week 4

Amazon Echo Dot 4th Generation

Joe of USA

Week 5

Tick Tick Premium License

j********************@g****.c** of Philippines

Amazon Echo Dot 4th Generation

Justin Revilleza of Philippines

$20 gift cards

t***************@g****.c** of South Africa

d***********@g****.c** of Philippines

4********@q*.c** of China

p************@g****.c** of Poland

j******@g****.c** of South Korea

State of AR/VR Survey Prize Draw – Week 5

$100 Gift Card

b********@g****.c** of South Africa

Week 6

Tick Tick Premium License

GSS of India

Pluralsight Skills Standard 2 Months Subscription

Pluralsight 2 months subscription prize

Nikilosa of Jakarta

Skillshare 3 Months Subscription

Skill share 3 months subscription prize

v*****.s*******@g****.c** of India

Notion Personal Pro License

Roman of Mexico

VIVO Black Height Adjustable 32 inch Standing Desk Converter

a******.1*.a******@g****.c** of Argentina

Smart Plug

s**********************@g****.c** of Colombia

$50 Gift Card

e*********@h******.c** of Mexico

e***************@g****.c** of Mexico

Jorge of Spain

2****************@g****.c** of India

$20 Gift Card

鈴木朋和 of Japan

$10 Spotfiy Voucher

t**************@g****.c** of Mexico

State of AR/VR Survey Prize Draw – Week 6

Apple Air Tag

s***************************@g****.c** of Brazil

$30 Gift Card

s*********@g****.c** of Greece

Week 7

Amazon Echo Dot 4th Generation

s***********@g****.c** of India

Apple Air Tag

j*********@h******.c** of South Africa

$100 Gift Card

Michal of Czech Republic

$20 Gift Card

1********@m******.c** of United States

i*************@g****.c** of India

Community Prize Draws

Developers with 801+ points

Devices:

Samsung Galaxy S22 – @mouseannoying of UK

iPhone 13 – Lynton of Belgium

$50 Udemy or Gumroad gift card

Paschal of Nigeria
Thomas of Singapore
Michael of United States
Panji of Singapore
Deepam of India
Víctor of Mexico
Adrian of Malta
Christopher of Philippines
R of Brazil

Swag

A of UK
Brad of USA
Charlie of Australia
A of Ukraine
Geoffrey of Canada
Ashley of UK
V of USA
Thomas of Cyprus
Richard of United Kingdom
Nicholas of Trinidad & Tobago
Dean of Australia
Laborde of USA
Brian of USA
Alexandre of Belgium
Jignesh of India
Daniel of United Kingdom
Mike of United Kingdom

$15 gift card

Jonathan of Australia
Brian of Canada
Michael of United States
James of USA
Léo of Sweden
Tsvetomir of Bulgaria
Ioannis of Greece
Mikael of France
Akhil of India
Matīss of Latvia
S of Germany
Bledi of Albania
Stefan of Germany
Rodney of Canada
Thassilo of Germany
Andrew of United States
Vitalii of Ukraine
Andrejs of Latvia

What happens now

We’ve reached out to winners directly by email. If you recognise your email address but believe you haven’t been contacted yet, you can contact us here.

We’re already on the hunt for prizes for our next global survey, so if you’re not a winner this time, there are more chances to win in our future surveys.

To ensure that you are notified when our next survey is live, sign up. Don’t forget to make sure the survey notification option is ticked.

Special Thanks

We could not have brought all these prizes to you without our sponsors Florin Pop, CertNexus and SitePoint for donating prizes to the survey! Also thanks to our goody bag sponsors Buildable, CodeGym, Coil, CertNexus, Florin Pop, Kamon, Kentico, Linode, and Manning Publications. Are you a company interested in giving away a prize to developers in our next survey? Get in touch!