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With Google Chrome Switching Off Silverlight Support, Netflix Is Staring At A Potential Blackout

 

Silverlight set
Silverlight set to go off the boil on Chrome

An announcement coming in from Google is that it is set to switch off all NPAPI plugins in the Chrome browsers by the month of April. As a result, all major sites that make use of the Chrome Silverlight plugin are set to go off air- and that includes the likes of Netflix, the largest video-on-demand service provide in the world.

Updated news from Netflix: The Netflix service reported that they have made the switch to HTML5 video playback support for Chrome and are unlikely to be affected by the absence of the Netflix plugin. However, the support pages on the company website continue to state that Silverlight is used within the Chrome browser.

One could see this coming…

Last year, the search engine giants had said that they would be phasing out the NPAPI browser plugins. If the company claims are to be believed, these have a detrimental effect on the stability, security, and speed of the browser.

At present, Google has provisions for only six of the major plugins to automatically run in Chrome and that includes the likes of Google Talk, Java, and Microsoft Silverlight. However, when April 2015 rolls around, these six and all of the other NPAPI plugins will have a disabled tag hanging round their necks. The users will be required to deploy a workaround if they wish to continue with the usage of any of these plugins.

Absence of Silverlight will be a big blow to the developers

Out of all the plugins that remain, Silverlight ranks as the most popular of the lot. Its usage statistics for last month show that it was launched by as many as 11% of Net users on their websites. Netflix is perhaps the most popular of all users for this plugin which it makes best use of for providing the PCs with a video-on-demand service. However, the intention of the company to switch over to an HTML5 platform is a long-standing one. With Google deciding that it is time for the Silverlight support to be switched off, this transition is likely to gain a lot more impetus.

Little hope remains for Silverlight, now that Microsoft have distanced themselves

Even Microsoft, the company whose brainchild it was to develop the Silverlight framework, have distanced themselves from their own creation. They have failed to provide sufficient support in their latest Windows Phone versions while moving away to delivering content with the use of the HTML5 platform.

A temporary respite is on offer…

While plugin vendors are working really hard to find alternate technologies that they can make use of, there exists a small community of users who are still reliant on plugins that are yet to complete the transition. Google aims to provide an override function for enterprises and advanced users which will give them temporary reprieve with NPAPI plugins while they wait for the transition of the mission critical plug-ins to be completed.

However, this workaround will be effective only till September 2015. After that, for users and Silverlight developers who wish to continue working with the plugin technologies, the only option would be to make the switch to a different browser.

ASP .NET programmers

Four Things Every ASP .NET Webform Developer Must Avoid At All Costs

Asp.net developer

It is a common occurrence to come across individuals who regard webforms as an inferior tool for ASP .NET development purposes, thanks to the emergence of such new updates as MVC. However, the professional developers themselves beg to differ. Many of them are still in favor of development using the webforms engine to drive a number of ASP .NET applications.

Irrespective of how popular MVC gets over the course of its lifetime, webforms is considered to be a mature platform for development purposes and features a vast number of applications all around the world. As a per a recent survey conducted by professionals, three out of four ASP .NET programmers and developers prefer the use of webforms for the purpose of various development projects.

Would it be a good idea now to raise questions surrounding the popularity of webforms in the development industry?

In spite of having a burgeoning popularity in the market, it is not uncommon to find professionals programmers following poor practices with regards to ASP .NET webforms development.

Let us discuss some of the problems that ASP .NET programmers face while undertaking their projects in the industry.

Rather than use CSS, choosing to work with control style properties

The main intention behind the development of ASP .NET was to replicate the experience afforded to the programmers as far as building desktop apps with the use of visual basics is concerned. With the use of VB6, a developer is given the opportunity of dragging the control on a design surface of a given view. Later on, they could set various properties such as colors, fonts, dimensions, etc.

The very same practice was later carried on by ASP .NET programmers to the world of professional development. The right practice to follow when using styles is to consider the various options referenced in external files. The developers need to place these references at the header line of the document. This will allow all styles to be loaded while the page is loading.

Following feature detection rather than browser detection

One of the most frustrating things for website visitors is to load a page in Internet Explorer and be greeted by a white blank page. There are a number of business apps that don’t work on any browser other than IE, more so the obsolete versions. Earlier ASP .NET programmers would design the apps in a manner so that they could detect the browser on the server and lead to production of browser-friendly content.

Rather than continue to focus on performing server-side browser detection with the use of libraries such as Modernizr, it is about time that the professionals made the switch to client-side feature detection capabilities. This will allow the application browsers to be detected with ease and support various features of the app that will allow it to run smoothly even on the oldest of browsing platforms.

Keeping EnableViewStateMAC set to false

EnableViewStateMAC, by default, is set to true. Under any circumstance whatsoever should it be set to false as it will make the web pages vulnerable to potential tampering.

Allowing client requests to run up for long duration

This will lead to the user experience on your website being ruined altogether and can also result in a number of issues as far as your browser performance is concerned. Under unavoidable circumstances, these requests should be migrated to an AJAX call or make use of certain tools such as SignalR for influencing the WebSockets. This way, you can return the requests to your clients and enable the server to process remaining requests while smoothening out the working or shopping experience for the visitor.

Let us hope that these points discussed above will help in the betterment of the community of ASP .NET programmers. You will get to understand the various things that are an integral part of every ASP .NET development project.

C Sharp Programmers

8 Effective Tips For Optimization of Your C# Program Code

C# Programmer

Take into account any application and one of its crucial aspects will be the optimization of code. It is highly important in every regard of product development. If you are a good professional programmer, this is something you must consider. Here in this post, we will focus on the tips to help you optimize your program code written in the C# programming language.

But first, let us understand the basics of code optimization..

code optimization In terms of programming and computers, optimization is a process where you modify a system and improve its efficiency or performance. The system can either be the Internet, a network of computers, or a single computer program. With good code optimization, you can make the program run faster and with the use of fewer hardware resources. It is also easier to maintain and debug the code.

When it comes to computer programming, code optimization is achieved by a transformation of the code that helps in improving its performance (minimum resource utilization, code size, and code execution time, to name a few). Such a transformation may be achieved either at the low level or at a high level.

Here are the tips to follow for those who wish to optimize their C# program code:

  • If you are working with an expensive operator, replace it with a cheap one. To put it in simpler terms, reduce the strength of the operation. For example, you can replace the x^2 part of your code as x*x.
  • Eliminate dead code elements from your source code. Dead code elements are usually of two types: part of the code that cannot be reached and variables whose values remain unused.
  • White space is usually required for better organization and understanding of code by the developers. This is of little significance to the website visitors since they do not have the authority to modify them. White spaces should be carefully removed without producing any side effect on the site page. It usually involves elimination of comments, new lines, tabs, and superfluous spaces, and results in reduction of size of code and requirements of space.
  • The source code should not have any comments because it leads to a significant increase in the download time. Aside from the META keywords tag that was once widely used, most other form of similar information is no more than glorified commenting. Information such as the META “generated” tag is nothing short of being useless and reveals unnecessary amount of information. Is their any justification in announcing to the world that your web page was created using FrontPage?
  • Minimize the variable names and long functions. They should be clearly defined, as is evident in good programming practices. Avoid names that are too lengthy. The source code of the web site is of no importance to the visitors, that is something the developers need to worry about. You should give a name that is as small and meaningful as possible. Gn_ChannelMenu means the same as hj to the browser, so as long as you are able to keep track of your work, use small variable names to save on time and effort.
  • Do you have a line of code that reads something like: x=x+1. Well, why not change it to x++? Both lines of code will accomplish the same purpose but with the second one, you will get the job done with the use of a couple of less characters.
  • Although variable declaration is not compulsory, there are a couple of reasons why it is best that you declare the variable. Declaring a variable allows performance to be increased since an undeclared variable usually requires greater processing time. Moreover, when the variables are declared, any form of unwanted misuse can be easily avoided.
  • If an application has similar or identical code blocks, these may be converted into functions or sub-modules. The subs or functions are capable of taking parameters so it is of little concern whether the code blocks do similar things. Moreover, it becomes easier to edit the code in case of changes; rather than modify the code for every parameter, you simply need to alter one sub or function as is necessary.

C# programming has gained a lot of popularity over the last few years thanks to its efficiency in developing highly useful applications. Our C sharp programmers have many years’ experience in the industry and can help you with your requirements.

So how about giving our service a try…?

developers

“Why Developers Fail” Reason #2: Making Use Of Global Variables

global variablesIn my previous post of the “Why Developers Fail” series, I dealt with all those things that most of us programmers tend to get wrong from time to time. It was specifically focussed on writing code that is difficult to read. The topic for today’s discussion is the use of global variables.

Global variables: Causing trouble for developers since time immemorial

Developers, who by this time have some years of experience behind them, will probably be able to relate to the times of classic ASP 3.0 or Visual Basic 5.0. The main problem of those languages included the use of global variables. These are the variables that can be accessed from any part of the code.

Not all is bad about Global variables…

The global variables, however, have a good side to them as well. They allow you to access their content at any point of time and from practically anywhere in the given lines of code, thus making them a great option for sharing information. Their downside, though, is very much the same: since they can be accessed from anywhere it is very difficult for the developers to pin-point their value.

…but you can never call them “good”

Very often developers make use of a global variable and work under the assumption that it has a specific value contained within itself. You may also assume that it is in a specific state as per the expected order of execution. However, it is unlikely that you will ever know from which part of your code or owing to what circumstances they have undergone a modification. As a result, they are a disastrous failure just waiting to happen.

Modern languages and global variables

If you think that in the modern development scenario we are way past this problem, and that some of the modern programming languages such as C# do not have this issue surrounding them, then it is advisable that you sit down and think again! Have you ever taken the static variables into consideration? What about all those Singleton type objects? And need I make special mention of the application variables and caches present in the web applications? All of these various mechanisms for sharing information can lead to the same problems being produced.

As far as the modern website development industry is concerned, widely used programming languages such as JavaScript tend to suffer from this same problem. The reason: they include global variables in the program code. It is likely that an inexperienced developer will end up overusing them thus leading to pages having errors when one least expected to come across one.

What I would like to advice

If you would like to follow my advice, try and avoid sharing information globally. Yes, if it is strictly necessary then you don’t have a go but otherwise, try and avoid it at all costs. Also, if you do come across one such unavoidable situation, first check the storage of your desired piece of information (whether it is a static variable or a global one does not really hold much meaning) to ensure that it contains what is expected of it to contain. More importantly, see to it that the variable is initialized.

While they look seemingly harmless, they can be unwittingly dangerous. This holds true even when you are testing the developed web applications. So be careful when you work!

BestAppsForKids

6 Best Android Apps For Your Kids

Smartphone games and apps are an excellent means of keeping not only you but also your kids entertained. These feature a number of fun and interactive games and educational activities. You can also consider installing parental monitors and custom sanbox apps with which you can ensure that your phone does not get misused or settings tampered with in any way (or simply to check that when you say lights-out, it actually is lights-out in the room).

The Android market is teeming with thousands of apps so coming across one of real good quality can prove to be a really tedious and frustrating process. The Education segment alone features as many as 3000 free apps waiting for your approval of download.

So we have decided to dig deep and come up with six of the best Android apps for kids that will really help in their education and learning process.

1. AniWorld Lite

aniworld

An excellent app meant for the kids in the age bracket of one to five, AniWorld Lite teaches kids the names of various animals. It also gives them a chance to pet and feed these virtual animals. While the app cannot be considered as anything more than pretty basic, it is the unique “Hey, pet me” feature of AniWorld Lite that is likely to give you and your kids the maximum level of enjoyment.

Download

2. LEGO Duplo Train

trainsThe Duplo Train app from LEGO allows your toddler to build and drive their very own toy train. This is a wonderfully animated app that has a whole host of activities for little kids. Your child will take up the role of the rail engineer by choosing the carts they wish to bring along. There are also simple mini-games for them to play while they wait for the train to complete the journey. This well-crafted app features numerous little details and beautiful animations of animals and plants roaming in the landscape. Tapping them will create some sounds and actions.

Download

3. HomeWork

HomeWorkRather than be a fun app, this HomeWork app is aimed to be of great help and assistance for the older kids. With the use of this free app, kids can schedule their lessons and homework plans, arrange for reminders, plan their revision for examinations, and, overall, effectively manage their time. This Android app is best suited for use on a tablet where it supports both screen angles. The HomeWork app is an extremely intuitive one to use.

Download

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

4.Ant Smasher

Ant SmasherThe Ant Smasher app is available for free and best suited for the kids who have a murderous intent in life. Use your fingers to smash the ants, avoid smashing the bees and try not to end up dead! It may sound easy but it is far from being so. Ant Smasher gives some addictive fun for the kids aged four and above and is the perfect solution for improving their reflexes.

Download

5. Kids Place

Kids PlaceA custom app launcher, Kids Place creates a sandbox environment where your kids can have all the fun that they want, surrounded by the apps that you feel is right for their age. Apart from giving you full control over specifying the apps, it prevents any form of in-app purchases and blocks new apps from being installed. With the use of a timer feature you can limit the amount of usage since the app will lock on its own after a specified time period. The multiple profile support feature allows parents to set up different custom environments for the different users. Making changes to the settings as well as exiting the app is blocked by a PIN security.

Download 

6. 0-10 Numbers

0-10 NumbersThis app is all about an overachieving baby having fun with the numbers. Considering what it does the app is an excellent choice. With careful enunciation, anthropomorphised characters, and bright colours, here is a learning resource that works great for the kids in the age bracket of two and four years old.

Download

 
 
 

While there are a whole host of apps in the Google Play Store catering to the education of kids and young children, we feel that these are the best Android apps for kids. Download and enjoy, and help in the rapid growth and development of your kids! Think there is one we have missed out? Leave a comment and let us know.

Android-Reading-Apps21

Read On The Go With The 5 Best Android eBook Reader Apps

best ereader applications for androidWinter is fast receding and the summer season is just around the corner. So chances are you will be moving out and about a little more than usual to enjoy the prevailing warmth in the air. One hopes that you will find enough time to sit down and relax with a nice book in hand. While there may not always be enough space in your bag to carry around this aforementioned book, your Android device will more than do justice to your plans of reading on the go.

There is so much to read and so little time in which to do so! Here are some ebook reader apps we think will come in pretty handy. Not only can you read books with these but some of them will even allow you to catch up on the best magazines and latest news out in the market.

There lies a possibility that you will have these apps preinstalled in your Android device so why not give them a try? Far from being shabby, you also get to stay within the ecosystem defined by Google with the use of these apps.

1. Google Play Books

google play booksWith Google Play Books, you will have access to a book store that knows no bounds. Some of the available books are free! You will also come across a number of textbooks although a future improvement in their selection range won’t do any harm. Your Google account will let you bookmark pages in your book, make use of a dictionary for looking up unfamiliar words, and read offline books across a number of Android devices. Oh, don’t forget that you can also upload your own EPUB and PDF files to the library as well. Nifty, isn’t it?

Free Download

2. Google Play Newsstand

Google play newsstandAs far as Google Newsstand is concerned, it allows you to sort out what type of news you would like to see. Choose from sections of world news, technology, sports, entertainment, business, as well as general news. Each section you want will pull up news from a different source. For exampe, if you are looking into general news, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Daily Telegraph may be your preferred source. You can also simply scroll through news pulled up from a number of sources and read them all together on the same page.

Free Download

3. Aldiko

AldikoAldiko is a clean and simple ebooks app for Android. Switch easily between the day and night modes, and alter size of margins and texts simply by tapping on the screen while you are reading. Aldiko gives you access to the Feedbooks Store where you can add custom catalogs of your choice. You also have the option of importing your own PDF and EPUB files with the use of this app.

Expect to come across some banner ads while using the free version. Upgrade to the paid version for only $2.99 and you will be able to say goodbye to these encroaching ads. The Premium version of Aldiko also allows you to write and highlight notes on your EPUB files and gain additional widgets to work with.

Free Download
Premium Download

4. Flipboard

FlipboardMuch of the allure of Flipboard lies in the fact that it has a pretty unique user interface. Swipe up and down the page and it will simply flip over to reveal some new content. This app allow you to sort news out into different categories such as arts and culture, sports, tech and science, business, etc. Flipboard attempts to create a tailored news experience by sorting out the categories of your choice the very first time you open the app. It then displays stories that are relevant to your area of interest with the use of tiles on the main screen of the app.

Flipboard also lets you create your very own magazine by putting together the stories of your interest in one place. Sources get added to the app when you start to “follow” them. Individual stories may also be downloaded and read offline.

Free Download

5. FBReader

FBReaderFBReader offers a number of interesting features such as flipping through pages with the use of volume buttons on your device or ability to change the background color of the book in hand to suit your reading style. Such other things as font style and size are, of course, customizable.

You will be able to get books from various Internet catalogs such as Smashwords and Free Books Hub while manually adding your very own customized OPDS catalogs. It has a compatibility with file types of a varying range such as RTF, HTML, .DOC, and EPUB. Add books manually to your catalog with the help of the FBReader app.

Free Download

We are aware that there are a number of great ebooks app for Android out in the market. Which of these apps do you think you would prefer to have on your tablet or smartphone? Is there a similar app you would like to see featured in this list? Let us know in the comments below.

5 Halloween Apps Guaranteed To Have You Geared Up For October 31

Halloween againEver since the Easter season came (and went) we have all been eagerly waiting for this holiday that is now almost upon us. Halloween is the season of Jack-o-Lanterns, Haunted Houses, Candies, and Costumes, and chances are you are not even prepared for it! However, you need not worry- there is still enough time to buy yourself some candy, find a costume, carve a pumpkin, and hang up some fake spider webs around your home. The spooky fun does not start until next Friday, in any case!

The one thing that you probably do not have any time to think about (yes, we understand you are very much preoccupied with thousands of other things) is the various Halloween-themed apps. Have no fear for we have saved you some trouble. Here is a list of the coolest, most helpful, and most interesting apps that should help to make your All Hallow’s Eve a moment to remember.

Track n Treat

Track n TreatWould you like to keep track of your kids (or your partying friends, for that matter) on the festival of Halloween and not have to face the hassle of following them around? Just get everyone to download the Track n Treat app on their mobile devices and you will be able to tell where everyone is all through the night! Set up a network, enable location sharing, and you will be good to go with your Halloween celebrations!

Available on: iTunes Store for iOS platforms
Free download from https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/track-n-treat/id721935982

Zombify

ZombifyEver thought what you would look like if you were presented as an extra on the sets of The Walking Dead? If you do not see yourself as a costume make-up expert, this kind of curiousity becomes pretty hard to satisfy. However, don’t offer yourself up as a snack for the undead just as yet: try out the Zombify app first. Take a picture of yourself (yes, a selfie will do), help the software locate where your mouth and eyes are, and you will immediately be given a snarling, decrepit version of yourself, complete with empty eye sockets and rotting teeth. You can then look to play around with various features, filters, and props, and also have the picture saved up for posterity. While you are busy doing all this, check out the Vampify and Wolfify apps as well for some more fun.

Available on: iTune Store for iOS platform
Free download from https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zombify-me/id464086469

Carve-A-Pumpkin

Carve-A-PumpkinYou have grown into the habit of carving the same Jack-o-Lantern face year after year and coming up with a change is something you are scared of. We understand, making a change to your design often represents a daunting task- what if it ends up looking stupid, or doesn’t fit in correctly, or you simply end up creating a mess of the whole thing!

Luckily, this year (and hopefully for many more years to come) you will have an app to help you design the perfect jack-o-lantern before you have even picked out the perfect canvas to get started with. Brought to you by the developers Parent’s Magazine, Carve-A-Pumpkin gives you the option of choosing from five different pumpkin types, eighteen different eye shapes, seven shapes of nose, and fifteen different shapes of the mouth. Size and place them on the virtual pumpkin and save a picture for use as reference.

If you are more ambitious, you have the option of freehand carving. The only downside is that you can access this app only if you are using an Apple product. Pumpkin Carver is your option for getting a similar experience on the Android platform.

Available on: iTunes Store for iOS platforms
Free download from https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/carve-pumpkin-from-parents/id394900607

Ghost Radar

Ghost RadarFor many years you have been hearing people joke about that old house at the end of your street and how it is supposed to be haunted. Sure, you take it as a joke- after all there is no such thing as ghosts! But wait, what if there is an element of truth about it? Calling the Ghost Hunters in to solve the issue on Halloween won’t be such a good idea, would it? Before taking some drastic measures, download this Ghost Radar app that is available on both the Google Play and iTune stores.

As per the official description, this app is fitted with a number of sensors that help to detect paranormal activity. The app serves to analyze these readings and sends you a notification when interesting patterns start emerging. Also, it lets you know when interesting words get detected.

You may not be someone who believes in ghosts (or for that matter in some kind of mobile app technology that is capable of detecting EMS signals). But why not try it on a friend who believes in the unknown! See what results the app produces. Or take it out to a house that has had a long-standing reputation of being haunted and see what Ghost Radar shows up on its radar!

Available on: iTunes Store and Google Play store for iOS and Android respectively
Free download from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spudpickles.grc Andriod and https://itunes.apple.com/en/app/ghost-radar-classic/id368470785?mt=8

(iOS)

Scary Sounds

Scary SoundsConvince those skeptical friends of yours that the ghosts your Ghost Radar app picked up actually exist. A variety of Halloween-themed, spooky sound effects will go a long way towards providing a solution! Scary Sounds lets you choose from over forty different options, including the likes of “Breathing”, “Wolves”, and “Casket.”

This app has every type of spooky sound that you could possibly want to play on Halloween and is sorted out neatly into eight categories: Unnatural, Screams and Roars, Mood, Medieval, Human, Elemental, Dead and Undead, and Animals. Connect your phone to a speaker, have the “Poltergeist” effect secretly turned on, and brace yourself to get some horror-flick reactions.

Available on: iTunes Store and Google Play store for iOS and Android respectively
Free download from
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pantherapps.scarysoundshd and https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/scary-sounds/id308256995(Android)

Do you think these apps are not enough for giving an outright scare to your friends? Would you like to have something a little more spooky to spice up your Halloween? Then hurry, get your new app developed with us soon. Get in touch with your requirements and we will have the product ready and up on the app stores before the spooky season comes around!

And to all others, watch out for those goosebumps!

.net

5 Fun-Filled Apps That Will Help You Become Smarter

dotnet appThere exists a number of apps that will help you to exercise your brain and make you smarter than others. This, in my opinion, is the beauty of technology these days. Isn’t it just awesome that you can use a fun app and enjoy yourself while stimulating your mind?

These incredible apps go a long way towards reducing your risk of developing memory loss, strengthening your neural networks and improving your cognitive function. Moreover, you will get to learn a lot of interesting things and boost your memory in the process.

Here we take a look at some of the fun apps that will help in making you smarter.

NYTimes Crosswords

NYTimes CrosswordsOne of the best ways of stimulating your brain and improving intelligence is to play crossword puzzles. The NYTimes Crosswords app allows you to solve the same crossword puzzles that are published daily in the newspapers. Upon subscription, you can solve even the next day’s puzzle today. The NYTimes Crosswords app can be downloaded free of cost and offers a week-long free trial of the official puzzle published daily in the New York Times. Once the trial period is over, you have to buy a subscription in order to continue with solving the crossword puzzles and improving your overall brain function.

 

Lumosity

LumosityLumosity is a free app that can serve to become your personal trainer, helping you train your memory and attention. It was created by neuroscientists with the sole purpose of training the brain in specific areas. Simply select the area that you would like to focus on, such as memory or problem solving, and the app will take care of determining the type of “training session” that you require. The app is capable of tracking changes in your attention, flexibility, speed, and memory, before eventually compiling your problem-solving score. This is one app I love since it allows me to train my mind on a daily basis. Give it a try today and I’m sure you will like it too!

7 Little Words

7 Little WordsThe 7 Little Words app is not only interesting, challenging, and fun but also incredibly easy to learn! Every puzzle consists of 7 clues, 7 mystery words, and 20 letter groups. Sometimes it can be a little too hard to solve. However, you will not give up on it too easily because the fact that you have failed will go on bugging you till the very end (trust me, it happens!) This is what makes 7 Little Words one of the best apps that is certain to make you smarter than ever before.

 
 
 

Owl

Owl will provide you with some useful and interesting facts on a regular basis. The featured facts found on the app are handpicked from Reddit. Thus you can learn something new on a regular basis. You can even schedule when you would like to receive your daily dose of interesting facts and choose whether you would like to be notified of the same or not. Whenever you are feeling bored, use the Owl app to improve your intelligence. It also comes in handy when you simply want to impress your friends or colleagues.

Duolingo

DuolingoIf you wish to learn a new language such as Portuguese, Italian, French, German, or Spanish, you should consider downloading the Duolingo app. The best thing about this app is that it is available free of cost and does not involve any add-ons or hidden costs. Plus you can also invite friends to use this app and look to compete with them in interesting language challenges. Duolingo allows a translation of any real-world phrase into the language that you wish to learn. An independent study funded by the app makers showed that spending 34 hours with this app was as good as 11 weeks of class or an entire semester spent in a college language course. Still want to wait before fulfilling your desire of learning a new language?

developers

“Why Developers Fail” Reason #1: Writing Code Which Is Difficult To Maintain

google developersThis is our first article in a series that will deal with the age old dilemma as to why developers fail. We aim to provide you with a few pointers on how to write a better code. For this, we will be taking a look at some of the most common mistakes that we, as developers, tend to make. These mistakes are not environment or language specific so this section is likely to be useful for almost everyone, irrespective of the environment they are used to working with. Here’s hoping that you find it to be useful as well.

Developers’ mistake #1: Writing code that is too difficult to maintain

Unfortunately, we developers have a habit of writing code that is more suited for the compiler than for the people who will actually be working with it. Examples, in this regard, are too many and we shall list only a few of them over here.

  • Using a super-optimized expression that only the compiler is able to understand without any difficulty but an individual will struggle to comprehend.
  • Writing a code structure where you can save space by omitting the brackets and braces. Okay, I am well aware of the sky-high prices for every GB of memory. Also you tend to write multiple instructions on the same line because the compiler will successfully interpret it in any case.
  • You write a code that is split into several parts with each of them being in a different class. Then you interlink them with the help of chained calls or events. Sure, it looks very cool, but despite its claims to the contrary, that is not the right method to describe Separation of Concerns. Moreover, you are terribly complicating your code. You think anyone would be able to follow that?
  • You make use of really explanatory variable names such as “n”, “i”, “res”, or “s”. Great, you have succeeded in saving some bytes. However, would it not be better if your variables had a name that was indicative of their role and followed some sort of rational notation principle?
  • You are averse to the use of comments. After all, your code is very easy to understand and you can always execute it step by step. So good luck remembering why you wrote that particular method in the first place and did not use some other technique. Hope you do not have too much difficulty in explaining to your fellow developers the optimization you did for a really specific purpose of improving performance.

The real question behind these aforementioned examples is this: If a person has to read your code, will he be able to understand it? Will they be in a position to follow it straight away?

More importantly will you, as the developer, be able to understand what you have written three months from now? The compiler is programmed to understand and digest anything that you throw towards it but such is not the case with human beings.

Some people may feel inclined to disagree on this point. However, the most important criteria that defines a good code is not how optimized you can make it (yes, exceptions do exist) but how easily it can be maintained in the future. This depends entirely on the person entrusted with the job of writing the code and how easy they make it for other people to work with.

So it is my advice that you write code that is easy-to-follow and friendly in every way possible. Spare a thought for the people (and that includes you, mister) who have to read and understand it later on before they can support it. Forget about the language or the compiler, or at least don’t think about it more than you need to.

Oh, and make sure that you use the comments to good effect. Don’t just write anything for the sake of it, write comments that are meaningful. Don’t shy away from talking too much, it will only come in handy in the future. Have you heard that old joke that says that were the complete human genome to be decoded, 90% of it would come out as comments?

Well, simply go ahead and follow suit!

Microsoft.Net

Dot Net Framework Is A Splendid Solution For Website Development

Regarded as a revolutionary technology, Dot Net has immensely helped businesses in dealing with accelerated and dynamic website requirements in tune with the modern business scenario. Microsoft Dot Net applications are widely used in the creaion of a flexible and robust website.

dotnet programmersDot Net technology has resulted in a significant amount of paradigm shift as far as the development industry is concerned. This has given developers the capability to build highly-scalable and reusable functionalities that are available across all networks irrespective of their development platform. Software developers can quickly and very easily reuse, rearrange and integrate this framework with highly successive solutions. This reduces the time and effort they require for marketing and successfully delivering the project to their clients.

 

Top four programming languages associated with the Dot Net development framework

ASP .NET

asp.netRegarded as a part of the Dot Net framework, ASP .NET allows easy access into the core framework classes. It provides a unique facility wherein programmers can write a code in any language that is compatible with the Common Language Runtime (CLR), the likes of C# and Microsoft Visual Basic included in the ranks. Inheritance, type safety, and CLR are among some of the features that offer significant benefit to the professionals with regards to ASP .NET development.

Visual Basic Dot Net

 

VB .netVisual Basic Dot Net has come into being as a powerful and highly modern programming language. It makes use of the true concepts of Object-Oriented programming such as abstraction, encapsulation, polymorphism, overloading and inheritance. A robust language, it includes such features as fixed variable declaration types, variable initialization at the time of declaration, and strict type checking. Visual Basic Dot Net is relatively easy to use and learn. Applications made using this framework are built on the service advantages offered by CLR. It also makes most of the various features on offer from the Dot Net framework in general.

Visual C# Dot Net

C#.netDevelopment using Visual C# makes use of the services on offer from CLR while earning maximum benefits out of the Dot Net framework. A simple, elegant and object-oriented programming language, it has been developed by Microsoft for building distinct applications. C# simplifies the complex aspects of C++ and C such as structured exception handling, enumerations, overloading, namespaces and classes.

Visual C++ Dot Net

Visual C++Visual C++ Dot Net has been dubbed by Microsoft as the future of the Visual C++ language. This has forever been regarded as the best language for developing web applications as well as applications for the Microsoft Windows OS platform. It offers a number of important libraries such as Active Template Library, ATL Server Library, and Microsoft Foundation Classes.

Active Template Libraries are a set of templates that are based on the C++ classes for various Com objects. ATL Server Libraries are native C++ classes used in the creation of Web Services, Web Applications and a number of other similar server applications. Finally, the Microsoft Foundation Classes are a set of classes that support any application that has been written specifically for the Windows API.

Development using the Microsoft Dot Net framework offers an uncomplicated, ordered and compatible programming structure. With the help of this users can find applications for complicated as well as easy website structures. Dot Net allows you to avail benefits such as dynamic and creative layer characteristics that have already been coded, reusability of code and the use of numerous distinct programming languages.