DevEd DevChat.tv

This episode of the DevEd podcast is joined by special guest Thomas Desmond. Thomas is a software engineer currently working with .NET and Angular, has been a university instructor for three years and has a course coming up on Thinkster.io - Creating an API with ASP.NET Core. He defines ASP.NET, and describes its relation to ASP.NET Core. He explains the process of working with .NET on a Mac, differences between Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio Mac 2019, and the learning curve involved in C# and types languages such as TypeScript.


The panelists share their learning transition from .NET to other languages and frameworks such as Angular, React and vice versa. They talk about the hurdles as well as effective strategies in learning ASP.NET, why is .NET considered to be Microsoft-specific, how does it compare to technologies such as Rails or Node, cloud development, and discuss reasons why bootcamps don't generally focus on learning ASP.NET. They end the show with picks.


Panel


Brooke Avery
Luis Hernandez
Mike Dane
Jesse Sanders
Lukas Ruebbelke


Joined by special guest: Thomas Desmond


Sponsors


Thinkster.io
Ruby Rogues
CacheFly


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"The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job" by Charles Max Wood is now available on Amazon. Get Your Copy Today!



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Links


Thomas's Twitter
Creating a C# ASP.Net Core API - Introduction


Picks

Thomas Desmond:



The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth


Luis Hernandez:



Visual Studio Dev Essentials
ASP.NET


Mike Dane:



Alta 21 Pack


Jesse Sanders:



Taxi Driver
Bike Helmet
Garmin watches


Lukas Ruebbelke:



Ed Motta
Kurt Elling


Brooke Avery:



Noah Kahan - Busyhead
Biteable


The DevEd podcast is produced by Thinkster.io and published by DevChat.TV.


Question #1: What is ASP.NET?


Open source web application framework used to develop and build web apps using .NET.


Question #2: How to use .NET on a Mac?


Use Visual Studio for Mac, good support available.


Question #3: What are some hurdles in learning ASP.NET?


Understanding and reinforcing the idea that there is an API between the application and the server.


Question #4: What are some effective tips while learning .NET?


Do a lot of examples, repetitions, discuss questions with other students.

In this episode of the DevEd podcast, the panel discusses Testing and Test Driven Development. They start the conversation by talking about automated testing with the help of unit tests using various tools available. Luis explains the terms regression testing, refactoring, mocking, continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD).


Everyone shares their experience with testing, mainly how and when they started learning automated testing and their journey with it so far. They then dive into the learning aspect of testing including some of the best ways to learn unit testing and give great tips and tools along the way. The next topic discussed is Test Driven Development - the definition, division of the development community into those support the methodology and those who do not, and more importantly, how effective it can be, it's benefits and drawbacks and the comparison between TDD and BDD (Behaviour Driven Development).


They also talk about mocking, how testing can improve the quality of applications, and visual testing. In the end, they each mention their most favourite and least favorite testing tools.


Panel


Joe Eames
Luis Hernandez
Jesse Sanders
Mike Dane
Sam Julien


Sponsors


Thinkster.io
Adventures in Angular


____________________________________________________________


"The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job" by Charles Max Wood is now available on Amazon. Get Your Copy Today!



____________________________________________________________

Links


Uncle Bob - TDD
The Magic Tricks of Testing by Sandi Metz
Code Kata
TDD Kata 1 - Roy Osherove
cypress
Jest
SuperTest
Testable


Picks

Mike Dane:



YouTube Music


Luis Hernandez:



Microsoft Whiteboard


Jesse Sanders:



Tile for Keys
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - Final Trailer Easter Eggs


Sam Julien:



Strange Planet - Nathan W. Pyle


Joe Eames:



Stackbit


The DevEd podcast is produced by Thinkster.io and published by DevChat.TV.


Question #1: What is regression and refactoring?


Regression is handling new changes that affect or break legacy code, refactoring is changing the way code is written without changing the functionality.


Question #2: What are ways to learn unit-testing?


Learning by example, practicing using open source codes, studying existing tests from a large codebase, trying to increase code-coverage, writing simple math based tests and Code Katas.


Question #3: What is TDD?


Writing tests before designing the implementation code, red-green-refactor approach - write a test and make it fail (red), write code to make it pass (green) and eventually refactor the code.


Question #4: What is a mock?


Artificially created responses that can be used and controlled by tests.

"The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job" by Charles Max Wood is available on Amazon. Get your copy here today only for $2.99!

In this episode of the DevEd podcast, David Graham - founder and CEO of Code Ninjas, introduces himself, gives a background of how he got into software development, briefly describes his vision that led to the creation of Code Ninjas and the interesting work that goes on there. The company essentially consists of coding centres for kids in multiple locations throughout the US, with cool learning programs catering to several age groups, its main purpose being teaching hands on software development combined with a lot of fun. 

The panelists share their views about the current state of programming education in schools, if it is adequate, and what can be done to supplement it. They discuss that it is important to teach kids how to think and how to solve problems rather than relying on memory based learning. They mention ways to get students excited about programming, different learning tools and platforms, and similarities and differences in learning patterns between kids and adult learners.They talk on why should everyone care about coding education for kids, even those who do not have them, and how people can help out in getting youth involved in software development. They also discuss if there is anything they wish had existed to aid learning for young individuals also how it would help them in return. In the end, David explains how can people volunteer for Code Ninjas.


Panel


Brooke Avery
Sam Julien
Mike Dane
Preston Lamb


Joined by speacial guest: David Graham


Sponsors


Thinkster.io
iPhreaks - Devchat.tv
Views on Vue - Devchat.tv


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"The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job" by Charles Max Wood will be out on November 20th on Amazon.  Get your copy on that date only for $1.



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Links


Code Ninjas
Code.org
CodeCombat


Picks

Mike Dane:



JBL Clip 3


David Graham:



The Wheel of Time


Preston Lamb:



Disney+


Brooke Avery:



Harry Potter Kano Coding Kit


Sam Julien:



Create Your Own Hacker Nebula with Angular Blockly by Jeff Whelpley & Madelyn Whelpley
Blockly
ng-club


The DevEd podcast is produced by Thinkster.io and published by DevChat.TV.

In this episode of the DevEd podcast, Brooke interviews Sam on Gatsby, and Sam's new course on Thinkster.io. Sam works in Developer Relations at Auth0, is a Google Developer Expert for Angular and Web Technologies, and is very passionate about teaching. Sam starts by explaining in detail what Gatsby is and what it is used for. He talks on the performance benefits of Gatsby, its comparison to React in terms of tooling and usage as well as learning, and if there are any tools or technologies needed as prerequisites to use Gatsby. He elaborates on what made him learn Gatsby, how it helped him advance his programming career, and both his favorite and not so favorite aspects of Gatsby. He then talks at length about his course - Up and Running with Gatsby, reasons he chose this topic specifically, the course design, and compelling reasons why people should go for it. In the end, he shares his thoughts on how Gatsby is getting popular and can help speed up development in enterprise companies and large organizations.


Panel


Brooke Avery
Sam Julien


Sponsors


Thinkster.io


Links


Up and Running with Gatsby: Introduction


The DevEd podcast is produced by Thinkster.io and published by DevChat.TV.

In this week's episode of the DevEd podcast, the panelists talk on comments in programming. To give a context of the chosen topic, Joe mentions that he sends out regular newsletters to Thinkser.io subscribers related to a variety of concepts, and has recently been sending out some on code smells, in one of which he talks about commenting. He gives an idea of what code smells are, and shares his opinion on using comments. His point of view is that a comment can be looked at as a failure or an inability to express the code functionality or even the technology involved, or is needed to make the code completely readable to other programmers. Comments can become out of date or get replaced.


The other panelists join in the discussion on whether comments are good or bad, and they state that for beginners they can be very useful while not so much for experienced programmers. Too many comments can cause a mess, so they ideally should be used for large complex functions. They are mostly used to specify if refactoring is needed at a later stage, they should explain the "why" instead of "how", and in general the code should ideally be self-sufficient.


They talk about when do they actually like to use comments. If a certain piece of code is doing something unusual or non-obvious or might break the consistency with the rest of the code, then it is imperative to explain why it is written that way. It can also be a good idea to document things for new or junior developers in the team in order to explain what is going on or what should not be done, and also to pair program with them in case things are not clear. Commit messages could be a replacement for comments as well. Comments are also useful when static values and constants such as URLs or UIDs are used in the code, and for explaining specific error mechanisms.


They share great practical advice for programmers who are in the earlier stages of their software development career and have generally been taught to use comments by their professors or mentors. The tips they give include taking time to look through the codebase, checking how and where comments are being used by other developers, refactoring the code to write more readable functions wherever things are unclear, using good naming conventions, trying to write self-documenting code, asking a lot of questions to whoever has written the code including asking the reasons why it is written a certain way, and not being afraid to add comments of your own.


They then discuss some replies to the newsletter sent by Joe about code smells related to the importance of comments in the messy reality of engineering, pros and cons of their usefulness, tradeoff between maintaining self-documented vs heavily documented code. They end the show with picks.


The DevEd podcast is produced by Thinkster.io and published by DevChat.TV.


Panel


Joe Eames
Jesse Sanders
Luis Hernandez
Preston Lamb
Mike Dane


Sponsors


Thinkster.io
The Freelancers' Show
React Round Up
CacheFly


Picks

Luis Hernandez:



Sourcetree


Mike Dane:



Google Fi


Preston Lamb:



Office Ladies podcast


Jesse Sanders:



Tesla cars


Joe Eames:



Gaslands


Question #1: What are code smells?


A pattern that indicates that there may be a problem in the code with a possibility of improvement.


Question #2: When should comments be used?


Comments could be useful for beginners, not so much for experienced folk. Too many comments can cause a mess, so they ideally should be used only for large complex functions. They can be used to specify if refactoring is needed at a later stage, and for explaining the "why" instead of "how".


Question #3: What are some good reasons to use comments?


1. If a certain piece of code is doing something unusual/non-obvious/might break the consistency with the rest of the code. 2. For new or junior developers on the team in order to explain what is going on or what should not be done. 3. When using static values and const