The cloud computing explosion has led to the development of software programs and applications at an exponential rate. The ability to deliver features faster is now a competitive edge.
To achieve this your DevOps teams, structure & ecosystem should be well-oiled. Therefore it is critical to understand how to build an ideal CI/CD pipeline that will help to deliver features at a rapid pace.
Through this blog, we shall be exploring important cloud concepts, execution playbooks, and best practices of setting up CI/CD pipelines on public cloud environments like AWS, Azure, GCP, or even hybrid & multi-cloud environments.
HERE’S A BIRD’S EYE VIEW OF WHAT AN IDEAL CI/CD PIPELINE LOOKS LIKE
Let’s take a closer look at what each stage of the CI/CD involves:
Source Code:
This is the starting point of any CI/CD pipeline. This is where all the packages and dependencies relevant to the application being developed are categorized and stored. At this stage, it is vital to have a mechanism that offers access to some reviewers in the project. This prevents developers from randomly merging bits of code into the source code. It is the reviewer’s job to approve any pull requests in order to progress the code into the next stage. Although this involves leveraging several different technologies, it certainly pays off in the long run.
Build:
Once a change has been committed to the source and approved by the reviewers, it automatically progresses to the Build stage.
1) Compile Source and Dependencies The first step in this stage is pretty straightforward, developers must simply compile the source code along with all its different dependencies.
2) Unit Tests This involves conducting a high coverage of unit tests. Currently, many tools show whether or not a line of code is being tested. To build an ideal CI/CD pipeline, the goal is to essentially commit source code into the build stage with the confidence that it will be caught in one of the later steps of the process. However, if high coverage unit tests are not conducted on the source code then it will progress directly into the next stage, leading to errors and requiring the developer to roll back to a previous version which is often a painful process. This makes it crucial to run a high coverage level of unit tests to be certain that the application is running and functioning correctly.
3) Check and Enforce Code Coverage (90%+) This ties into the testing frameworks above, however, it deals with the output code coverage percent related to a specific commit. Ideally, developers want to achieve a minimum of 90% and any subsequent commit should not fall below this threshold. The goal should be to achieve an increasing percentage for any future commits – the higher the better.
Test Environment:
This is the first environment the code enters. This is where the changes made to the code are tested and confirmed that they’re ready for the next stage, which is something closer to the production stage.
1) Integration Tests The primary thing to do as a prerequisite is to run integration tests. Although there are different interpretations of what exactly constitutes an integration test and how they compare to functional tests. To avoid this confusion, it is important to outline exactly what is meant when using the term.
In this case, let’s assume there is an integration test that executes a ‘create order’ API with an expected input. This should be immediately followed with a ‘get order’ API and checked to see if the order contains all the elements expected of it. If it does not, then there is something wrong. If it does then the pipeline is working as intended – congratulations.
Integration tests also analyze the behavior of the application in terms of business logic. For instance, if the developer inputs a ‘create order’ API and there’s a business rule within the application that prevents the creation of an order where the dollar value is above 10,000 dollars; an integration test must be performed to check that the application adheres to that benchmark as an expected business rule. In this stage, it is not uncommon to conduct around 50-100 integration tests depending on the size of the project, but the focus of this stage should mainly revolve around testing the core functionality of the APIs and checking to see if they are working as expected.
2) On/Off Switches At this point, let’s backtrack a little to include an important mechanism that must be used between the source code and build stage, as well as between the build and test stage. This mechanism is a simple on/off switch allowing the developer to enable or disable the flow of code at any point. This is a great technique for preventing source code that isn’t necessary to build right away from entering the build or test stage or maybe preventing code from interfering with something that is already being tested in the pipeline. This ‘switch’ enables developers to control exactly what gets promoted to the next stage of the pipeline.
If there are dependencies on any of the APIs, it is vital to conduct testing on those as well. For instance, if the ‘create order’ API is dependent on a customer profile service; it should be tested and checked to ensure that the customer profile service is receiving the expected information. This tests the end-to-end workflows of the entire system and offers added confidence to all the core APIs and core logic used in the pipeline, ensuring they are working as expected. It is important to note that developers will spend most of their time in this stage of the pipeline.
ON/OFF SWITCHES TO CONTROL CODE FLOW
Production:
The next stage after testing is usually the production stage. However, moving directly from testing to a production environment is usually only viable for small to medium organizations where only a couple of environments are used at the highest. But the larger an organization gets, the more environments they might need. This leads to difficulties in maintaining consistency and quality of code throughout the environment. To manage this, it is better for code to move from the testing stage to a pre-production stage and then move to a production stage. This becomes useful when there are many different developers testing things at different times like QA or a new specific feature is being tested. The pre-production environment allows developers to create a separate branch or additional environments for conducting a specific test.
This pre-production environment will be known as ‘Prod 1 Box’ for the rest of this article.
Pre-Production: (Prod 1Box)
A key aspect to remember when moving code from the testing environment is to ensure it does not cause a bad change to the main production environment where all the hosts are situated and where all the traffic is going to occur for the customer. The Prod 1 Box represents a fraction of the production traffic – ideally around less than 10% of total production traffic. This allows developers to detect when anything goes wrong while pushing code such as if the latency is really high. This will trigger the alarms, alerting the developers that a bad deployment is occurring and allowing them to roll back that particular change instantly.
The purpose of the Prod 1 Box is simple. If the code moves directly from the testing stage to the production stage and results in bad deployment, it would result in rolling back all the other hosts using the environment as well which is very tedious and time-consuming. But instead, if a bad deployment occurs in the Prod 1 Box, only one host is needed to be rolled back. This is a pretty straightforward process and extremely quick as well. The developer is only required to disable that particular host and the previous version of the code will be reverted to in the production environment without any harm and changes. Although simple in concept, the Prod 1 Box is a very powerful tool for developers as it offers an extra layer of safety when they introduce any changes to the pipeline before it hits the production stage.
1) Rollback Alarms When promoting code from the test stage to the production stage, several things can go wrong in the deployment. It can result in:
An elevated number of errors
Latency spikes
Faltering key business metrics
Various abnormal and expected patterns
This makes it crucial to incorporate the concept of alarms into the production environment – specifically rollback alarms. Rollback alarms are a type of alarm that monitors a particular environment and is integrated during the deployment process. It allows developers to monitor specific metrics of a particular deployment and that particular version of the software for issues like latency errors or if key business metrics are falling below a certain threshold. The rollback alarm is an indicator that alerts the developer to roll back the change to a previous version. In an ideal CI/CD pipeline these configured metrics should be monitored directly and the rollback initiated automatically. The automatic rollback must be baked into the system and triggered whenever it determines any of these metrics exceed or fall below the expected threshold.
2) Bake Period The Bake Period is more of a confidence-building step that allows developers to check for anomalies. The ideal duration of a Bake Period should be around 24 hours, but it isn’t uncommon for developers to keep the Bake Period to around 12 hours or even 6 hours during a high volume time frame.
Quite often when a change is introduced to an environment, errors might not pop up right away. Errors and latency spikes might be delayed, unexpected behavior of APIs or a certain code flow of APIs doesn’t occur until a certain system calls it, etc. This is why the Bake Period is important. It allows developers to be confident with the changes they’ve introduced. Once the code has sat for the set period and nothing abnormal has occurred, it is safe to move the code onto the next stage.
3) Anomaly Detection or Error Counts and Latency Breaches During the Bake period, developers can use anomaly detection tools to detect issues however that is an expensive endeavor for most organizations and often is an overkill solution. Another effective option, similar to the one used earlier, is to simply monitor the error counts and latency breaches over a set period. If the sum of the issues detected exceeds a certain threshold then the developer should roll back to a version of the code flow that was working.
4) Canary A canary tests the production workflow consistently with expected input and expected outcome. Let’s consider the ‘create order’ API we used earlier. In the integration test environment, the developer should set up a canary on that API along with a ‘cron job’ that triggers every minute.
The cron job should be given the function of monitoring the create order API with expected input and hardcoded with an expected output. The cron job must continually call or check on that API every minute. This would allow the developer to immediately know when this API begins failing or if the API output results in an error, notifying that something wrong has occurred within the system.
The concept of the canary must be integrated within the Bake Period, the key alarms as well the key metrics. All of which ultimately links back to the rollback alarm which reverts the pipeline to a previous software version that was assumed to be working perfectly.
Main Production:
When everything is functioning as expected within the Prod 1 Box, the code can be moved on to the next stage which is the main production environment. For instance, if the Prod 1 Box was hosting 10% of the traffic, then the main production environment would be hosting the remaining 90% of that traffic. All the elements and metrics used within the Prod 1 Box such as rollback alarms, Bake Period, anomaly detection or error count and latency breaches, and canaries, must be included in the stage exactly as they were in the Prod 1 Box with the same checks, except on a much larger scale.
The main issue most developers face is – ‘how is 10% of traffic supposed to be directed to one host while 90% goes to another host?’. While there are several ways of accomplishing this task, the easiest is to transfer it at the DNS level. Using DNS weights, developers can shift a certain percentage of traffic to a particular URL and the rest to another URL. The process might vary depending on the technology being used but DNS is the most common one that developers usually prefer to use.
DETAILED IDEAL CI/CD PIPELINE
Summary
The ultimate goal of an ideal CI/CD pipeline is to enable teams to generate quick, reliable, accurate, and comprehensive feedback from their SDLC. Regardless of the tools and configuration of the CI/CD pipeline, the focus should be to optimize and automate the software development process.
Let’s go Over the key Points Covered One More Time. These are the key Concepts And Elements that Make up an Ideal CI/CD Pipeline:
The Source Code is where all the packages and dependencies are categorized and stored. It involves the addition of reviewers for the curation of code before it gets shifted to the next stage.
Build steps involve compiling code, unit tests, as well as checking and enforcing code coverage.
The Test Environment deals with integration testing and the creation of on/off switches.
The Prod 1 Box serves as the soft testing environment for production for a portion of the traffic.
The Main Production environment serves the remainder of the traffic
NeoSOFT’s DevOps services are geared towards delivering our signature exceptional quality and boosting efficiency wherever you are in your DevOps journey. Whether you want to build a CI/CD pipeline from scratch, or your CI/CD pipeline is ineffective and not delivering the required results, or if your CI/CD pipeline is in development but needs to be accelerated; our robust and signature engineering solutions will enable your organization to
Scale rapidly across locations and geographies,
Quicker delivery turnaround,
Accelerate DevOps implementation across tools.
NEOSOFT’S DEVOPS SERVICES IMPACT ON ORGANIZATIONS
Solving Problems in the Real World
Over the past few years, we’ve applied the best practices mentioned in this article.
Organizations often find themselves requiring assistance at different stages in the DevOps journey; some wish to develop an entirely new DevOps approach, while others start by exploring how their existing systems and processes can be enhanced. As their products evolve and take on new characteristics, organizations need to re-imagine their DevOps processes and ensure that these changes aren’t affecting their efficiencies or hampering the quality of their product.
DevOps helps eCommerce Players to Release Features Faster
When it comes to eCommerce, DevOps is instrumental for increasing overall productivity, managing scale & deploying new and innovative features much faster.
For a global e-commerce platform with millions of daily visitors, NeoSOFT built their CI/CD pipeline. Huge computational resources were made to work efficiently, giving a pleasing online customer experience. The infrastructure was able to carry out a number of mission-critical functions with substantial savings resulting in both: time and money.
With savings up to 40% on computing & storage resources matched with an enhanced developer throughput, an ideal CI/CD pipeline is critical to the eCommerce industry.
Robust CI/CD Pipelines are Driving Phenomenal CX in the BFSI Sector
DevOps’ ability to meet the continually growing user needs with the need to rapidly deploy new features has facilitated its broader adoption across the BFSI industry with varying maturity levels.
When executing a digital transformation project for a leading bank, NeoSOFT upgraded the entire infrastructure with an objective to achieve continuous delivery. The introduction of emerging technologies like Kubernetes into the journey enabled the institution to move at startup speed, driving the GTM 10x faster rate.
As technology leaders in the BFSI segment look to compete through digital capabilities, DevOps & CI/CD pipelines start to form their cornerstone of innovation.
A well-oiled DevOps team, structure, and ecosystem can be the difference-maker in driving business benefits and leveraging technology as your competitive edge.
What do developers want? Money, flexible schedules, pizza? Sure. Effortless remote collaboration? Hell, yes! Programming is a team sport and without proper communication, you can’t really expect spectacular results. A remote set-up can make developer-to-developer communication challenging, but if equipped with the right tools, you have nothing to fear. Let’s take a look at the best VS Code extensions that can seriously improve a remote working routine.
1. Live Share
If you’ve been working remotely for a while now, chances are you’re already familiar with this one. This popular extension lets you and your teammates edit code together.
It can also be enhanced by other extensions such as Live Share Audio which allows you to make audio calls, or Live Share Whiteboard to draw on a whiteboard and see each other’s changes in real-time.
Benefits for remote teams: Boost your team’s productivity by pair-programming in real-time, straight from your VS Code editor!
2. GitLive
This powerful tool combines the functionality of Live Share with other super useful features for remote teams. You can see if your teammates are online, what issue and branch they are working on and even take a peek at their uncommitted changes, all updated in real-time.
But probably the most useful feature is merge conflict detection. Indicators show in the gutter where your teammates have made changes to the file you have open. These update in real-time as you and your teammates are editing and provide early warning of potential merge conflicts.
Finally, GitLive enhances code sharing via LiveShare with video calls and screen share and even allows you to codeshare with teammates using other IDEs such as IntelliJ, WebStorm or PyCharm.
Benefits for remote teams: Improve developer communication with real-time cross-IDE collaboration, merge conflict detection and video calls!
3. GistPad
Gists are a great way not only to create code snippets, notes, or tasks lists for your private use but also to easily share them with your colleagues. With GistPad you can seamlessly do it straight from your VS Code editor.
You can create new gists from scratch, from local files or snippets. You can also search through and comment on your teammate’s gists (all comments will be displayed at the bottom of an opened file or as a thread in multi-file gists).
The extension has broad documentation and a lot of cool features. What I really like is the sorting feature, which when enabled, will group your gists by type (for example note — gists composed of .txt, .md/.markdown or .adoc files, or diagram — gists that include a .drawio file) which makes it super-easy to quickly find what you’re looking for.
Benefits for remote teams: Gists are usually associated with less formal, casual collaboration. The extension makes it easier to brainstorm over the code snippet, work on and save a piece of code that will be often reused, or share a task list.
4. Todo Tree
If you create a lot of TODOs while coding and need help in keeping track of them, this extension is a lifesaver. It will quickly search your workspace for comment tags like TODO and FIXME and display them in a tree view in the explorer pane.
Clicking on a TODO within the tree will bring you to the exact line of code that needs fixing and additionally highlight each to-do within a file.
Benefits for remote teams: The extension gives you an overview of all your TODOs and a way to easily access them from the editor. Use it together with your teammates and make sure that no task is ever forgotten.
5. Codetour
If you’re looking for a way to smoothly on-board a new team member to your team, Codetour might be exactly what you need. This handy extension allows you to record and playback guided walkthroughs of the codebase, directly within the editor.
A “code tour” is a sequence of interactive steps associated with a specific directory, file or line, that includes a description of the respective code and is saved in a chosen workspace. The extension comes with built-in guides that help you get started on a specific task (eg. record, export, start or navigate a tour). At any time, you can edit the tour by rearranging or deleting certain steps or even change the git ref associated with the tour.
Benefits for remote teams: A great way to explain the codebase and create project guidelines available within VS Code at any time for each member of the team!
6. Git Link
Simple and effective, this extension does one job: allows you to send a link with selected code from your editor to your teammates, who can view it in GitHub. Besides the advantage of sharing code with your team (note that only committed changes will be reflected in the link), it is also useful if you want to check history, contributors, or branch versions.
Benefits for remote teams: Easily send links of code snippets to co-workers.
Conclusion
Good communication within a distributed team is key to productive remote working. Hopefully, some of the tools rounded up in this short article will make your team collaboration faster, more efficient and productive. Happy hacking!
The developer technology landscape changes all the time as new tools and technologies are introduced. Based on numerous interviews and reading through countless job descriptions on job boards, here is a compilation of a great modern tech stack for JavaScript developers in 2021.
Out of countless tools, this blog covers a selection which when combined can be used in either personal projects or in a company. Of course, many other project management tools exist out there for example like Jira, Confluence, Trello and Asana to name a few. This is based on user experience and preference so feel free to make slight adjustments and personal changes to suit your own tastes.
It is much simpler to concentrate on a refined set of tools instead of getting overwhelmed with the plethora of choices out there which makes it hard for aspiring developers to choose a starting point.
Project Management
Notion – For overall project management, documentation, notes and wikis
Clubhouse / Monday – Clubhouse or Monday to manage the development process itself. Both can be Incorporated into a CI/CD workflow so builds are done automatically and changes are reflected in the staging and production CI/CD branches
NextJS / Create React App / Redux – NextJS for generating a static website or Create React App for building a standard React website with Redux for state management
Tailwind – Tailwind for writing the CSS, as its a modern popular framework basically allowing you to avoid writing your own custom CSS from scratch leading to faster development workflows
CSS/SASS / styled-components – This can be used as a different option to Tailwind, giving you more customization options for the components in React
Storybook – This is the main build process for creating the components because it allows for modularity. With Storybook components are created in isolation inside of a dynamic library that can be updated and shared across the business
JestandEnzyme, React Testing LibraryandCypress – TDD using unit tests for the code and components before they are sent to production and Cypress for an end to end testing
Sanity / Strapi – Sanity and Strapi are headless CMS and are used to publish the content with the use of a GUI (optional tools)
Vercel / Netlify / AWS – The CI/CD provider combined with GitHub, makes it easy to review and promote changes as they’re developed
Mobile
React Native / Redux – React Native for creating cross-platform mobile apps and Redux for state management
Flutter/Dart – Flutter and Dart for creating cross-platform mobile apps
The increasing demand for mobile apps gets every business to look for the best and robust solution. Understanding the pros and cons of each platform is necessary. In this blog, we share key comparative insights on the popular cross-platform technologies – React Native and Flutter.
React Native was built and open-sourced by Facebook in 2015 with easy access to the native UI components and the code is reusable. A hot reload feature is available with access to high-quality third-party libraries.
Flutter is an open-source technology launched by Google which has a robust ecosystem and offers maximum customization.
Programming Language
React Native mainly uses JavaScript as the programming language, which is a dynamically typed language. ReactJS is a JavaScript library mainly used for building user interfaces. ReactJS is used across various web applications, a specific pathway to build out its forms has to be used which is accomplished by using – ReactJS lifecycle.
On the other hand, Flutter uses Dart which was introduced by Google in 2011. It is similar to most other Object-Oriented Programming Languages and has been quickly adopted by developers as it is more expressive.
Architecture
React Native uses the JavaScript bridge, which is the JavaScript runtime environment that provides a pathway to communicate with the native modules. JSON messages are used to communicate between the two sides. This process requires a smooth User Interface. The Flux architecture of Facebook is used by React Native.
Flutter contains most of the required components within itself which rules out the need for a bridge. Frameworks like Cupertino and Material Design are used. Flutter uses the Skia engine for its purpose. The apps built on Flutter are thus more stable.
Installation
React Native can easily be installed by someone with little prior knowledge of JavaScript. It can be installed by using the React Native CLI- which needs to be installed globally. The prerequisites for installing React Native are NodeJS and JDK8. The yarn needs to be installed to manage the packages.
Installing Flutter is a bit different. The binary for a specific platform needs to be downloaded. A zip file is also required for macOS. It is then required to be added to the PATH variable. Flutter installation does not require any knowledge of JavaScript and involves a few additional steps in comparison with React Native.
Setup and Project Configuration
React Native has limitations while providing a setup roadmap and it begins with the creation of a new project. There is less guidance while using Xcode tools. For Windows, it requires JDK and Android Studio to be preinstalled.
Flutter provides a detailed guide to installing it. Flutter doctor is a CLI tool that helps developers to install Flutter without much trouble. Flutter provides better CLI support and a proper roadmap to setting up the framework. Project configuration can be done easily as well.
UI Components and Development API
React Native has the ability to create the Native environment for Android and iOS by using the JS bridge. But it relies heavily on third-party libraries. The React Native components may not behave similarly across all platforms thereby making the app inconsistent. User Interface rendering is available.
Flutter provides a huge range of API tools, and the User Interface components are in abundance. Third-party libraries are not required here. Flutter also provides widgets for rendering UI easily across Android and iOS.
Developer Productivity
The React Native codes are reusable across all the platforms. JavaScript is supported by all editors. React Native also provides the Hot Reload feature. This means that any changes in the backend will be directly visible on the front end, even without recompilation.
Flutter also offers the Hot Reload feature. The compilation time on Flutter is shorter as compared to React Native. This affects Flutter VS React Native development speed comparison. But all editors do not support Dart as it is not common.
Community Support
Communities also help in sharing knowledge about specific technology and solving problems related to it. Since being launched in 2015, React Native has gained popularity and has increasing communities forming across the world, especially on GitHub.
Flutter started gaining popularity in 2017 after the promotion by Google and the community is relatively smaller, but a fast-growing one. Currently, React Native has larger community support, however, Flutter is being acknowledged globally and is also fast-trending.
Testing Support
The React Native framework does not provide any support for testing the UI or the integration. JavaScript offers some unit-level testing features. Third-party tools need to be used for testing the React Native apps. No official support is provided for these tests.
Flutter provides a good set of testing features. The Flutter testing features are properly documented and officially supported. Widget testing is also available that can be run like unit tests to check the UI. Flutter is hence better for testing.
DevOps and CI/CD Support
Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery are important for apps to get feedback continuously. React Native does not offer any CI/CD solution, officially. It can be introduced manually, but there is no proper guideline to it and third-party solutions need to be used.
Setting up a CI/CD with Flutter is easy. The steps are properly mentioned for both iOS and Android platforms. Command Line Interface can easily be used for deploying them. React Native DevOps is properly documented and explained. DevOps lifecycle can also be set up for Flutter. Flutter edges React Native in terms of DevOps and CI/CD support because of the official CI/CD solution.
Use Cases
React Native is used when the developer is accustomed to using JavaScript. The more complicated apps are created using the React Native development framework.
If the User Interface is the core feature of your app, you should choose Flutter. Flutter is used for building simple apps with a limited budget. Thus you should consider the main use case of your app before finalizing the technology stack. The target of Google is to improve Flutter’s performance for desktops mainly. This will allow developers to create apps for the desktop environment. React Native may use the same codebase to develop apps for both Android and iOS.
Conclusion
React Native and Flutter both have their pros and cons. React Native might be the base of a majority of currently existing apps, but Flutter is quickly gaining popularity within the community since its inception, a fact further boosted by the advancement of the Flutter Software Development Kit (SDK) which makes the framework more advanced and preferable. The bottom line is to use the right platform after a thorough need-analysis is done. Contact NeoSOFT Technologies for a free consultation to help you get ready for a ‘mobile-journey’.
The term “big data” refers to data that is so large, fast or complex that it’s difficult or impossible to process using traditional methods. The act of accessing and storing large amounts of information for analytics has been around for a long time. Big data essentially is a large volume of data – both structured and unstructured – that inundates a business on a day-to-day basis. But it’s not the amount of data that’s important. It is what the organizations do with the data that matters
Importance Of Big Data For Businesses
The Big Data concept was born out of the need to understand trends, preferences, and patterns in the huge database generated when people interact with different systems and each other. With Big Data, business organizations can use analytics, and figure out the most valuable customers. It can also help businesses create new experiences, services, and products.
Using Big Data has been crucial for many leading companies to outperform the competition. In many industries, new entrants and established competitors use data-driven strategies to compete, capture and innovate. You can find examples of Big Data usage in almost every sector, from IT to healthcare.
Types Of Big Data
Big Data is widely classified into three main types
Structured: This data has some pre-defined organizational property that makes it easy to search and analyze. The data is backed by a model that dictates the size of each field: its type, length, and restrictions on what values it can take. An example of structured data is “unit’s produced per day”, as each entry has a defined ‘product type’ and ‘number produced’ fields.
Unstructured: This is the opposite of structured data. It doesn’t have any pre-defined organizational property or conceptual definition. Unstructured data makes up the majority of big data. Some examples of unstructured data are social media posts, phone call transcripts, or videos.
Semi-structured: The line between unstructured data and semi-structured data has always been unclear since most of the semi-structured data appears to be unstructured at a glance. Information that is not in the traditional database format as structured data, but contains some organizational properties which make it easier to process. For example, NoSQL documents are considered to be semi-structured, since they contain keywords that can be used to process the document easily
Categories Of Big Data: The Many V’s
Big data commonly is characterized by a set of V’s, using words that begin with v to explain its attributes. Doug Laney, a former Gartner analyst who now works at consulting firm West Monroe, first defined three V’s — volume, variety and velocity — in 2001. Many people now use an expanded list of five V’s to describe big data:
Volume: There’s no minimum size level that constitutes big data, but it typically involves a large amount of data — terabytes or more.
Variety: Big data includes various data types that may be processed and stored in the same system.
Velocity: Sets of big data often include real-time data and other information that’s generated and updated at a fast pace.
Veracity: This refers to how accurate and trustworthy different data sets are, something that needs to be assessed upfront.
Value: Organizations also must understand the business value that sets of big data can provide to use it effectively.
Another V that’s often applied to big data is variability, which refers to the multiple meanings or formats that the same data can have in different source systems. Lists with as many as 10 V’s have also been created.
Examples And Use Cases Of Big Data
Big data applications are helpful across the business world, not just in tech. Here are some use cases of Big Data:
Product Decision Making: Big data is used by companies to develop products based on upcoming product trends. They can use combined data from past product performance to anticipate what products consumers will want before they want it. They can also use pricing data to determine the optimal price to sell the most to their target customers.
Testing: Big data can analyze millions of bug reports, hardware specifications, sensor readings, and past changes to recognize fail-points in a system before they occur. This helps maintenance teams prevent the problem and costly system downtime.
Marketing: Marketers compile big data from previous marketing campaigns to optimize future advertising campaigns. Combining data from retailers and online advertising, big data can help fine-tune strategies by finding subtle preferences to ads with certain image types, colours, or word choice.
Healthcare: Medical professionals use big data to find drug side effects and catch early indications of illnesses. For example, imagine there is a new condition that affects people quickly and without warning. However, many of the patients reported a headache on their last annual check-up. This would be flagged a clear correlation using big data analysis but may be missed by the human eye due to differences in time and location.
Customer Experience: Big data is used by product teams after a launch to assess the customer experience and product reception. Big data systems can analyze large data sets from social media mentions, online reviews, and feedback on product videos to get a better indication of what problems customers are having and how well the product is received.
Machine learning: Big data has become an important part of machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies, as it offers a huge reservoir of data to draw from. ML engineers use big data sets as varied training data to build more accurate and resilient predictive systems.
Business Advantages Of Big Data
One of the biggest advantages of Big Data is predictive analysis. Big Data analytics tools can predict outcomes accurately, thereby, allowing businesses and organizations to make better decisions, while simultaneously optimizing their operational efficiencies and reducing risks.
By harnessing data from social media platforms using Big Data analytics tools, businesses around the world are streamlining their digital marketing strategies to enhance the overall consumer experience. Big Data provides insights into the customer pain points and allows companies to improve upon their products and services.
Being accurate, Big Data combines relevant data from multiple sources to produce highly actionable insights. Almost 43% of companies lack the necessary tools to filter out irrelevant data, which eventually costs them millions of dollars to hash out useful data from the bulk. Big Data tools can help reduce this, saving you both time and money.
Big Data analytics could help companies generate more sales leads which would naturally mean a boost in revenue. Businesses are using Big Data analytics tools to understand how well their products/services are doing in the market and how the customers are responding to them. Thus, they can understand better where to invest their time and money.
With Big Data insights, you can always stay a step ahead of your competitors. You can screen the market to know what kind of promotions and offers your rivals are providing, and then you can come up with better offers for your customers. Also, Big Data insights allow you to learn customer behaviour to understand the customer trends and provide a highly ‘personalized’ experience to them.
Big Data Technologies And Tools
The top technologies common in big data environments include the following categories:
Processing engines: Spark, Hadoop MapReduce and stream processing platforms like Flink, Kafka, Samza, Storm and Spark’s Structured Streaming module.
Storage repositories: The Hadoop Distributed File System and cloud object storage services like Amazon Simple Storage Service and Google Cloud Storage.
NoSQL databases: Cassandra, Couchbase, CouchDB, HBase, MarkLogic Data Hub, MongoDB, Redis and Neo4j.
SQL query engines: Drill, Hive, Presto and Trino.
Data lake and data warehouse platforms: Amazon Redshift, Delta Lake, Google BigQuery, Kylin and Snowflake. Commercial platforms and managed services. Examples include Amazon EMR, Azure HDInsight, Cloudera Data Platform and Google Cloud Dataproc.
Flutter is a comprehensive software development kit that offers all the necessary tools to create harmonious cross-platform app development. For leading companies that often run on tight budgets and timelines, Flutter is a great platform to build applications with lower development costs across popular platforms and quickly ship features with an undiminished native experience.
Being a cross-platform app development tool, Flutter offers a cost and time-effective solution whilst enabling developers to achieve high efficiency in the developmental process. Flutter has been enhanced from a mobile application development framework to a portable framework, allowing apps to run on different platforms with little or no change in the codebase.
Flutter’s reputation precedes it. According to Google Trends, Flutter is the second most leading language in 2020. Leading enterprises like Tencent, Alibaba, eBay, and Dream11 among many more have used Flutter to develop their apps in record time. A 2018 Stack Overflow survey found that Flutter is the third most “loved” framework.
Flutter has some desirable features in store. It comprises a rendering engine, command-line tools, fully accessible widgets, and testing and API integration. Flutter has a consistent development model by automatically changing the components of UI when the variables in the code are modified.
Flutter enables developers to monitor improvements and updates in real-time. Apps developed using Flutter can seamlessly function on various interfaces owing to its powerful GPU rendering UI. Flutter houses several IDEs, including Xcode, Android Code, and Visual Studio Code that adds to its versatility.
Reasons Why Flutter Should Be A Go-To For Leading Companies
Conventionally, developers leveraged dedicated and native app development SDKs. However, over the years, the proliferation of unified cross-platform app development SDKs has proved to be dramatically advantageous. The benefits of Flutter’s cross-platform apps have been realized through the enhancement of underlying language and SDK to address the issues that were being encountered in other technologies. Flutter has shown strong benefits in comparison to its alternatives. Following are some of the key elements that make Flutter beneficial for leading companies to go for developing a cross-platform application.
1. Cost-Effectiveness
With its latest updates, Flutter allows for building apps that target mobile, desktop, web, and embedded devices from a single codebase. Flutter enables developers to reuse the native codebase across platforms with minimal changes. This drastically minimizes the cost of testing, QA, maintenance, and overall development.
2. Enhanced Development Process
Flutter functions on native binaries, graphics, and rendering libraries that are based on C/C++. This makes Flutter a great tool for leading companies to create high-performance cross-platform applications with ease. Flutter’s ‘Hot Reload’ feature is a game-changer to hasten the app development process. It allows developers to make changes to the code, and instantly preview them without losing the current application state. Flutter also houses a wide variety of ready-to-use and customizable widgets. These features especially come in handy for leading companies while building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
3. Flutter Houses its Own Rendering Engine
Flutter differentiates itself from other platforms with the facility to create many variations with the app. Flutter leverages an internal graphics engine called Skia, which is acclaimed to be fast and well-optimized and also used in Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Sublime Text 3. Skia allows Flutter-based UI to be installed on any platform. Flutter has also managed to accurately recreate Apple Design System elements and Material UI components internally. These widgets help define structural & stylistic elements to the layout without the need to use the native widgets.
Since Flutter uses its own rendering engine, it eliminates the need to change the UI when switching to other platforms. This is one of the key advantages for which leading companies prefer Flutter for app development.
4. Access to Native Features and Advanced SDK’s
Applications built using Flutter are often indistinguishable from the native app and perform exceedingly well in scenarios with complex UI animation. Flutter offers an advanced SDK with simple local codes, third-party integrations, and application APIs. Flutter eliminates the dependence of platform-specific components to render UI by means of a canvas where the elements of the application UI can be populated. The provision to share UI and app logic in Flutter saves time in development without diminishing the performance of the end product. Flutter will indeed be a go-to SDK for mobile applications with advanced UI designs and customizations.
5. Requires Lesser Development Time
The use of a single codebase reduces the multiplicity of codes to develop cross-platform apps. The reduced volume of codes significantly saves time in the developmental process. Flutter offers a variety of ready-to-use, plug-and-play widgets that enable faster customization for apps and eliminates the need for writing codes for each widget. This also mitigates the risk of errors that arise out of a multiplicity of codes. Access to a comprehensive array of widgets allows developers with any skill level to customize applications with innovative design patterns and best practices.
6. Flutter’s Programming Language
Flutter is built upon Dart SDK which promotes powerful architecture and design. Additionally, Dart offers simple management, integration, standardization, and consistency that is found to be better than other cross-platform frameworks.
7. Flutter Applications for Web, Windows, Embedded Devices and More
Flutter has undergone several enhancements that make it a robust tool for developing cross-platform applications. Flutter’s “Hummingbird” project which focuses on developing highly interactive and graphics-rich content for the web, has garnered appreciable traction from developers after Google unveiled a preview of Hummingbird.
While Flutter was conventionally used for Android and iOS app development, the latest version is now providing support for other platforms such as Mac, Windows and Linux. Flutter can even be embedded in cars, TVs, and smart home appliances. Additionally, Microsoft has released contributions to the Flutter engine that support foldable Android devices. Flutter allows easy integration with the Internet of Things (IoT). Flutter, cross-platform app development, offers ready-to-use plugins supported by Google for advanced OS features like fetching GPS coordinates, Bluetooth communication, gathering sensor data, permission handling among many.
Conclusion
Flutter provides a cost-effective, simplified, and rapid development of cross-platform mobile app while retaining the native design and visual consistency across platforms.
It is highly desirable to MVPs compatible across different platforms and is leveraged by established enterprises and leading companies alike.
It is a great choice for leading companies’ apps owing to its efficiency, reliability, and turnkey features that provide an array of widgets.
Flutter facilitates easy app maintenance and greatly reduces the turnaround time to build applications for multiple platforms.
Flutter offers a powerful design experience with a large catalogue of custom widgets across platforms that is useful to create a native-like experience whilst befitting the needs of businesses.
It houses easily accessible equivalent and corresponding features of multiple platforms that relieve even experienced developers from having to learn multiple codes and build applications from scratch.
According to Statista, Flutter is the second most popular cross-platform mobile application development framework used by developers worldwide today and fast becoming THE most popular. Currently, 39% of coders already use Flutter. Leading companies will thus not find it a challenge to hire flutter engineers. Flutter is certainly a force to reckon with for leading companies that look to build efficient and native apps.
What’s the one essential all B2B landing pages need to be high-converting? The advice of “don’t sell the drill, sell the hole” isn’t always true. There is a different approach for talking to a carpenter who already owns an array of drills, compared to a homeowner who hasn’t considered the need for a hole.
That’s the reason to aim a landing page at the right buying quadrant.
Every page already aims at one of these without even realizing it (or in the worst cases, tries to talk to two). Taking a step back to refocus the copy and imagery is a key step that’s usually missed. Here are the four buying quadrants:
Hint: To be aiming at enterprises, they’re probably in the top right
Eager 1st-time buyers – Most companies usually fit this group by default. The page will talk about all the joys of adopting this kind of service. A typical example is a marketing agency describing the benefits of PPC as if the prospect hasn’t considered it before.
Actively looking to switch – If the target audience is bigger companies, the page should probably address the headaches they’re having with their current solution. With the marketing agency example, the page would now be more about how they will avoid the issues that prospects have probably come up against with other agencies or freelancers.
Have not considered solutions before – This is the least common in the B2B space, to the point where caution is advised while choosing it. You may not want to admit it, but you’re probably competing with an existing solution such as Excel.
Happily using current solution – This doesn’t just mean a competing product. It could be tracking a process in Excel, organizing something with pen and paper, or just getting an intern to do it.
The key is to frame why your offer is worth the uncertainty of changing from their current way of doing things. Have a think about your ideal prospects and which of these quadrants they fit in, then check your landing pages to see if they are relevant or if they are talking to a different type of prospect.
2. Deciding on Your Audience and Pain Points
What steps should a B2B go through when deciding on the audience and pain point(s) to optimize a landing page for? How should a business apply these audience findings?
First, think about the traffic source. It is possible that a page’s visitors from different sources fit into different buying quadrants, so think through which one the current landing page is for.
For example, search traffic from high-intent keywords might be actively looking to switch, while visitors to a general blog post could be happily using their current solution. That means they will require completely different sales points.
If you are writing for a low-intent audience, then it is important to think through whether they’re even aware of the problem or if they’re blissfully ignorant.
Let’s say they’re currently using an open source software to handle a task. They might not realize how much easier things would be if they used a premium product with robust integrations, and the amount of work this would save them. So, start by planning out how you’ll take them through those decision stages, with the questions they might be asking themselves and the relevant info to lead them to your point of view.
3. Other Research for Landing Page Optimization
What other research should a brand conduct before optimizing a landing page?
A go-to answer is to talk to the sales team. Ideally, listen to some of the sales calls with actual prospects. Heat maps might look pretty, but they won’t have the same depth of insight as actual humans who have spent hours talking to the prospects.
It is recommended having a sit down with a member of the sales team to discuss questions such as:
How are prospects dealing with the issue before they look at us?
Is there a typical sparking incident that makes solving it a priority?
What are their biggest objections you need to address before they’ll buy?
Why do they pick us over competitors and other solutions?
This conversation can turn up so many gems and ideas for how to improve the page. Be sure to gently nudge for details at any stage instead of accepting broad answers.
4. Selecting The Best Lead Magnet
How can a brand make sure they select the best lead magnet to advertise on a landing page? Think about the journey that your prospects are on and what headaches they are dealing with. The lead magnet should be suited to what they’re dealing with, especially in terms of how advanced the content is.
A marketing agency, with their Beginner’s Guide to SEO, isn’t going to appeal to the CMOs that they want to attract. Instead, they can do so by creating lead magnets about topics relevant to veteran marketers, such as proving long-term ROI and integrating with Salesforce.
Part of it is about accepting that an ideal lead magnet might bring in fewer leads than a broad one. But, those leads should be of higher quality.
5. The Biggest Learning in Landing Page Optimization
So much effort is often put into the design. Days are spent building out clever parallax scrolling or playing with whitespace.
Yet, so long as the design looks vaguely attractive and easy to look through…changing it doesn’t seem to matter.
It is common to hear companies come and say that they have tried redesigning the page several times, but it hasn’t improved the performance. Then, once you overhaul the copy and images, their conversion rates finally go up.
It is easy to understand why design is prioritized. It’s more obviously difficult than writing copy, and fast-moving trends mean a page can quickly look dated.
But unfortunately, it is important to learn that a redesign might bring small lifts, but won’t fix a struggling page.
6. Landing Page Copywriting Vs. Other Copywriting
What makes landing page copywriting different from copywriting for other web pages?
Landing pages should be highly targeted in who they’re talking to and the funnel step they’re aimed at. Homepages, on the other hand, are a different challenge. While they are also an entrance page, they have to be more multi-purpose in who they’re talking to. If you serve different industries or company sizes, then the homepage will be watered down by having to be relevant to all of them.
Think of them more as a starting point and guide them to the content that is most relevant for them. It can be links to specific features or industry pages, but the key is to get them discovering the details that will move them closer to becoming buyers.
7. Concisely Covering Key Points That Will Lead to Conversions
How can a brand make sure it covers the points that would best convince a prospect to convert, without making a landing page text-heavy?
As a priority, make your subheadings almost able to stand alone. A visitor should be able to skim down the subheadings and get a sense of what you do and who you’re for without reading any of the body copy.
It might mean swapping questions like “Who is it for?” with the equivalent answer such as “Designed for enterprise”. Next, think of the body copy in each section as reinforcing the subheading. It should give proof or details to reinforce the claim, such as what about you makes you suitable for enterprise.
It can be tempting to squeeze in semi-relevant details that you want to be on the page somewhere, but that will dilute the impact of that paragraph and make it harder to read. In truth, I think the issue is usually that the copy is hard to digest and not that the word count is too high, so stirring together different sales points into one section is a quick way to confuse things.
8. Avoiding Landing Page Optimization Mistakes
What are the biggest mistakes people tend to make when optimizing landing pages for their business? How can they avoid these mistakes?
You can try rewording things, but if you’re still trying to sell bacon to a vegetarian, then it’s not going to work. The industry advice is to test one change at a time, which is usually interpreted as changing one small detail.
I see lots of A/B tests where they have tested a different way of saying the same thing. Maybe they focus the headline on a different selling point, but it is still generally aimed at the same audience facing the same problems.
If your conversion rate is already decent and you’re only looking for small improvements, then that’s ok. But if your campaign is struggling, then you’ll need to test a double-or-nothing style overhaul.
An overhaul can still be a test of a single hypothesis. It can test an idea such as, “would a landing page aimed at open source users perform better?” Every element might need to change, but all in support of that one idea.
So, don’t be scared to think big in your split tests, as big lifts in your optimization will only come from testing big changes.
9. Using Complementary Images On Your B2B Landing Page
As a final tip, plan out how each image can build on the corresponding subheading. Very often one can see things like dashboard screenshots that have nothing to do with the text alongside them.
The pictures shouldn’t just be there to stop the page from being too text-heavy. They should be working with the sales material. If you’ve written “set it up in a few clicks,” then illustrate what those clicks are, instead of showing a shot of the UI.
How AR and AI Work Together to Build Unique Mobile Experiences?
The intriguing partnership of Augmented Reality (AR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a match made in the digital heaven. An AR application can become more beneficial when AI is incorporated into it. The natural bridging of AR and AI enables mobile app developers to build more interactive and intriguing apps. This article explores a few practical ways in which AR and AI can be combined to build incredible mobile experiences.
Ways AI and AR Complement Each Other
The partnership between AR and AI is likely to have a profound impact on customer experience. Companies are developing next-generation applications for mobiles that employ AR and AI technologies. In fact, AI is the heart of practically all AR platforms.
Though Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality have distinct technologies, they can sync with one another on a variety of applications. They can leverage each other’s best features and aspects to build innovative mobile experiences. AI enables AR to have a multidimensional interaction with the physical environment. It allows you to manipulate 2D and 3D virtual objects with your words, eyes, and hands.
It is anticipated that the demand for AR-based apps is bound to soar in the next four to five years. Hence, the search for appropriate Software Development Kits (SDK) and Application Program Interfaces (API) for AI and AR is ongoing.
Current State of SDKs and APIs for AR and AI
As the capabilities of current SDKs (Software Development Kits) and APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) rapidly expand, the number of commercial opportunities increase exponentially. Consider a few examples:
Vuforia: This is an Augmented Reality SDK that enables app developers to build mobile-centric, immersive AR experiences. It is capable of supporting both iOS and Android devices, allowing brands to develop apps with minimal commercial and technical risks.
ARCore: This is Google’s proprietary AR SDK. It enables developers to get their AR apps up and running on mobile devices. ARCore supports iOS devices and allows developers to build rich and immersive AR experiences supported by mobile devices.
Core ML: This is a Machine Learning framework used across multiple Apple devices. This API allows you to perform real-time predictions of live images on your device. Its low latency and near real-time results are its biggest advantages. Core ML is an application that can be run without network connections.
TensorFlow Lite: This is an open-source deep learning framework focused on mobile device inference. TensorFlow Lite enables developers to insert their own custom models.
Practical Ways to Combine AR and AI
The marriage of AR and AI opens up endless opportunities. Here are a few ways in which this combination is deployed to create digital miracles.
1. Speech Recognition: As an AI model listens to what you say, AR effects appear in front of you. An example would be when you say ‘pizza,’ a virtual pizza slice appears in front of your mouth on the app screen.
2. Image Recognition and Image Tracking: It allows customers to see how an object would look and fit in a given space. Combining AR with AI technology allows users to move still photos of items into a still image of a room and assists them in making a decision. Example: the popular IKEA Place.
3. Human Pose Estimation: It is a technique that detects human figures and poses. It predicts the positions of a person’s joints in an image or video. This can be used in controlling AR content. Yopuppet.com is one example.
4. Education: It allows students to gain new perspectives by interacting with virtual reality. For example, they can visualize and interact with a 3D life-size version of the human body.
5. Recognizing and Labelling: When the camera is pointed to a scene or an image, the AR app displays a label that indicates the object or the item when it recognizes it.
6. Car Recognition: Using a smartphone camera, this tech-application allows its customers to sit inside the car and explore the car’s interiors. There isn’t even a need to download the application.
7. Object Detection: AR-AI combination can be applied to automatically learn and detect the position and extent of the objects within an image or a video. This mobile-friendly model facilitates interaction between physical and digital objects.
Take Away
The bridging of AR and AI is offering businesses an opportunity to empower their customers with ways to sharing information in captivating ways. Together, AR and AI continue to enhance mobile experiences, enabling developers to design richer, more intuitive, and relevant experiences for their diverse consumers in numerous ways.
Whether you are already an experienced developer or just starting out, if you want to become really good in this industry, you need to constantly sharpen your skills to stay relevant. Here are some of the most valuable developer skills to tackle this year.
Of course, you won’t need all of them and this list isn’t complete. But it should give you a good idea of what to learn next or what to improve on.
1. Practice Coding Every Day
Even if it’s for only 30 minutes. This will help you learn the best development practices and grow your skills. It will also help you stay in top form and master new technologies.
2. Learn To Be A Good Communicator (Both While Writing And Speaking)
You don’t need to speak English like a native speaker, but you do need good enough communication skills to help clients understand what you are saying. Whether it’s in meetings, emails, or even on the phone, you don’t want to lose a client because they couldn’t understand your words. Also, good speaking and writing skills help make you stand out from other developers.
3. Practice Object-Oriented Design Principles
Even if you just started programming, learning OOP will give you many benefits over time. It will also make it much easier for you to read other people’s code, which is essential when working with other developers and your team members.
4. Learn How To Use Version Control Systems (e.g. Git) Effectively
Version control systems are essential for any developer who works on multiple projects simultaneously or collaborates with other developers on projects.
5. Improve Your Problem-Solving Skills
Software development is a complex field. You’ll be exposed to many different problems and tasks during your career. Make sure you can solve them effectively by learning how to think like a developer.
6. Learn How To Use Design Tools Such As Photoshop, Sketch, And Illustrator
Good-looking websites and apps are essential if you want to create high-quality products that users love. While it’s possible to learn how to design using tutorials and YouTube videos, most of the time, you will need some formal training in this area when you start working on real projects.
7. Keep Learning New Technologies And Languages
Don’t get stuck on one stack! Learning new languages and frameworks will help you stay employable in this industry. If you have had the same stack for a long time, then there is a good chance that your skills will become obsolete over time. Always try to stay up to date with the newest technologies used by top developers around the world.
8. Learn At Least One Scripting Language (e.g. Python)
Scripting languages are useful for automating repetitive tasks. Even if you don’t want to become a full-time developer, scripting can make your life easier as a software engineer.
9. Learn How To Write Clean And Maintainable Code
You will have to spend lots of time reading other people’s code. If the code is not clean, then it will be very hard for you to understand what’s going on. So you must write clean and readable code yourself.
One way to improve your coding skills is by writing unit tests (e.g. by using JUnit). This will help you catch bugs early in the development process. Also, try to keep your methods short so it will be easier to read them later when you need to come back and fix something in the project that you wrote months ago.
10. Learn To Think Ahead And Plan Out How A Feature Should Work Before You Start Developing It
It takes time to go from writing an initial idea for a feature/product/bug fix to having that feature ready on the market. You need to be able to think ahead and make sure that everything fits together properly during this whole process (and also after). This includes planning with your team members, asking users what they want, talking with stakeholders about their requirements, etc. Don’t just start coding things without thinking first!
11. Learn How To Implement Security Measures Properly
There is a lot of information out there about security, and it’s easy to get confused and overwhelmed. Make sure that you go beyond the obvious like ‘make sure your password is strong enough’ and learn more about security threats and how to fix them.
12. Don’t Be Afraid To Ask Questions
Asking questions is a great way to learn. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to assume that you know everything. Many developers tend to think that asking for help is a sign of weakness, but it’s actually a sign of strength. If you don’t understand something, ask someone who does and then try to figure it out yourself as well. This will help you gain a deeper understanding of the topic in question.
13. Learn How To Work With Different Environments (Mac, Linux, Windows)
You don’t have to become an expert in all platforms, but you should know how they work and what their pros and cons are. Also, knowing how different development environments work will allow you to save time when switching between them. For example, developing an Android app on Windows or Mac will force you to change your workflow since the process is quite different from using Linux or Ubuntu.
14. Practice Pair Programming Regularly With Your Team Members (or Others)
Pair programming means two people working together on one computer at the same time — one person sitting behind the keyboard writing code while the other person observes and gives feedback/suggestions/code reviews, etc.
Pair programming has many benefits, including a better understanding of the problem domain, sharing knowledge and ideas between team members, faster debugging, etc. It also allows developers to get comfortable with each other through regular communication and helps team members build trust towards each other, which greatly improves teamwork.
15. Understand Design Patterns (SOLID Principles And Object-Oriented Design Patterns)
You don’t have to know every single pattern by heart, but understanding what they are will help you a lot as a software developer. Object-oriented design patterns are used repeatedly in different frameworks and technologies, so understanding them will be extremely useful for your job as a software developer.
The SOLID principles guide us when writing code:
Single-responsibility principle
Open/closed principle
Liskov substitution principle
Interface segregation principle
Dependency inversion principle
16. Learn How To Deal With Change As A Software Developer
When working on new projects or even when working with existing code base, things change from time to time (and not always because we want them to). You need to constantly adapt to these changes if you’re going to continue being productive in this business. If you cannot handle change well, you will eventually get stuck with outdated skills that won’t help you much anymore.
17. Learn How To Put Yourself In Other People’s Shoes
This is a beneficial skill in the software development industry. You need to learn how to see things through your client’s eyes and try to understand what they want or need. You need to communicate with them and make sure you deliver what they want.
18. Learn About Business Processes And Soft Skills
It doesn’t matter if you work for yourself or for another company. You must understand business processes and soft skills like communication, time management, problem-solving, and more. These are all crucial skills that will make you stand out from other developers who don’t know anything about this stuff.
19. Learn How To Deal With Deadlines
Everybody knows that projects sometimes run late and deadlines are not met. As a developer, you need to learn how to meet deadlines by setting smaller checkpoints in your projects that you can check off as you go. This will help you be more efficient and get the job done on time.
20. Learn How To Learn New Technologies Fast
As mentioned before, developers need to stay relevant and learn new technologies quickly. This means learning new languages and learning about new frameworks or libraries that can help you solve problems more efficiently. It’s not only important that you know about the technology but also why it’s better than the others.
If you don’t understand something or there is something that isn’t clear to you, ask questions! Don’t be afraid of looking stupid because if someone doesn’t understand something, they will never fully master it!
Though hiring a PPC expert may not sound like a big deal, it is quite a daunting task to find that one expert who can actively manage your Pay Per Click campaigns in the real world. This is crucial because hiring the wrong person can have adverse effects. Reports suggest that 97% of the ad campaigns fail due to inadequate quality of tracking and businesses lose a lot of money investing in the wrong keywords.
Therefore, while hiring PPC experts might not be an easy job; here are some aspects to stay on the look-out for:
1. Shortlisting Potential Experts
Everyone in the market will claim to the best PPC expert. However, you can easily check their claims and shortlist the ones that fit your bill and satisfy your needs. Do not trust your shortlisted PPC experts blindly! There will be more than what meets the eye.
When choosing a PPC expert, list out your expectations and see which ones align perfectly with your plan. Expensive PPC experts do not guarantee results. Also, PPC experts new to the market will be ready to experiment and try dynamic methods to bring results. Therefore, find the one with a healthy balance between experience and working dynamics.
2. Working Methodology
When it comes to quality, you should not be compromising at all. Here’s where you learn your agency’s working methodology in detail and how they maintain their standards when managing a PPC campaign.
Since every project is different, the strategies for every campaign will be different and unique too. Therefore, be sure to ask about the agency’s quality assurance measures when the Google Ads account is set up. Also, make sure adequate resources are allocated for critical tasks like client communication, campaign optimisation, and development, etc.
3. Transparency
If your PPC expert is avoiding answering your questions about maintenance and utilisation, wake up and walk right out of it. You have every right to access this information and agencies are obliged to stay as transparent as possible with the details that they share with you.
As a client, you will have access to each ad account and learn about its progress and cost. For a PPC expert to work like a well-oiled machine, there should be weekly communications related to the campaign instead of a monthly report. Getting the data out in real-time is the key to maintaining transparency between the PPC experts and the client.
4. Long-Term
PPC campaign boostings are never constant. It is more important than ever to prevent malpractices like inserting random dynamic keywords or making use of bad headlines and bad ad copies. Such stringent rules are to be strictly followed to avoid penalties for the client and the PPC expert.
Apart from reviewing and launching campaigns, a PPC expert should evolve according to the nature of the business. They should have a bespoke, long-term plan ready for the business and keep implementing changes as the need arises to maintain an edge over the competitors.
Conclusion:
Hiring a PPC expert is no child’s play. Keeping the above-mentioned points in check and you should be able to hire the best PPC expert and get the most out of your PPC campaign. With NeoSOFT, hire a PPC expert who strives to provide personalised services and upholds your business goals throughout the term.
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