Month: February 2019

The eli4d Gazette – Issue 069: Results from the 2018 Python Developers Survey and REST API Testing Resources

Interesting results from a 2018 Python Developers Survey

JetBrains, the makers of many IDEs teamed up with Python Software Foundation to run developer survey for 2018 (this is similar to the State of JavaScript survey for JS developers).

The 2018 survey can be found here: https://www.jetbrains.com/research/python-developers-survey-2018/ (There’s also a 2017 survey too)

Some interesting survey points:

  • Python 3 adoption is inching closer to 100 percent. Considering that Python 3 was released in 2008, the adoption curve has been very very slow.
  • The key take aways is a nice summary of the current state of Python development. It’s interesting to note that data science has overtaken web development among Python users. This is not completely surprising considering the availability of Jupyter notebook in conjunction with excellent tooling available through data science frameworks and libraries like NumPy, Pandas, Matplotlib, and SciPy.

Neat REST API Testing Resources

I came across these interesting REST testing resources:

  • https://reqres.in/: a hosted REST API that is ready to go
    • advantages: no setup needed
    • disadvantages: no guarantees of where your data resides (privacy, etc…)

  • JSON Server: an easy way to locally deploy a fake REST server
    • advantages: you can put whatever data you want since it’s on your machine (so no worries about privacy)
    • disadvantages: need to set it up (though the setup seems very easy using Node.js)

You can find the newsletter archive at https://eli4d.com/category/newsletter/ and the blog at eli4d.com.

Thoughts? Feedback? Let me know: @eli4d on Twitter

Quick Post via Twitter: Excellent episode covering where to start learning #ReactJS (among other things like #CreativeExhaust) #qp Be Wrong with Shawn @Swyx Wang. On what’s new in #React, how best to #learn, and what’s going on in r/reactjs — #ReactPodcast via @chantastic https://t.co/a6p4YuiywM https://t.co/FroTrvUAgo

Excellent episode covering where to start learning #ReactJS (among other things like #CreativeExhaust)

#qp
Be Wrong with Shawn @Swyx Wang. On what’s new in #React, how best to #learn, and what’s going on in r/reactjs — #ReactPodcast via @chantastic https://t.co/a6p4YuiywM https://t.co/FroTrvUAgo

The eli4d Gazette – Issue 068: An Excellent PHP Benchmarks Site and the Magic of Instant.page

PHP Benchmarks Site

I came across this PHP Benchmark site which is cool in terms of framework, template engines, and PHP version comparisons. Of course, benchmarking is just one item of comparison, and there are many somewhat more important factors in choosing and learning a framework/template language like:

  1. How well do you know the language?
  2. How much have you studied the framework/template engine?
  3. How many projects have you deployed with a particular framework?

That last point is very critical. The more projects (personal, work, etc…) the more you know the framework, and the more quickly you can deploy an idea or a solution to a problem. Of course, the other side of knowing something well is tending to use it as a solution for everything (the Masslow’s hammer problem).

Note: I came across this benchmarking site while reading “Moving from Go to PHP again” via this Hacker News post.

Instant.page magic by preloading a page right before a user clicks it

I came across this page (https://instant.page/) through the fantastic Post Status club Slack workspace. I haven’t had a chance to play with this, but it seems pretty amazing that a 1 line addition to your HTML can potentially bring a significant increase in speed due to the link/hover behavior of users.

The technical details page provides information about this approach. Caveat emptor of course but it does seem pretty neat.

Thoughts? Feedback? Let me know: @eli4d on Twitter

Quick Post via Twitter: Interesting focus of @freshbooks on #customer proximity via #email, #phone,#twitter & #inPerson #qp #SaaS #CustomerService Mike McDerment and #Freshbooks — @howibuilt https://t.co/owHUcLQkJX https://t.co/O35zDI3cO5

Interesting focus of @freshbooks on #customer proximity via #email, #phone,#twitter & #inPerson

#qp
#SaaS
#CustomerService
Mike McDerment and #Freshbooks — @howibuilt https://t.co/owHUcLQkJX https://t.co/O35zDI3cO5

Quick Post via Twitter: First half of the episode covers a neat conversation with @xiehan about the reality & approach of creating @NPR #app for @amazon #alexa & @google #HoneAssistant #qp #AWSLambda #NodeJS #JavaScript (#JSParty 62) — @Changelog Master Feed https://t.co/8ZiY6gOPFc https://t.co/7gFVWRgr3C

First half of the episode covers a neat conversation with @xiehan about the reality & approach of creating @NPR #app for @amazon #alexa & @google #HoneAssistant

#qp
#AWSLambda
#NodeJS
#JavaScript (#JSParty 62) — @Changelog Master Feed https://t.co/8ZiY6gOPFc https://t.co/7gFVWRgr3C

Quick Post via Twitter: Nice @changelog episode about @sveltejs & the problems that it solves including #CSS handling. #qp #javascriptFramework #javascript A #UI #framework without the framework (The Changelog 332) — #ChangelogMasterFeed https://t.co/v6V7Uj0t52 https://t.co/2IJCsckM4r

Nice @changelog episode about @sveltejs & the problems that it solves including #CSS handling.

#qp
#javascriptFramework
#javascript
A #UI #framework without the framework (The Changelog 332) — #ChangelogMasterFeed https://t.co/v6V7Uj0t52 https://t.co/2IJCsckM4r

Quick Post via Twitter: (From the excellent @post_status newsletter) Interesting #devops product from @dliciousbrains for #WordPress server creation through use of something like @digitalocean or @linode: https://t.co/Cy7Xd1iM5h #qp #ServerManagement #VM

(From the excellent @post_status newsletter) Interesting #devops product from @dliciousbrains for #WordPress server creation through use of something like @digitalocean or @linode:

https://t.co/Cy7Xd1iM5h

#qp
#ServerManagement
#VM