Freelance Web Developer | Angular Consultant
Freelance Web Developer | Angular Consultant
With the new version of Node out, I decided to upgrade to the latest version of Node (version 4.0.0).
I didn’t want to go through downloading an install package, I wanted to use NPM so after a quick search around I found this way from David Walsh’s blog.
sudo npm cache clean -f sudo npm install -g n sudo n stable
I’ve just read Dan Davies article “It’s fun to learn” it’s a great article where he talks about how he is a self taught web developer and over the last year he has really pushed his jQuery skills building demo sites and projects. It’s a great post and well worth checking out.
While reading I was reminded about that initial fun you get when you start out learning new technologies. Like Dan I’m a self taught developer, who has picked up new skills as I’ve gone along. For me learning a new technology has recently felt like it’s something I have to do. For example as a contractor if I want to earn so much a day then I need to have a particular set of skills (not the set of skills that Liam Neeson has in Taken). Which has lead me to looking to pick up the next thing that is popular.
Really I have a lot of experience and a good set of skills, and I could easily stick with what I know, but this leads to stagnation and a feeling that you are going nowhere in your career. This takes the fun out of the job.
Dan’s post has reminded me to not learn something cause it’s popular and may increase contract opportunities, but to learn something that I find fun. And the best way to learn a new technology is to build demo sites as Dan lists in his post.
For me I’ve recently been interested in NodeJS (yes I know it is very popular at the moment, but it’s something I want to learn). As a web developer I like the web frameworks that Node supports, the one I am interested in is ExpressJS. So that’s what I’m going to start learning and have fun doing it.
I’ve developed websites for over 15 years now, since Netscape came out. So I’ve done a lot of different websites and web applications, recently over the last 2-3 years mobile web has really grown, but there has always been the native vs web argument over which stack to use to develop mobile applications.
As a web developer I’m on the web side of the argument, the reasons for me that web suits me are, it allows me to develop mobile apps for both Android and iOS from one code base. This allows me as to develop both my own as well as apps for clients to reach both of the major platforms quicker and at the same time.
It brings a real benefit to small to medium business who want to have a mobile app developed to hit both Android and iOS at the same time instead of getting both a iOS developer and a Android developer to create their app. Twice the number of developers cost twice as much and takes twice as long. I believe the mobile web is an ideal solution for SMB to create their mobile strategy.
Also mobile web allows me as a web developer to use the skills and experience I’ve gather over the last few years to create both responsive websites and mobile applications, using a framework like ionic to create cross platform apps.
Native is still a valid choice, but for me as a web developer the web wins.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been working on a large responsive site using Sass.
I’ve just got the Ionic newsletter email, reading through it I am amazed at the amount of new projects that are coming from Ionic over the next few weeks/months, there is:
The team over in Ionic are really creating a eco system around their product. It’s a great business plan, build a free product that users love, then create paid tools that users will need to support their apps they have created using your free tool. I think using this approach means that users won’t mind paying for a tool like Analytics after they have invested time in creating a product using the free platform you’ve created.
I’ve been trying to chose between Bower or NPM as the tool I’m using for installing libraries. After using both for a little while I’m going to use Bower.
The main reason for this is because Bower is more for ‘front-end’ work, while I see NPM as more of a Node library loader. For me as a front-end developer I use Bower to get all the libraries I need for a project, for example AngularJS, Bootstrap and Gulp.
I see NPM as more of a tool for creating and managing your Node projects. As my experience using Node/ExpressJS grows I’ll probably use NPM a lot more.
But for me both package managers are a fantastic, when I look back at when I started building websites and I had to find, download, unzip, copy over to my folder, update the links in my HTML, all to install jQuery. So now we as web developers are lucky to have tools like Bower and NPM.
The fantastic Ionic team has just launched a new job site at http://jobs.ionic.io/
This is a great site shows how the Ionic eco-system is really growing. Hopefully soon they add developer profiles so teams/companies can look for a developer who might match their needs.
Today I’ve used Ionic’s new feature, Ionic view. This is the first time I’ve used this and it’s fantastic.
The basic idea behind Ionic View is that you build your app, then ‘upload’ it to Ionic’s servers. Once there you download the Ionic View app (which is available for both iOS and Android). Then with you use your Ionic.io log in credentials and Ionic View lists the apps that you’ve uploaded.
Then in the Ionic View mobile app you select the project you want to view, this then downloads the files to your phone to view it.
Ionic View is a great system, makes getting a early working version of your app on a phone so quick and easy.
Josh Morony has just started a new series on learning Ionic. So far part 1 is going through the basics of creating and setting up a Ionic app, but it is an interesting series, because Josh has mainly developed mobile apps using Sencha, which I’ve never used. Seeing how a developer moves from alternative technology to Ionic shows that Ionic is getting some real traction and become a real contender for mobile hybrid apps.
Using Desk for the first time. I’ve been a fan of Desk for a while, reading John’s blog and his videos about developing Desk.
So finally I thought I’d pay for the app. And this is my first post using Desk.
A couple of the things I like about Desk is the full screen editing, which forces you just to write. I also like that it links to multiple blogging platforms, there aren’t many apps that link with so many different blogging platforms. So I was really impressed with Desk.