RFC Weekly - 8th August 2016

RFC Weekly - a summary of things that I find interesting. It is an indulgence; its the weekly update that I would like to receive. Unfortunately no-one else is producing it so I figured I best get on with it. Hopefully someone else will also find useful.

Katacoda

There are a growing number of resource available to help you get up and coding as quickly as possible.  I previously mentioned Hyper-Dev by Fog Creek.

Both of these offerings can get you developing in a matter of seconds – skipping past all the configuration and setup of a new development install.  So both seem well suited to class learning – especially if you are the teacher – just prep everything up and away you go.

Were as Hyper-Dev is aimed more at providing a scratch pad for quick prototyping and then evolution into production (I’m rather worried that they are pushing the prototype into production thing – always a worry).

Katacoda goes down the learning route – providing a number of course structures straight away.  Certainly worth a look to see what they have if you are learning a new language or system.

Humanitarian Toolbox

I’ve long been an advocate that if you want showcase your talents, then open source projects are a great place to do it.

The Humanitarian Toolbox is a good project to look at.  It aims to provide technological tools to help humanitarian organisations in their work.  I’ve not looked at the code, but the aims are good.

Bootstrap 4 – Visual Guide

Great article discussing the differences between Bootstrap 3 & 4.

Looks like some interesting changes – if nothing else the change in the grid sizes – one to watch out for.

Bootstrap 4 is still in Alpha (released 27th July 2016) – so likely to be more changes to come.

Augury

A Chrome extension to assist with the debugging of Angular 2 Application

I believe this used to called Batarang.

It is intended to augment the Chrome developer tools to assist with Angular 2 development.  I’m probably a few months off playing with Angular 2, so one for the future todo list.

Progressive Web Apps

A site by Google showing developers how to take advantage of client side functionality to turn a mobile website into something closer to an offline app.

It looks to take advantage of HTML5 features like offline storage.  Good first step into making your mobile website a better experience for the user.

Shameless self-promotion

Again a quite week.

I had hoped to complete my series on Asp.Net Core – upgrading from RC1 to RTM.  Unfortunately technology is conspiring against me (feel free to remind me of the bad workman blaming his tools – I can take it).  Good chance I’m going to have to rebuild my laptop (never something I enjoy doing).

I have also been working on an animated advert for RFC – something to use on LinkedIn & Website homepage.  I’m struggling to get the audio to work any sense.  This is very much down to me doing a DIY effort with the wrong tools (a lot of Powerpoint).  Good chance that it will never see the light of day.