Software Development and Programming Careers (Official Discussion Thread)

[Thanos]

Python is really useful, but that structure/syntax, as much as I use it, it is garbo.

 

[levitate]

A ton of courses on sale at Udemy...

Just grabbed a Python course. Time to take it to the next level. Have a big ass legacy (antiquated) Excel-based program at work that I'd like to convert over...

Gotta dig deep in this...

 

[Calibrated]

I've just started a book on Android development. Pretty interesting so far. Will definitely feel great to have Java under my belt.

I just started studying C++. If I want to create apps for Android, should I drop it and start learning Java or will it be useful to learn C++ as well?

 

[Renkz]

I just started studying C++. If I want to create apps for Android, should I drop it and start learning Java or will it be useful to learn C++ as well?

Android supports c++, c through ndk but I think you're limited with it. If you're focus is android development thank you should start learning java or learn a framework like react.js so that can create cross platform apps that run on android and apple.

 

[kevm3]

I just started studying C++. If I want to create apps for Android, should I drop it and start learning Java or will it be useful to learn C++ as well?

If you're going to focus on Android apps, I'd focus on Java. While you can use other languages, the ecosystem and most of the tutorials and I'm guessing stackoverflow questions will be in Java. I wouldn't drop C++ necessarily, but I'd focus on Java.

 

[dontreadthis]

just had an online pre-interview screening test. the type where your input and changes are sent back as a video so they can see it all live time. it went pretty poorly and I'm gonna post the questions that had me stuck.

Spoiler: question 1

Spoiler: question 2

I'm more C#, OOP comfortable so I was kinda caught off guard . not necessarily looking for answers but even just resources/sites that would be good to look at to get on the path to knowing that kinda stuff with ease.

 

[Obreh Winfrey]

just had an online pre-interview screening test. the type where your input and changes are sent back as a video so they can see it all live time. it went pretty poorly and I'm gonna post the questions that had me stuck.

Spoiler: question 1

Spoiler: question 2

I'm more C#, OOP comfortable so I was kinda caught off guard . not necessarily looking for answers but even just resources/sites that would be good to look at to get on the path to knowing that kinda stuff with ease.

I'm not into web but my thoughts:

Question one I think can be done with PHP similar to how WordPress does their templates. The header, body, and footer are populated using PHP I believe. So you'd put that HTML into a PHP function and call it wherever you want it used.

Question 2 I'd move the CSS into its own file for reusability. For the navigation elements I think HTML 5 has a navbar element or something. In the second to last div I think instead of styles they should be classes because that's the usual convention. Lastly I think the doctype thing is wrong for HTML 5 compliance.

By way of resources I don't have anything concrete for you. The reason I mentioned PHP and WordPress is because I took a BS web design class in college and they had us make WordPress sites. I downloaded a theme but wanted to make small changes so I poked around in the code. Found out PHP templates populate the pages.

The question 2 stuff I mentioned, you can try HTML Overview . They're good for quick references on quite a few languages actually. If you look through the Udemy Course thread, find those links I posted, try to find few courses on Angular taught by Mosh Hamedani. While it's not specifically for HTML/CSS he uses good practices and you'll pick them up along the way. Also mess around with Bootstrap and you'll understand how you generally employ classes for styling elements: Bootstrap 3 Tutorial

 

[dontreadthis]

I'm not into web but my thoughts:

Question one I think can be done with PHP similar to how WordPress does their templates. The header, body, and footer are populated using PHP I believe. So you'd put that HTML into a PHP function and call it wherever you want it used.

Question 2 I'd move the CSS into its own file for reusability. For the navigation elements I think HTML 5 has a navbar element or something. In the second to last div I think instead of styles they should be classes because that's the usual convention. Lastly I think the doctype thing is wrong for HTML 5 compliance.

By way of resources I don't have anything concrete for you. The reason I mentioned PHP and WordPress is because I took a BS web design class in college and they had us make WordPress sites. I downloaded a theme but wanted to make small changes so I poked around in the code. Found out PHP templates populate the pages.

The question 2 stuff I mentioned, you can try HTML Overview . They're good for quick references on quite a few languages actually. If you look through the Udemy Course thread, find those links I posted, try to find few courses on Angular taught by Mosh Hamedani. While it's not specifically for HTML/CSS he uses good practices and you'll pick them up along the way. Also mess around with Bootstrap and you'll understand how you generally employ classes for styling elements: Bootstrap 3 Tutorial

 

[Trustus]

@dontreadthis
Question 2 part 1

1. like @Obreh Winfrey said Change the doctype to <!DOCTYPE html> also add the <meta = charset "UTF-8"> tag
2. Add an alt="image of sun" attribute to the image instead of description
3. use html 5 tags instead of generic div for better semantic code i.g. <nav></nav> for the nav, <main></main> for the main part of the content

Question 2 part 2

1. Take out all the inline styles it will make it harder to update css later for those elements .
2. Use an h1 tag instead of a div for the text Hi, Welcome to Interview Zen
3. Remove that last div to clear the float(I would use flexbox or css grid instead of floats (removing unnecessary markup)

 

[kevm3]

In most code editors just type ! and hit tab and it will generate the html skeleton for you. This is part of a utility called emmet. A lot of editors/ides already have it installed and it allows you to create tags by typing the tagname and hitting tab. for example p and then hitting tab will produce <p></p>


I've been dabbling with Spring MVC/Spring boot and this is really convoluted compared to nodejs or golang. One technology I do love is electron. It lets you make cross-platform desktop apps with nodejs/javascript. It's like web development if everyone used the latest chrome browser. So much more pleasant than standard web development

 

[Trustus]

Yeah I've been using emmet for awhile. I was answering the question as if you didn't have that tool available. Emmet, is what I use for a html boilerplate. I also like vscode's IntelliSense. I've been looking at pug and markdown as html template engine. I like them both cleaner markup but, setting up all that stuff with gulp to convert it to html is a pain. Although I'm getting better with using a task runner, I hate it when something breaks and I get side tracked trying to fix it instead of coding. Yeah I've heard of electron that's what github used to build atom.

 

[Obreh Winfrey]

Github made Electron to make Atom, then MS built VS Code on Electron and the people who made LightTable also used it. I sort of would like to take VS Code and make it into more of an IDE rather than a feature rich text editor but I just wouldn't know where to start and at the end of the day it probably wouldn't even be worth it. I have such a tough time getting into legacy code and understanding it anyway so everything I do is from scratch.

 

[kevm3]

Yeah I've been using emmet for awhile. I was answering the question as if you didn't have that tool available. Emmet, is what I use for a html boilerplate. I also like vscode's IntelliSense. I've been looking at pug and markdown as html template engine. I like them both cleaner markup but, setting up all that stuff with gulp to convert it to html is a pain. Although I'm getting better with using a task runner, I hate it when something breaks and I get side tracked trying to fix it instead of coding. Yeah I've heard of electron that's what github used to build atom.

I dislike pug and prefer templating languages that don't try to replace html. Mustache is one that I like and angular pretty much uses that. the worst part of javascript is the 10,000 side tools you need to get things set up like webpack and gulp.

 

[Trustus]

the worst part of javascript is the 10,000 side tools you need to get things set up like webpack and gulp.

I feel ya, It's a pain and its always something new. I like that web dev is pushing the envelope but it gets overwhelming sometimes with all the stuff that you need to know.

 

[kevm3]

I feel ya, It's a pain and its always something new. I like that web dev is pushing the envelope but it gets overwhelming sometimes with all the stuff that you need to know.

Yea the best thing you can do in the world of javascript is to pick something, rock with it and just ignore the rest. angular 5, node, electron, websockets are enough for me... phaser for game development.