Javascript

Building Apps with No Code? A Web Component Future

Oct 28, 2019

6 min read

Technology is continuing to advance before our very eyes quicker than we can consume or comprehend. We have come far in the past years with website building capabilities. Today, web development is easier because you can search the web for snippets of code to copy and paste onto your site. This method is still unfortunately messy, and people employing this method are typically pasting large amounts of code onto a page that they don’t understand.

The way we build websites continues to change, and advancements are helping us transition to a development world where anyone will be able to build complex applications with simple drag and drop functionality. What enables this? It’s web components. It may be hard to fathom that fully functioning applications could be created with little to no code, but with dedicated minds work to foster this paradigm shift, we are not too far from this. One of the projects working on this initiative is Google’s Polymer project.

Web components are shareable pieces of code that you can easily use in any application. They are a way to encapsulate styles and structure inside of an element such as an input element or a button element. With web components, you can package complex styled components such date pickers and use them on the web. Though web components are still a fairly new concept, the standardization of them is what’s creating our future.

While the standardization process is being developed, projects like Polymer allow web developers to create web components and assist with providing the polyfills needed to make the components work in all browsers.

The idea behind Polymer is to provide a structure for web developers to develop web components and share them without having to worry tasks like dealing with browser compatibility issues. Customization and creation of new web components is something those working on web components are trying to foster in the community. Polymer helps developers take prebuilt Polymer web components and customize them. Allowing greater access to web component creation helps develop the ecosystem and move us closer to mainstreaming web components.

Monica (@notwaldorf) is a self proclaimed emojineer at Google working on the Polymer project. At Google, she focuses on making developer’s lives easier by creating features to give developers more flexibility when developing web components. Monica has spoken at various tech conferences and has a background in computer science.

Some may wonder why Google cares about projects such as Polymer. Monica says, “Google is passionate about web components and Polymer because they make the web ecosystem better. These initiatives help all developers, but they also help Google developers scale code and share it across codebases internally. It allows everyone to stop recreating the wheel.”

Monica reminisces on 1995, the year the first iteration of the input element landed native in the browser. The input element allows web developers to easily specify types such as text, password, checkbox, radio button, and more even today. That was 21 years ago, and not much has changed with the browser APIs. The current browsers still only have have a couple more elements on top of the input, video, and button elements.

“We haven’t made any large leaps like adding date pickers, or responsive modals that work across all browsers. 20 years from now, we will have a large inventory of web elements, and the same way developers are using input elements natively now, then, custom elements will feel natural and we will use them like they were always there.”

Browser standards and adding native elements such as the input element are a slow process due to sensitivity with the API and the agreements across browser teams. Polymer gives the future advancement of the web to the people so the ecosystem can move faster and we can achieve a better web faster.

“Think of Polymer like jQuery for web components. If you were around in the 2000s, jQuery made writing JavaScript for the DOM easy. Polymer does the same thing for web components. It adds syntactic sugaring to make it easy to develop web components and affordances that are missing from the platform like data binding and data propagation.”

Large companies who have adopted web components have had success in using them to standardize their code base. If an organization has multiple projects, they are able to create an internal repository that houses their web components so teams can find ready-made, styled components to use in their applications. An added benefit is standardized components help companies have consistent brand and styles across all teams and web presences.

Polymer components change the way teams work together. If a company used Polymer as an interface for mockups, designers within an organization would be able to drag and drop pre-made elements onto a page to generate useful mocks easily and share those with the development team. It would be easier for companies to enforce strict guidelines of how they want their apps to look with a specific set of visual elements that become the standard. It also make is easier for developers to create MVPs from mocks this way.

Google has its own mockup tool to show developers the ease of using Polymer elements. The site, http://polymer-designer.appspot.com/ may be a bit outdated, but a second iteration of this tool is in the works. The mockup tool is functional now, and allows beginners to get functionality from APIs without understanding the API. Internationalization is a drag and drop feature, as are responsive layouts and elements that store your data offline. You can even have the functionality of Google Maps without writing a single line of code.

Polymer-CLI, a project that launched in 2016, is another initiative by Google that allows developers to start creating web components quickly. The CLI starts developers off with a responsive layout, routes and a Service Worker for offline support..

“Web components have also made the world funner. You can create art, or make components that help others create art. Some of the best web components I’ve created are emoji rain and emojilate. Emoji rain makes it rain emoji on your page, while emojilate takes any picture and converts the pixels to all emoji.”

With the quick advancement of projects like Polymer and the fast adoption of web components in the modern web ecosystem, we can see where the future is taking us, and play a part in history by using web components now.

Many companies have created great free open source components available for public use. A great way to get started is to visit webcomponents.org for a catalog of custom elements. Google’s Polymer team has created a set of custom elements for everyone to use and can be found at https://www.webcomponents.org/author/PolymerElements.

This Dot Labs is a development consultancy that is trusted by top industry companies, including Stripe, Xero, Wikimedia, Docusign, and Twilio. This Dot takes a hands-on approach by providing tailored development strategies to help you approach your most pressing challenges with clarity and confidence. Whether it's bridging the gap between business and technology or modernizing legacy systems, you’ll find a breadth of experience and knowledge you need. Check out how This Dot Labs can empower your tech journey.

Tracy Lee

Partner, This Dot Google Developer Expert (Angular, TC39, Web) RxJS Core Team & Lead for RxJS Learning Team Contributor to Angular, RxJS, EmberJS __Key Strengths:__ - Teaching developer relations strategies - Influencer marketing - Developing brands - Community strategies and maintenance - Creating product launch strategies - Leading marketing operations efforts & standards - Effective conference presence & speaking strategies

@ladyleet @ladyleet

Effective Communication Strategies Within The Software Development Organization

Have you ever been in a situation where you thought you were communicating effectively, only to realize later that the other person misunderstood what you were saying? Have you ever communicated with someone only to hear that they felt you provided way too much detail, or that you didn’t provide nearly enough detail? Communication in the workplace is how ideas, updates, directions, etc are transferred to others. Each party in a software development organization has differing needs and expectations when it comes to workplace communication. By learning to tailor your communication to meet the needs of each stakeholder, you can become a more effective communicator and achieve greater success within your organization. The requirements of various parties that you interact with in the workplace can vary wildly depending on several factors. Your awareness of these individualized communication preferences and how you can give each party what they want and need will impact your effectiveness in your daily activities, your perception by others, and even your upward mobility within the organization. That's the power of communication, and why it's so important to master effective communication strategies in the workplace! In this article, we'll explore the different types of stakeholders in a software development organization, the communication strategies that work best for each group, and how effective communication can help you advance your career in the industry. We'll start by discussing the difference between “communication” and “effective communication”, before diving into the different types of stakeholders in a software development organization. Then, we'll explore the communication strategies that work best for each group, and provide actionable tips for improving your communication skills. Communication vs. Effective Communication When it comes to communication, it's important to remember that the intended message is only effective if it's received and understood by the recipient, regardless of their background or level of familiarity with the topic. Effective communication is about sharing thoughts, ideas, opinions, knowledge, and data in a way that ensures that the message is received and understood by the recipient. With effective communication, the sender and receiver leave the exchange feeling satisfied. There is a shared understanding of what was intended to be transmitted by the sender. Stakeholder Types In any organization, you have many different types of parties involved in a software project. Let's group the parties involved in software development into three categories for the sake of clarity: - Development Team__ - This consists of individual contributors, project managers, scrum masters, QA testers, UX designers, UI designers, architects, etc. - Product Team__ - The product team is made up of a diverse group of individuals, including product owners, business analysts, architects, and more. - Executive Team__ - CTO, CEO, etc. Each of these parties requires a different type of communication, a different level, and has different needs from your interactions to allow you to provide value from what you are saying and to for them view you as an effective communicator. Let’s talk a bit about what each of these parties needs, and how you can interact with them in the most meaningful way possible. Development Team This is the most detailed version of the interaction. This group needs to be communicated with on the level of individual tickets and the details of those tickets. When interacting with the development team, it's important to focus on the nitty-gritty details of each task, ensuring that everything is sorted through meticulously. With this group, we will sort through specific implementation details. An example of interaction with someone from this group might look like this, “I am currently working on ticket 473, and trying to get the checkbox to behave correctly during testing. I have no blockers currently.” Product Team This group will be communicated with at the level of features and larger increments of work such as project milestones. This group is interested in chunks of a project, milestones, progress on the overall initiative, etc. An example of interaction with someone from this group might look like this, “The team is wrapping up development of the new Project X User Interface and will be moving to the implementation of the functionality next”. Executive Team This group is interested in the conversation at the highest levels of abstraction. Generally, they will be more concerned with things at the overall project level. When updating the executive team, it's important to provide high-level updates that summarize progress and focus on next steps. For example, you might say, 'We're making great progress on Showcase X and are on track to complete it soon. Next, we'll be shifting our attention to project Y.' Types of Communication What are some of the types of communication? It’s a great question. When you begin to study various communication styles, you will read about different personality types, and how those personalities interact with the world around them. You might hear things like aggressive, passive-aggressive, passive, and assertive communication styles. While understanding these can help you communicate effectively, we will focus on how different roles in a company require different levels of detail and specificity in their interactions. Your Natural Communication Style We all have a natural way that we prefer to communicate. Some are very direct and assertive. We might tend to be very to the point, with no filler, no fluff. Others might naturally tend to be more verbose, to fill in lots of details and context and information. Some naturally meet somewhere in the middle on the spectrum of detail vs direct higher-level type of communication. There is no right or wrong answer, but you must be aware of your natural tendencies in conversation, and know how to use those effectively, or tailor your communication style to a specific situation or audience. Benefits of Tailored Communication What are the benefits of tailored communication? The primary benefits of tailoring your communication to different stakeholders are that you can provide each person with what they want and need in a way that resonates with them. For instance, I once had to adapt my communication style when working with a highly detail-oriented developer who preferred a more granular level of communication. This eases the amount of effort required by the other party to understand you, and allows them to be more effective in taking your message forward. It increases the perception of your effectiveness, and credibility in their eyes as well. If people know that you are someone who can communicate with multiple parties with varying interests and needs, and do so effectively, you will be trusted with more responsibility, and be given more opportunities. Using Effective Communication To Advance Your Career As you can see, developing effective communication skills is a powerful way to advance your career in the software development industry. How have you seen effective communication impact your work? People who are seen as effective communicators have staying power in an organization. They are viewed as competent and necessary. They are given positions of authority and trusted to get things done. I remember that, when I was just starting out in software development, I struggled to communicate effectively with stakeholders at different levels of the organization. But over time, I learned the value of tailoring my communication to each person's unique needs, and it has paid off in my career in countless ways. Basic Strategies For Improving Your Communication Know your audience__ When preparing for a presentation or conversation, it's essential to consider your audience and tailor your communication style to their needs. What are some strategies you use to ensure your message is received and understood? Write notes in advance, when possible__ Draw an outline or even the bulk of what you need to deliver before the time comes. Even if you don’t ultimately use these notes directly, preparing them will help you to distill your thoughts and clarify your message, as well as review that they have the appropriate amount of detail for the intended audience. Practice your delivery__ Though you will not always be giving a speech, talking through what you plan to say will help you to see gaps, smooth the flow, and make sure that you are comfortable with the material you will be presenting or communicating. Conclusion__ In this article, we learned about the importance of effective communication, strategies for improving your communication, and the direct and indirect positive impacts these improvements can have on your effectiveness and value in the organization. We explored various strategies and approaches to improve communication. Development in this area can yield amazing results for you as you make the investment to improve your skills. We hope you enjoyed this article, and found it helpful. If you have any questions please feel free to join the discussions going on at starter.dev or on our Discord....

Apr 26, 2023

6 mins

GeneralSoftware Engineer

Common Interview Questions & What They Mean

Introduction Who hasn't been asked some weird and interesting questions in previous interviews? Interviewers are known for asking a variety of weird, interesting, and confusing questions to possible employees for a variety of reasons. And this makes sense because they want to know as much as possible about you in the limited interview duration. Here are some interview questions you might be asked and what the interviewer is trying to find out about you from your answers: Introduce yourself Here, the interviewer is not really interested in your answer. What they are looking at your confidence and your passion, so this is the best time to show them your communication skills! So, you should tell them about your education, where you grew up, your past work experience, your hobbies, and your personal interests! Be calm, relaxed, and confident! What are your strengths? Here, the interviewers want to know how positivly you think about yourself! It’s a quite general question, so there is no right or wrong answer for it! So it’s a good opportunity for you to share what makes you so unique, and what are you good at! But you should tie your strengths to what they’re looking for! That’s why you should read the job description very carefully, and get a good understanding of what they are looking for, and then try to fit yourself in there! What are your weaknesses? In this question, the interviewers are looking at is whether you can identify your weaknesses, and how you can cover them up! You need not be really negative about yourself! For example, don't say “I am a very impatient person”, or “I am getting angry easily”. The best way to answer this question is to talk about a weakness that you had that isn’t related to the job, and what you did to overcome it. That way, they can see a progression, and that is what they really want to hear in the answer! What is your expected salary? Here, the interviewers, of course, have knowledge about the typical salaries offered by the company. By asking this question, they're often trying to see whether the applicant did research about the company. So learn about the company before the interview! You can use websites like Payscale or Glassdoor and read the reviews from other people who worked at this company! Can you work under pressure? This is a behavioral question, and the reason behind this question is the interviewers want to know if you get really stressed out. So the best way to answer this question is by talking about a situation where you experienced pressure, and the action that you took to diffuse that pressure. Then, talk about the result and what happened. How do you make your decisions? You might be asked this question if you are applying for management or lead position. They're interested in knowing your process when making decisions, because it's very likely that at some point, you will have to make a critical decision in the workplace. So, the best way to answer is to be confident and walk them through some of your management exercises, or some of your work situations that you handled successfully. What attracted you to this job? Here, the interviewers are typically trying to know if you understand the position you’re applying for, and that your goals and experience align with the role. Always remember that employers value candidates who aim to meaningfully contribute to company goals while also advancing their own careers. Where do you see yourself in five years? This is a growth-oriented question. So, if you just simply say: “I see myself sitting around here for the next five years until I figure out what I want to do”, that’s not what they want to hear. You should align this question to where the company is going and then you talk about how you see yourself fitting in their future. Why are you applying for this job? Here the interviewers want to know if you know their core values. A lot of people make mistakes answering this question and say that they are applying for the job because of the compensation package. Of course, salarie and benefits are an important thing, but you should have a long-term goal you want to achieve from the job! So it’s better to make sure this goal alligns with the company’s goals. That is what they want to hear from you. Why do you want to work here? The key to answering this question is to align yourself with where this company is going, so that’s why you must do some research on the company, like what are their values? What is their mission? Where are they going? What do they want to do? And by doing that, that will make you appear to be someone who can contribute to their overall mission, their projects, or whatever it is they’re trying to do. What makes you a good fit for this job? Here, they want you to talk about your past experiences, your past education, the kinds of things that you have done that are related to the kinds of things that they're looking for. So, you have to get a lot of information about the position, the job description, what they're looking for, and what the goals are for this position. Why should we hire you? I guarantee you are probably going to get asked this question, but it will most likely come near the end of the interview, after they’ve had a chance to build up some rapport and they’re actually thinking that you might be a good fit. Now, this is the chance to sell yourself, but you have to understand what they are looking for and the pains and problems that they have. Do you have any questions? This is usually the last question, and I made it the last one for a reason because this is most likely the last question they're going to ask you. Now that's your opportunity to find out more about what the next steps are, where they're going, or whatever is important for you. Don't just ask them questions to ask questions. Ask them questions that will help you determine whether this is a place that you want to be. Don't just ask questions about their organization chart or their finances or things that just don't really pertain to you. Ask them questions that are going to help you make a decision about whether you want to work there....

Nov 11, 2021

5 mins

General

How to Start a Developer Relations Program

Developer Relations (DevRel) is a role that’s often misunderstood, undervalued and underrepresented. Some think it's just a marketing department, while others believe it's solely responsible for developer relations. In fact, DevRel is a key part of your company's product team and should be involved at every stage of the product lifecycle—from inception through launch and beyond. The goal of this article is to help you understand the basics you need to start a DevRel program so you can hire the right people, build an effective team structure, measure success, and report on it effectively. What is developer relations? Developer relations (DevRel) is a cross-functional role focused on building relationships with developers, who are users of your product. DevRel plays a critical role in helping teams build and promote their products, by providing support and advocacy for developers. A DevRel team may also be responsible for enforcing developer guidelines, building examples or integrations into your product, or curating content about your product or platform. All of these combined help create a great and sustainable developer experience. How does DevRel fit into your organization? Simply put, DevRel is a strategy and set of tactics that can be used to launch products and platforms aimed at developers. DevRel is not a replacement for product marketing and community management—it's an extension of both, and usually overlaps with these two other practice areas quite often. In smaller organizations, you may have a team doing all three simultaneously! Nevertheless, any DevRel team should be focused on keeping developers engaged in your product throughout its lifecycle. While many companies have developer relations teams, many companies also do not do so intentionally. Some DevRel focused team members may have started out as developers, community managers, or even customer success managers who did outreach to developers on their own initiative. The DevRel role has also been known as Developer Outreach or Developer Marketing; some companies use these terms interchangeably with DevRel. Regardless of what name you choose for this function at your company (or if you choose none), remember that the job is fundamentally about relationships: engaging with people who are interested in your technology through communication channels such as events, blogs/forums/discord/slack/social media accounts, github, etc. When should you start building a devrel team? You should start building a developer relations team when you have a product or platform that is ready to launch and you have a clear strategy for how to launch the product. You should also be able to answer the following questions: - Who is your target audience? - What does your product do? - How does your product work? - What goals are you trying to achieve? If you don’t have a clear answer to these questions, then you need to figure out the answers before you start building a developer relations team. A DevRel person can help you refine how a customer learns about your product, where they can learn more about it (building out developer onboarding experiences), and help you refine the strategy to create a more cohesive developer experience for increased stickiness and adoption. How do you measure success and report on devrel? You can create metrics to measure the success of your devrel program, but you should also keep in mind that it's important not to get too hung up on numbers. When you're tracking impact, it's easy to obsess over data; however, there are other important factors that need to be considered as well. For example, if your developer relations team has been working hard for months and has acquired only a few new customers, that is still worth celebrating because it takes time to build community! You cannot force community and community adoption. It is something that grows with time. When starting, and throughout your devrel program, you want to measure the success of your devrel efforts by looking at more top of the funnel metrics like how many people are visiting or downloading your public-facing content, your social media profiles, and communities. How much value are they getting from your content? Focus on providing value, because consequently, if developers find your content and product/ platform valuable, they will share those links. You should also do competitor research and general industry research in your specific niche and create a baseline! How often are product updates being shared by influencers? How are other products getting developer adoption? These metrics will help give you an idea of what works best for your particular industry. The key is experimenting with different ways of gathering data until something sticks! Conclusion At the end of the day, developer relations is a complex field that can be difficult to understand. But, it’s also not rocket science. It requires an understanding of the market, best practices, and most importantly, authenticity. Luckily, there are many resources out there to help you learn more about it! If you’re interested in learning more about devrel and how it can benefit your company as well as your customers, take a look at some of our favorite articles: - Defining a career path for Developer Relations by Bear Douglas, Developer Advocacy Lead at Slack - What Is Developer Relations? by Justin Warren for Forbes - What is developer relations? Understanding the 'glue' that keeps software and coders together by Owen Hughes for ZDnet - What is Developer Relations by Sam Julien - What is Developer Relations? by Kim Maida We also help with this at This Dot! If you’re interested in learning more about our developer relations program, send us an email anytime! tracy@thisdot.co or sarah@thisdot.co!...

Dec 6, 2022

4 mins

JavaScript

Being a CTO at Any Level: A Discussion with Kathy Keating, Co-Founder of CTO Levels

In this episode of the engineering leadership series, Kathy Keating, co-founder of CTO Levels and CTO Advisor, shares her insights on the role of a CTO and the challenges they face. She begins by discussing her own journey as a technologist and her experience in technology leadership roles, including founding companies and having a recent exit. According to Kathy, the primary responsibility of a CTO is to deliver the technology that aligns with the company's business needs. However, she highlights a concerning statistic that 50% of CTOs have a tenure of less than two years, often due to a lack of understanding and mismatched expectations. She emphasizes the importance of building trust quickly in order to succeed in this role. One of the main challenges CTOs face is transitioning from being a technologist to a leader. Kathy stresses the significance of developing effective communication habits to bridge this gap. She suggests that CTOs create a playbook of best practices to enhance their communication skills and join communities of other CTOs to learn from their experiences. Matching the right CTO to the stage of a company is another crucial aspect discussed in the episode. Kathy explains that different stages of a company require different types of CTOs, and it is essential to find the right fit. To navigate these challenges, Kathy advises CTOs to build a support system of advisors and coaches who can provide guidance and help them overcome obstacles. Additionally, she encourages CTOs to be aware of their own preferences and strengths, as self-awareness can greatly contribute to their success. In conclusion, this podcast episode sheds light on the technical aspects of being a CTO and the challenges they face. Kathy Keating's insights provide valuable guidance for CTOs to build trust, develop effective communication habits, match their skills to the company's stage, and create a support system for their professional growth. By understanding these key technical aspects, CTOs can enhance their leadership skills and contribute to the success of their organizations....

Dec 5, 2023

2 mins

Engineering Leadership