In recent Smash Bros news, the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate roster has gotten a little bigger, with the announcement of a new DLC character. With an initial roster size of 74 characters, that includes all of the characters from the previous games, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is one of the most ambitious video games in recent years. Here are more details on the new DLC character, Kazuya Mishima. Super Smash Bros Ultimate News: New Character Details Jumping out of Tekken, the immensely popular fighting game franchise, is Kazuya Mishima, one of the series’ most iconic characters. After spending most of the time trying to take down his own father in Tekken, Kazuya will be put to the test when he joins the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate roster. Along with the character himself, the DLC bundle will come with a new stage based on a classic Tekken arena. In the background of the stage will be Heihachi Mishima, the father of Kazuya. Tekken characters are known for having a lot of moves and combos, with some characters having over in their repertoire. One might think that a Tekken character would’ve been astronomically toned down for Super Smash Bros, but it seems that’s not the case. 100 moves In the Nintendo Direct showcasing Kazuya, they showed that he still has many moves at his disposal. Sure, he doesn’t have dozens and dozens of moves, but it’s wild how many Kazuya still has. And with the inclusion of Kazuya in Smash Bros, he now joins the elite list of fighting game icons that have been included in the game. Ryu and Ken from Street Fighter, and Terry from Fatal Fury were previously added to the game as playable characters; with Guile from Street Fighter and Akira Yuki from Virtua Fighter also appearing as assist trophies. Kazuya Mishima has been a staple of the Tekken franchise since the beginning, and he will feel right at home with other video game legends. With one more DLC character yet to be revealed, we can’t wait for more Smash Bros. news in the future More in Gaming: 1. What is the Sony PlayStation 5 System Software Beta Program? 2. Top 25 Publications about AI You Have to Read 3. A Plague Tale: Innocence Remastered Arrives in July for Next-Gen Consoles For more Super Smash Bros news, make sure to down below! subscribe to our newsletter

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This week marks the 30th anniversary of SEGA's Blue Blur, Sonic the Hedgehog. To mark the occasion, SEGA is doing some special promotions for the , Sonic at the Olympic Games - Tokyo 2020 on Android, iOS, and FireOS. mobile title Starting today, SEGA is reducing the price of in-game passes for the mobile title up to 90 percent. A new special video showcasing Sonic running through Tokyo was also released to celebrate the occasion. Basically, all in-game passes for the game are available at $0.99 (incl. tax). These include All Access Passes, 2-Area Passes, and 5-Area Passes. The actual game is free to download and offers gamers the first 10 Stages. The All-Access Pass includes all subsequent Areas in the game. The mobile sports title was launched last May. It features 16 playable characters from the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Sonic at the Olympic Games has been an ongoing tradition to coincide with the Olympics for a while, so it's nice to see that tradition continue on mobile devices. Special Trailer Released for Sonic at the Olympic Games - Tokyo 2020 Additionally, a new trailer was released today showcasing Sonic racing through some of Tokyo, Japan's iconic sights. If the Playback speed is adjusted to 0.25, fans can catch all the details and even some cameos of Sonic's friends throughout Tokyo. That video is available below. Meanwhile, the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 are for July 23 through August 8 in Tokyo, Japan. The Olympic Games were delayed a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. scheduled More in Gaming: What is the Sony PlayStation 5 System Software Beta Program? Cyberpunk 2077 Returning to PlayStation Store on June 21 The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Sequel Set for 2022 Launch Keep up with all the latest gaming news, features, and guides. Subscribe to our newsletter in the footer below!

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It’s a captivating idea that can have you discussing unfathomable wealth creation in a short period of time. And the magnitude of how much change and growth is upon us is incomprehensible. To state it simply, it’s literally the biggest growth trend since the seventeenth century. A time when goldsmiths began practices that gave way to modern day banking practices such as the storage of wealth, providing loans, transferring money and providing bills of exchange that would lead to the development of bank checks. An idea of this size is called a grand supercycle. Now, you’re probably laughing a bit since the idea of bitcoin going through a supercycle is a relatively well known idea for those who follow the space. And many have called it “dead” in part from depressed prices. Then here I come in and try to “one up” the name by tossing the word “grand” in front of it. I assure you it’s not the case. The idea I’m presenting here is the idea that our entire society is about to enter the highest rate of growth ever. An enlightening period. And where it can all be found in a single chart. U.S. 30 year bond yields. It’s one I constantly stare at each day. Most recently I sat there trying to figure out an investment thesis over the next six to twelve months given the macro conditions taking place. Luckily, the answer was already on my screen and it evolved into something I’m calling Crypto’s Gospel. It’s the investment thesis everybody can get behind no matter where you stand. So join me as I take you through the thought process so if you ever find yourself speaking with somebody that has the means for change, this might give you that last tool in your bag to make a difference. The Correlation Now, when you take a look at the chart feel free to nit pick the similarities or lack there of in the comments section below. I agree there are some holes in this comparison. But one thing is for sure… Broadly speaking, you can’t disagree these two assets are moving similar to one another with a several day lag. So… what might be the story here? Well, bonds are a great barometer for the market and helpful gauge for future market conditions. And while it’s a tricky one to get right with so many variables at play, we need to have our vegetables from time to time. Which means occasionally digesting some rather unpleasant information is necessary for our health. Cue up the macro talk… Alright, in my daily newsletter we discussed some policy implications from the FED meeting that I’ll quickly cliff note here. Espresso The FED handed out a bit of yield to banks flush with cash. The way to think about this is the money printers in Washington created so much cash that banks ran out of places to stuff it… And they were so full they regurgitated the cash back to the FED. They did this by swapping their excess cash for collateral, aka treasuries, that the FED were now happy to dole out with some yield. This means banks are now getting yield on short-term treasuries and collateral unlike before. You can see the impact it had on treasury yields in the chart below with short dated treasuries getting a nice bump. Additionally, the FED hinted at a desire to raise rates sooner rather than later. While this is still a ways away, this lifted rates for other treasuries as well. So we sort of had two results from the FED meeting last week that played a role in yields. What’s interesting is not all durations or time to maturities followed suit. Here is what happened to the 30Yr yield. Dropped like a rock. When thinking about the amount of money which was printed in the economy, and how inflation is beginning to rear its head, how does this happen? After all, if inflation is expected to rise, the FED will need to raise rates to combat these pressures. And since higher rates mean stuffy language like discounting one’s future cash flow, this creates higher yields (lower bond prices). This all leads to the concept of higher rates slowing down economic growth. The Secret is Productivity But more importantly, and a less often talked about concern is higher rates slow down the “churn” of cash. Huh? I know there’s a lot coming at you at once here, so let’s break it up with an example… If a coin had a supply of 100 coins, and 30 of them are locked up… Meaning 70 are freely available. What happens when you add 50 coins to its supply? Besides there are now being 150 coins. The coins that are freely available go from 70 to 120. And as those coins move hands faster and faster in order to pay for goods and services, the coin loses value more and more. That’s because at first if nobody moved coins, the added supply would do nothing to prices. And it’s not until the coins begin to chase the same amount of goods and services that its price starts to drop. It’s price discovery in a way. More coins chasing after the same amount of goods means the price of goods go up relative to the coin. But consider this… if you slow down the movement of coins to where the locked amount or the amount that rarely transacts grows from 30 to 100… And now 50 coins are chasing the same goods and services, the price of the token is likely to rise again. This is the beauty of economic levers at work. It works because the good and services have less demand since the overall economy has a slowdown, which in turn means goods drop in price relative to coins to attract buyers… Giving the token holder more bank for their buck once again. It’s essentially the playbook for how the US fights inflation. The only thing here is we can’t expect this to happen again. Wait... what? The detour was relevant, I promise. The fact is, if you crank rates higher, the markets get whacked. We all seem to realize this lately. And it’s why we all grab popcorn before Powell talks now. But the thing here is markets more so than in prior times creates some feedback when it comes to spending more… And therefore, the growth of an economy (GDP). If your stock portfolio goes higher, you are more inclined to spend more. And also more easily access more cash. Which begs the question... How do you drop the market and raise rates at the same time? You can’t. It’ll crush economic growth in the long-term. The 30Yr yield reflects this current situation. That’s because 30Yr yields tend to rise when there is an that the economy will grow. expectation It’s how you get a normal looking yield curve at a time when everybody is anticipating inflation due to insane money supply growth. Now, bare with me here. I know this is getting a bit boring. But I promise it’ll help in getting my point across later. So before getting to it, let’s quickly reiterate… Too much cash in the system. Rates are rising in part because of the FED’s hand out of yield to banks and also because of inflationary forces beginning to percolate. And 30yr yields dropped below 2% for a hot minute since future growth looks muted. So why does this matter for bitcoin? And why might bitcoin be tracking the 30yr yield? The Supercycle Theory Well, I’m starting to form my own case for the supercycle theory. My version of it puts crypto into the limelight of economic growth discussions. And if crypto as a whole bands together and adopts it, I think the prospect of economic growth becomes not only real, but better than the highest economic forecasts out there. Consider this… How much of crypto is measured by GDP? I know stocks and equities are not measured in GDP… And therefore the crypto market cap should not be measured either. But there is an economy forming in crypto that feels like its off the record. Like a game of monopoly… Unmeasured GDP - h/t to Crypto Cobain in the UpOnly show with Raoul Pal, I got this non-existent GDP idea from him. What’s interesting is this untapped economy is more efficient than what is already measured in the normal economy. It’s in part why we are witnessing some of the smartest money in the world drop bucket loads of cash on young crypto projects. However, the truth is these stats are virtually unaccounted for. If crypto were able to grow and be accepted in the everyday commerce of life, the benefit for regulators, tax authorities, and lawmakers would be seen almost overnight. More growth, more taxes, happier citizens, and all those lovely feels. The way to see this is in viewing how many employees it takes to run Uniswap’s various smart contracts? None. Sure there were or still are about 16 or so employees… But now that those contracts exist in the wild, they can continue operating without any of those devs touching them. This makes crypto swaps via DEXs extremely efficient. The same operation in the legacy markets requires nearly 10,000 employees at traditional exchanges. Or the nearly 1,000 at Coinbase. Paving the way for these highly efficient businesses allows for the thousands or tens of thousands of employees in more traditional setups to build higher valued business, applications, and services by building on top of protocols similar to Uniswap. This is the catalyst for future growth. Any lawmaker that realizes this can instantly punch their ticket to a lifetime legislature seat if they lead the way towards clearer regulatory structures with low levels of red tape. If these structures are adequately framed, this freed up productivity will make its way into GDP growth. And for the lawmakers attached to these drafted proposals, this growth can be directly correlated to their name. Easily measured economic growth tied to their wisdom. The benefits for society are even greater. It can result in the highest levels of productivity in history. The third industrial revolution, exponential age, Web 3.0, The Fourth Turning, or whatever else you want to call it. These projects just starting to gain their footing in the cryptocurrency markets can be the foundation in which the rest of society’s technological advances will be built upon. And it’ll reduce costs as well as barriers to entry across the board. If you look throughout history, the growth in the number of businesses boosts GDP per cap. Crypto does this with thousands of businesses eagerly awaiting to set up shop in various jurisdictions around the world. It’s why Singapore has such a backlog of companies setting up shop right now regardless of necessary fees and hurdles. Opening up the economy to this type of growth is what the three piece suits walking the marble laid floors of the Federal Reserve call higher GDP per cap. It’s the pinnacle of goals for world leaders. Creme de la creme - Economic growth. And in order to get there the space needs clear regulatory structures. This allows cryptocurrencies to be brought into the conversation of economic growth along with other technological advances like AI and self-driving vehicles. And then act as a foundational layer - Web 3.0 - for a lot of technological developments taking place today. The main point here is crypto protocols enable services to happen with higher security and less cost. When there is nobody at the other end deciding the terms of your loan, and processing your payment… together with more security and less cost… this is measured efficiency. This enables business growth, more revenue, and similar prosperous outcomes for the economy. This might have seemed like a massive tangent to our conversation about 30Yr yields, but here's where I tie the two subjects together. When the broader population begins to see cryptocurrencies as part of the economic growth equation, the crypto space will ignite in a good way. What I expect to happen is a narrative change and almost enlightening moment as 30yr yields creep up again. This is in part the reflexivity argument. The positive feedback loop where higher prices means more belief. Only this time, as the belief in economic growth rises, 30Yr yields will rise along with it. And as these yields rise, the cryptocurrency market will follow along. This will then give way to crypto being a part of the conversation of creating more productivity in the economy. Reflexivity. To me, when that moment takes place the supercycle has arrived. It’s the moment cryptocurrencies go from a niche economy, to having a driver seat in the real economy. To date, bitcoin’s narrative is being driven by the inflation hedge rhetoric. This is accurate. But the missing piece here is cryptocurrencies as a whole enabling higher economic growth per person. Pairing these two together provides the investment thesis for bitcoin, layer one protocols, DeFi, NFTs, and so much more. Programmable money in a world of heightened inflation expectations that brings along with it higher economic growth per capita is where we are headed. This is not an argument just for bitcoin, ethereum, or DeFi. This is a crypto narrative. And I hope it helps band the crypto space together into a seamless front. Your Pulse on Crypto, Ben Lilly P.S. - To follow along join me on my blog: jarvislabs.substack.com

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I am not here to convince you to become Android developer. Let’s start with the key argument. Recent show that the average mid-level Android developer salary is $96,604 per year after taxes and other perks. To become an experienced Android developer, you need to equip yourself with knowledge of Java and Kotlin programming languages. They are definitely the top notch in Android development for now. Let’s make it easy for you and review some beneficial courses for future Android developers. surveys How to Choose the Right Course? Java plays a huge role in Android apps development, and is a good choice for beginners. Kotlin, just like Java, runs on JVM, and modern Android software is almost impossible without Kotlin. However if a newbie doesn’t know any programming languages, Kotlin will be tough for them. So it is more reasonable to learn Java first, and then later go to learn Kotlin. This is a huge benefit for experienced Java & Kotlin developers since they won’t have to learn anything new from scratch and they can get started right after having some knowledge of Android. While you are trying to find the “right” course for learning Java and Android, keep the following parameters in mind before you take the leap of faith: The course should be well structured so that it gets every bit of information from basic variables and data types leading up to advanced programming. It should be practical more than theoretical. If it has coding exercises and their validation, this is the best. There are some courses which aim to impart really good theoretical understanding but zero practical work. It is highly desirable that professional programmers work on the course. CodeGym CodeGym is an online Java programming platform designed by professional Java developers. It consists of 80% practice tasks and 20% essential Java theory presented in the form of short lectures, which are woven into an interesting plot. CodeGym features 1200+ coding tasks you can solve directly in the built-in IDE or in the professional IDE IntelliJ IDEA (there is a special CodeGym plugin for this). The course is divided into 40 levels, and you can only go to the next level after completing the current one. When solving a task, you send it to a validator. If everything is in order with your solution, you get points and can move on. If something goes wrong, the validator will send you some tips to help you with your task. Let’s have a look at some of the pros and cons of CodeGym to have a better insight. Pros The course is properly structured. Every single concept from beginner to advanced level is there to be understood and practise. The validation of your code included. Also you get some tips to help you with your tasks. Help section. If you are stuck on a difficult task, you can send it to the “Help” section with one click and ask a question. Other CodeGym students or somebody from the course team will help you. It’s a gamified learning platform where you can learn and have fun simultaneously. Some new levels start with a motivational story which boosts up the morale of aspiring programmers. Cons Except for the fact that the web version of CodeGym isn’t quite user friendly on mobile, there is no such con worth mentioning. Educative.io Educative.io is a fairly new online learning platform. While the others in the list are video-based or gamified, this platform is entirely text-based. After signing up on Educative.io, you get to see lots of problem statements and if you choose one to solve, this platform teaches you an optimal way to break down the entire problem statement and then pursue it step-by-step. Educative.io is a self-paced learning platform that offers dozens of front-end and back-end learning tutorials thus covering a multitude of core languages and frameworks. The best part is, you don’t get to choose only programming tutorials, rather you can also learn concepts on algorithms, databases and server-side frameworks. Pros Educative.io is a web-application that configures the entire coding environment on its own and all you need to do is to stop scrolling and start coding. You get to learn three ways of solving programming problems starting with recursion, top-down memorization and bottom-up filling techniques. The courses are structured according to an optimal learning track and you are always aware of the next step. Since it’s a text-based platform, many prefer Educative.io only for the reason that it gets you well-prepared for their upcoming interviews. Cons The platform is text based, which is difficult to work on for visual oriented users. Udemy It would be a clear injustice to list top-notch Android related learning portals and skip Udemy. The fundamental plus of Udemy is it’s a comprehensive marketplace where you get to choose from a huge variety of courses to learn on your own. All you have to do is to sign up for Udemy and pay for the course which you want to learn. You can find plenty of Java, Kotlin & Android courses there. Here are some of them. There is a course called with a rating of 4.6. This one has been used by more than 150,000+ students so far. If you want to start as a beginner, the course teaches you everything from scratch. Java Programming Masterclass for Software Developers Java Programming for Complete Beginners Let’s have an insight into the obvious pros and cons of Udemy so as to give you a better understanding. Pros Apart from structured tutorials, there are some specialization courses which teach you from basics up to advanced level. It has free courses available but those are mostly basic in nature. Udemy offers a certificate of completion which you can adorn on your professional profile for a better outlook. Cons Although it is a marketplace with many courses, there are various courses which are outdated. There is no baseline for course authors and that’s the reason why some courses have a relatively irregular course outline. Coursera Coursera is another great online learning platform offering several courses on Java learning. Furthermore, they have partnered with several educational institutions and skill development organizations around the world. Some courses on Coursera are free and if they only charge a minimal fee if you require a certificate of completion at the end. In addition, their specialization courses are also being updated and you can benefit from a free membership if you apply for the financial aid program. This is a really great initiative and offers students a wide range of choices. There is a course titled as offered by faculty at the Duke University and it covers everything from basic to advanced Java. Those who complete this course, can move on to the for further clarification of OOP concepts. Java Programming and Software Engineering Fundamentals Specialization Object Oriented Programming in Java Specialization However, some of the courses contain outdated information and some of the areas, such as technology and information, need revision and updating. Pros Perfect blend of interactive learning and peer-to-peer socializing. Every assignment or submission is graded by your fellow peers and then marked by the instructor. Financial aid program really helps if you cannot afford to buy any course. Cons There are some outdated courses which should be revised. CodingNinjas CodingNinjas has partnered with over 170 recruitment partners and is an online career development learning platform that not only offers courses, but also provides you with an option to get benefit from the interview experience module. The Android development course falls under the premium category and it gives you an opportunity to start by polishing your Java programming concepts. In addition to Android development, you can find lots of courses on computer science fundamentals, algorithms and advanced frameworks. Pros CodingNinja offers some really cool full-stack development courses as well. Android development is taught using Kotlin. Certificate of completion and availability of demo lectures. Cons The courses are expensive in contrast to other bootcamps. Wrapping Up So, these were the top 5 Java courses for Android Developers. Now it’s up to you to choose the one that best suits your purpose. Compare prices, try free trials, read reviews from former students. Keep in mind that pure theory can hardly help you to become a software developer. A good learning course includes the practical part, in which the students try to write code and then submit it for review. In the list above, you can find the descent course for future Android developers. Also published on GitConnected .

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Data on more than 800 schools shows big disparities in Florida In the 15 years he’s been teaching, high school literature teacher Jude Mirambeau has never faced a school year like the past one. In March, as the COVID-19 pandemic spread, his state of Florida, which is home to some of the largest school districts in the nation, shuttered its schools in an attempt to slow infections. Teachers shifted to “distance learning.” Mirambeau’s district, the Broward County school district, which has about 270,000 students, loaned out tens of thousands of computers to help get students access. He moved his lessons online, using educational software to assign his students work about Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” and did his best to stay in contact and field questions—but it was hard. “I can’t see the student in front of me. I can’t provide accommodations for those who are disabled. I can’t help those who are English-language learners,” said Mirambeau, who teaches 11th-graders at McArthur High School in Hollywood, Fla. "I can’t see the student in front of me. I can’t provide accommodations for those who are disabled. I can’t help those who are English-language learners". Jude Mirambeau, Broward County teacher Mirambeau and his colleagues at the school, where over 70 percent of the student body is considered economically disadvantaged, started noticing a problem: Some students weren’t participating in online learning. Some students suffered technical problems with their issued laptops, Mireambeau said. For others, this was the first computer in their homes, so they shared it with family members. And there were kids who never signed on to the learning software at all. But teachers in other parts of the county told him they weren’t having the same issues. “Some schools out west didn’t need the technology—more of your wealthier areas, more affluent,” Mirambeau said. backs up Mirambeau’s observations. The Markup analyzed data from hundreds of Broward County schools from a two-week period in April: Overwhelmingly, The Markup found, schools in Broward County with higher percentages of minority and/or low-income students and schools already struggling with academic achievement fared the worst as classes moved online. In many cases, whiter, wealthier schools with higher achievement scores actually improved attendance after the switch. Online learning data obtained by The Markup Attendance at McArthur High, for example, dipped to 88.2 percent during two weeks of distance learning in April, from an average of 91.7 percent last school year. Meanwhile, Cypress Bay High School, a low-poverty school in a western suburb in Broward County, saw its attendance remain relatively stable—95.4 percent compared to an average of 95.7 percent in the previous school year. While attendance says little about how much kids are actually learning in school, it is a basic indicator of engagement—and in this case, it shows how already disadvantaged kids in the nation’s sixth largest school district didn’t, or couldn’t, switch to remote classes. The effects, for both Florida and the United States as a whole, could be severe: Kids from poorer schools are in danger of falling even farther behind their peers, and graduation rates might dip, for an education and achievement gap for a whole generation. setting the stage “Look, what we’re going to see, we know, from all the data, that children who are already academically behind are going to experience the greater learning losses,” says Maria Scruggs, who, as head of the St. Petersburg branch of the NAACP, raised concerns with Pinella County school officials about learning gaps back in April. The NAACP in Florida in recent years has focused heavily on educational inequities in the state, which were before the pandemic. A is running a tutoring program for kids adjusting to online learning. already significant branch of the organization Scruggs has since left her post to run for a seat on the county commission. She questioned whether enough is being done to keep students, particularly low-income students who might not have the same access to computers and tutors, tuned in to instruction. “We know that our children are going to have suffered learning losses,” she said. “We know that.” With school starting again this month, she said, it’s not clear Florida districts will be able to improve engagement for low-income students. Schools Had Wildly Different Attendance Rates for Online Learning In contrast to many districts around the country, most of which stopped taking attendance after the switch to distance learning, Florida tracked log-in and digital participation rates during the pandemic. The exact units of measurement varied, but generally districts tallied the percentage of students who interacted with e-learning software during the school week. The Markup asked the 10 largest counties in the state for the data and obtained usably detailed participation and attendance statistics from more than 800 schools in three districts—Broward, Miami-Dade, and Hillsborough—through public records requests. Broward provided the most detailed data and was the only district to provide daily attendance and enrollment counts for each school. We compared the average remote attendance for each school in Broward County to attendance rates during the previous school year. We also looked at each school’s demographic information and the letter grades Florida gives to schools in evaluating academic achievement. Often, schools with a high number of low-income students also had a high number of minority students—a described double segregation, or segregation by both race and poverty, as “a strikingly notable trend in Florida” and noted that Black and Latino students “are far more likely to be segregated in schools with low achieving students.” 2017 Florida State University study The Markup’s analysis found that, overwhelmingly, those already struggling schools fared the worst, seeing the largest drops in attendance after the switch to online learning. Schools that were already on improvement plans because of low academic achievement had the biggest drops. And —which in Florida are places where students with behavioral or academic problems —consistently showed the lowest participation rates. alternative schools might be sent One alternative school, Dave Thomas Education Center, lost 42 students over the course of two weeks, according to enrollment numbers—the equivalent of 7.6 percent of the original student body. In an interview, Daniel Gohl, Broward County’s chief academic officer, did not dispute The Markup’s analysis but said the county’s own data did not find a significant correlation between a school’s historical academic achievement and online participation. The county did not share or detail its analysis. Gohl did say that alternative schools, where students may have unique disability or behavioral issues, presented new challenges during the switch to remote learning and that there was a notable link between those schools and lower attendance. “We have a responsibility,” he said of alternative schools. “All school districts have a responsibility to having those needs addressed.” Schools in Other Parts of the State Also Showed Stark Disparities The Markup also looked at schools in other Florida counties and found wide gaps in attendance. Every single one of the 2,414 students at in Tampa participated in schooling during the week of April 10, according to the district’s count. But just six miles away, at Gaither High School, which has a lower student achievement and where the rate of economically disadvantaged students is about 20 points higher, the situation was very different. That week at Gaither, 922 students never interacted with the distance learning system—45 percent of the entire student body. Sickles High School grade 100% Online participation rate of students at Hillsborough County's Sickles High School during the week of April 10. “We leveraged teachers, administrators, school counselors, social workers, and school psychologists to reach out to students who had not engaged in eLearning,” Tanya Arja, a spokesperson for Hillsborough County Public Schools, said in an emailed statement to The Markup. The district also lent 40,000 laptops to families and provided about 1,500 Wi-Fi hotspots to give students internet access. Arja said 98 percent of students in the district connected with teachers through the remote process. But data shows the students who didn’t participate weren’t evenly distributed. At three charter schools in the district, less than 50 percent of students participated some weeks, even as other schools hit nearly 100 percent attendance. 55% Online participation rate of students at Hillsborough County's Gaither High School during the week of April 10. In Miami-Dade County, some days only half the kids at some schools were counted for remote learning in April—while other schools saw 100 percent attendance. On average, in Miami-Dade County, according to data analyzed by The Markup, high-poverty schools showed a nearly 10 percent drop in attendance, while the wealthiest  schools experienced a less than one percent drop. A spokesperson for the Miami-Dade County school district, Natalia Zea, said in an emailed statement that the district tracked statistics on subgroups of students, including English-language learners and the “economically disadvantaged.” Zea said “student attendance by subgroup within the district as a whole was similar to that of students overall” but that “additional analysis on the performance of students within subgroups has not been completed.” The Pandemic Didn’t Start Educational Disparities—but It Has Made Them Worse Marie Generazio of Coral Springs, Fla., has two children in Broward County public schools. One will be heading into fourth grade in the fall, and the other into first. Generazio, meanwhile, has been taking online college classes to become a paralegal. She’s been taking care of her kids and occasionally letting them use her computer, if their school-issued laptops aren’t working. But keeping up with the kids’ assignments, especially if they have strict time requirements, isn’t always easy. The past year, she said, has been trying, as the family does “lots of shuffling” to make it all work. They didn’t always meet time requirements for assignments and log-in deadlines for attendance. “You have two kids here that you have to play teacher for,” she said. Phyllis Jordan, editorial director at FutureEd, an education think tank at Georgetown University, said lots of families are having a similar experience. Students may not have the equipment at home to log in to class, she said, or their parents might be essential workers, unable to watch them during the day to ensure they sign in for school. It’s often “the same populations” of students who had trouble before the pandemic hit, she said, frequently those from lower-income families. The pandemic didn’t create educational gaps, she said, but “it definitely has exacerbated the problem.” And those gaps are becoming even harder to measure. Broward County’s detailed records are an exception, not the norm, nationwide. “If we’re not tracking their attendance,” superintendent of the Broward County school district Robert Runcie recently , “then in some ways we are neglecting our responsibility to make sure those kids are safe.” He told the publication that the district had sent Wi-Fi hot spots to some students after noticing they hadn’t logged in to the system. told Reuters The New School Year and Continuing Repercussions In June, state officials presented a plan for schools to re-open with in-person instruction in the fall, citing both ongoing achievement gaps in education and damage to the wider economy, . They’ve since given leeway for schools to begin the year with remote instruction. according to the Tampa Bay Times “Getting back to the school year is going to be really, really important to the well-being of our kids,” the governor said, according to the outlet. Broward County is set to resume online classes this month. In response to the state’s push for schools to resume in-person learning, the , a statewide federation of teachers’ and education workers’ unions, has asking a judge to block the return of in-person schooling until additional protective measures are put in place. The NAACP also joined the suit, saying as difficult as online learning is, schools should open only once it’s safe. Florida Education Association filed a lawsuit However Florida schools reopen this month, in an attempt to contain the immediate economic fallout of low attendance due to remote learning or pandemic-related factors, the state has also temporarily untethered funding from attendance for the year and is instead from past attendance. Other have taken similar measures. relying on projections states With distance learning staying around for the foreseeable future, districts need to make sure students aren’t left behind, said Hedy Chang, director of Attendance Works, a group dedicated to improving attendance. “You have redefined, ‘What is school?’ ” Chang said. “And what having equitable access to learning resources looks like.” Credits Originally published as " " with the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license. Remote Learning During the Pandemic Has Hit Vulnerable Students the Hardest

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What distinguishes great programmers from good ones? It’s a question I’ve been wrestling with since I began learning to program. I’ve about the skills and knowledge great programmers have. Now I’m looking at the traits they possess. They seem to do things differently than the rest, and the results show. written previously This blog post focuses on two traits that have surfaced from my study of great programmers whom I’ve paired with, read about, and researched. There are—without a doubt—two commonalities among them: be consistent and be persistent. Fortunately, we can develop and incorporate these two important traits into our own work as programmers. 1. Be Consistent Programming isn’t something great programmers do once in a while. Nor is it something they do nine-to-five during the week. Rather, they have a regular cadence for improving their knowledge and skills on their own time: before or after work and on the weekends. One programmer I know spends the first two hours each day—six days per week—on personal learning projects or . It’s time spent on topics he wants to learn or skills he wants to refine. He gets his personal programming in before work starts and obligations of daily life begin. problems It’s not to say that they’re programming around the clock. They’re like the rest of us and have other commitments and interests. But they’re consistent: great programmers make getting better a habit. What’s Your Programming Mileage? The question is: how can you be consistent? It’s something a lot of us struggle to achieve. The solution, I’ve found, is twofold. First, identify the number of hours you can realistically program each week. This number is your weekly “programming mileage.” As a former long-distance runner, I had a certain number of miles I ran each week. This was my weekly running mileage. Now I have my programming mileage: this is the number of hours I spend each week programming. Most people neglect this step. They jump straight into the project they want to complete or the topic they want to learn, without considering where the time will come from. They go full-board, pulling all-nighters or sixteen-hour days. There’s a problem with this approach: it’s not sustainable for the long-term. Sharpening your skills as a programmer isn’t something you do for an intense week or two. Instead it’s something you’ve got to work at consistently for the long-term. That’s why it’s important to determine your programming mileage. To do so, consider using a time log for a few days to see where you spend your time. Take a piece of paper and write down everything you do each day and the amount of time you do it, including the five-minute social media or email checks. Now it’s easier to find pockets of available time and areas where you can cut. Maybe you can: * Outsource some of the chores you do around the house. * Cut out some TV time each night. * Get up an hour earlier before your day job begins. Once you determine your programming mileage, you can create a training plan. It’s the second part I’ve found for making consistency a reality. A Programming Training Plan My first attempt at programming and my first half-marathon have something in common: both lacked training plans and the outcomes were dismal. But there’s something else. In both cases, after such poor results, I added a training plan and stuck with it. And when you do, the results take care of themselves. A training plan is one of the most effective ways to be consistent and ultimately achieve goals. That’s because all of the details are determined in advance; you just have to implement it every single day. My running training plans detailed the number of miles I needed to run each day and how fast I needed to run them. Now I create programming training plans that serve the same purpose: they tell me what I need to do each day. At the end of the day, I open up Evernote on my computer and type out a schedule for the following day. So on Tuesday evening, I for Wednesday. create a schedule Here’s an example: 6:30am-8:30am - Program Review Python Anki flashcard deck for 20 minutes Complete “Word Cloud Data” problem I follow this process for my entire work day: denoting the amount of time I'll spend on a task and what I want to complete during that time. I also create a monthly training plan. In it I include three things I want to build, learn, or complete in the month ahead. I used to create quarterly plans. But I found that too much could change over the course of three months. A is enough time to make significant strides, yet short enough to keep to momentum going strong. monthly plan Plus, a monthly plan gives my daily training plans meaning. You’ve got something concrete to shoot for. “I must show up today and learn JavaScript. I need it to meet my monthly goal: complete ‘x’ project.” A monthly goal gives your daily training meaning. 2. Be persistent The second trait great programmers have is persistence. They’ll work through the layers of the problem and get the solution. That seems to be the secret. The great programmers I’ve studied have the uncanny ability to break problems down and uncover the or an ambiguous situation. In short, they have a problem-solving system. layers of a problem It’s a lot easier to be persistent when you’re working on something that’s manageable. A Problem-Solving System I hit a wall early on when I began learning to program. I never learned how to problem-solve in school. When given a problem set in math class I just dove in at full-speed, which is what I did when I started to program. No plan. No system. No time to think. No breaking things down. Unsurprisingly, in both cases, I was spinning my wheels unnecessarily and constantly hitting roadblocks. Now I have a problem-solving system that helps me break a problem down to uncover the layers. For example, the first step in my problem-solving process is understanding the problem statement. “Okay, I just need to figure out what the question is asking,” I tell myself when I pull up a new problem and haven’t the slightest idea of where to begin. It’s the first manageable step when solving a problem. Once I figure that out, I focus on the next manageable step—and only that step. Understanding the given inputs and expected outputs are manageable. Identifying edge cases are manageable. Writing pseudocode is manageable. Solving a simplified version of the problem is manageable. You get the idea. The steps may not be easy, but they’re manageable. Working through a tough problem is how we get better. It also builds confidence. Once we tackle one hard problem we’re ready for more. It starts, however, by breaking the task into small parts and working through each part one at a time. When you do, preserving through a difficult problem becomes very doable. It’s an Attitude On the road to becoming better programmers, there’s something else we ought to consider: attitude. Great programmers have a refreshing attitude toward challenges and ambiguity. This point was made clear to me when I asked a senior developer a few questions about a problem I was stuck on. I was stumped and frustrated. The developer was puzzled, too, initially. However, his response shocked me. “Wow, that’s a great problem,” he said. His interest was piqued, as he dove into the details. It's not to say that great programmers don't get stuck, too. They do. The difference is attitude. The lesson I learned that day was this: great programmers are excited—not fearful—to venture into the unknown. They're realize they're bound to learn something new as they uncover the layers of a problem. We can learn a lot by studying programmers better than ourselves. I sure have. But ultimately the onus is on us: to show up each day and take action. Programmer and writer: amymhaddad.com | programmerspyramid.com | I tweet about programming, learning, and productivity @amymhaddad Originally published on amymhaddad.com .

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There are many tools like Docker, Vagrant, VirtualBox, etc. that gives you the power to achieve the multiple versions of PHP in your system. But I want to stay away as much as possible from third-party tools and try to leverage the native as much as I can. So want to learn how to install multiple versions of PHP on the Ubuntu system? Okay, that’s great. Let’s assume, you have OS: Ubuntu 16.04 PHP: 7.1 (PHP-FPM) Nginx: 1.10 And want to install . PHP 7.2 Install PHP 7.2 Run the following commands to update the PHP repository & the Ubuntu system sudo apt install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
sudo apt update Now you are able to install the new version of PHP sudo apt install -y php7.2-fpm
sudo apt install -y php7.2-dev
php -v If still pointing to the old PHP version, then run the following command php -v sudo update-alternatives --set php /usr/bin/php7.2 Install PHP 7.2 Modules You may need some additional PHP modules in order for PHP to work with your applications. You can install the most commonly needed modules especially required for Magento 2 with: sudo apt install php7.2-mysql php7.2-bcmath php7.2-curl php7.2-xml php7.2-gd php7.2-intl php7.2-mcrypt php7.2-mbstring php7.2-soap php7.2-zip To check installed PHP modules: php -m | grep -E 'bcmath|ctype|curl|dom|gd|hash|iconv|intl|json|mbstring|mcrypt|openssl|pdo|soap|spl|xml|xsl|zip' To search the PHP module: sudo apt-cache search php7.2 Now, you have a new PHP 7.2 version and required modules installed. Similarly, you can install PHP 7.3, 7.4, 8.0 & so on and its related modules. Now a big question is: How to use a specific PHP version as per application? Before that, we should know how PHP is used. PHP can be used as a CLI or web server module (mod_php, CGI, FPM). Switching PHP CLI Version PHP’s command is linked to , which is symlinked to , which again is symlinked to actual PHP, example . php /usr/bin/php /etc/alternatives/php /usr/bin/php7.2 So here lies the logic of switching PHP CLI versions. By default, the PHP installation changes the CLI version to the new one. In case if you want to switch to a specific version, say PHP 7.2, you can use the command update-alternatives sudo update-alternatives --set php /usr/bin/php7.2
php -v You can find the list of PHP executables with ll /usr/bin | grep php You might need to run to set the required PHP version if you are running `composer` commands or any CLI PHP script. update-alternatives Switching PHP Web Server Version As you probably know, Nginx runs PHP code via PHP-FPM, which listens on a Unix socket. And that makes it easier to switch the PHP version in the Nginx’s server block. If you want to point any application, say Magento 2 running on Nginx with PHP 7.2, you can simply change the value of directive as: fastcgi_pass You can find the list of PHP executables with fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock To find the list of Unix sockets for PHP-FPM ll /run/php | grep sock In order to verify the PHP version for Web SAPI, you can use in your .php file. phpinfo() Conclusion Some people might want to use Docker, Vagrant based solution for this. It’s Okay. For me, I always prefer a native system without depending on third-party solutions. This minimizes the overhead and latency problem and hence makes the application development easier and faster. Above you read, how easily you can change the PHP CLI and Web SAPI version. For CLI based you might have to run the command on demand. But for Web application, once the required PHP version is set, they will work independently on specific PHP versions. update-alternatives Please comment below if you have any better solution for handling multiple PHP versions. Previously published at https://blog.magepsycho.com/how-to-install-multiple-versions-of-php-on-ubuntu/

How to Have Multiple Versions of PHP on Ubuntu

People frequently come to us with a request to create a text chat. Some of them want a messenger with a chat being the main or the only function. Others need to add chat into different projects, such as telemedicine. In this article, we’ll take a look at the most popular options for chat creation. All solutions for chats can be split into two categories: 1. Ready-made chat platforms, such as Firechat, SendBird. They have prepared functionality for main chat options. The developer needs to put a small effort and time to add a chat into an app or a website. But the behavior of functionality has strict borders by a platform creator, and possibilities for customization are limited. 2. Technologies for exchanging data between client and server, such as Firebase Cloud Messaging, Node.js + Socket.io. They allow building a very flexible chat solution upon them. Those technologies take time to implement but offer unlimited possibilities for customization. All the four solutions are cross-platform, they work on the web, iOS, Android. Firebase Cloud Messaging is a platform for information exchange between a mobile app and a server. It’s widely used for notification send-out, and it can be used to build a chat on its foundation. Firebase Cloud Messaging Advantages: Free for products with up to 100 simultaneous users.As a Google product, one can expect stable work when used correctly With comprehensive documentation and high popularity, developers can find any answers quickly, which saves time and money No need to buy an additional server, you can do everything on the Firebase server Thanks to the database, the servers will automatically come into existence or be eliminated when they are not needed, which will save you a ton of money. Node.js and socket.io will make you create scaling separately Firestore Data is cached by default and is available for search in chat offline Disadvantages: Difficult search inquiries are difficult or impossible to realize For example, inquiries like “find all messages with “Hello!” that a user received last year from all users whose nicknames start with an A”. The thing is when using Firebase Cloud Messaging, you are limited in choosing a database. It’s either Firebase Realtime Database or Firestore. is a NoSQL database, where data is stored as JSON. It has lots of advantages compared to traditional SQL databases. The possibilities for creating a new search inquiry are limited by a developer to keep productivity levels. Firebase Realtime Database To deal with that problem, Google came up with database. It’s a NoSQL database but its search and data structuring possibilities are vastly increased. However, difficult search inquiries still pose a bigger problem than those in SQL databases or NoSQL databases like MongoDB. Some of them are impossible, others will take much more time to develop. the Firestore Up to 200k simultaneous users in Firebase Realtime Database, up to a million in Firestore Firebase Realtime Database is limited by 200k connections in the database. It’s roughly the same as 200k simultaneous users. Firebase developers think out of 10 million active app users there are 200k of those who would use the app at the same time. Firestore offers up to a million users at the same moment. Paid from 100 simultaneous users When using Firestore, is determined by read/write operations in the database. The more data is there, the more expensive it will be. For instance, by Firestore calculation, a small up (50k installations and 5k active users daily) the usage cost will be $12-14 a month. For a big app (10 mil installations with 1 mil active users daily), the cost will be $2951,52 monthly. There are within which Firestore is free to use. the cost borders With Firestore Realtime Database is determined by the amount of data stored in a base and downloaded from there - approximately $5 a month for each stored gigabyte and $1 a month for each downloaded gigabyte. the cost Therefore an app that processes many read/write in the database operations, . it will be cheaper to use Firebase Realtime Database The most profitable option would be to . use Firebase Realtime Database for one type of data and Firestore for another For example, for a typical e-commerce app, operations that involve reading a list of goods will run every time a user opens the app, and the number of operations will grow as more people use it. The size of the list, however, won’t depend on the number of users. For an app like that, the most profitable option would be storing the list data in Firebase Realtime Database (to not pay for multiple read operations), and storing the user data in Firestore, as storing 1 gigabyte of data is cheaper there ( ). source Using Firebase Cloud Messaging is free itself, which means that you only pay for using the database, hosting, and authentication. Works slowly when searching offline In Firestore, if there are hundreds of documents in the base, the offline search will be slower, which will worsen the UX. For instance, in a chat with a hundred channels, when you have to find one without internet access, the search will work noticeably slower. The developer needs experience working with NoSQL to build a convenient and effective database structure Firestore has a limit of 1 write operation in a second for 1 document. The document is a structural part of a Firestore database. The Firestore database consists of documents organized in a collection. The document is practically a set of “key-meaning” couples. It is actually a flexible limitation: if you go for 10 read operations at the same time once, Firestore will process them correctly. If, however, you keep sending thousands of requests into the base at a rate of more than 1 per second, Firestore will return errors for some requests. Firechat Firechat is a framework for chat creation, and it was made by the Firebase team using Firebase as a foundation. Firechat uses Firebase for authorization, sync, storing data. Firechat provides API for a chat, that allows user authentication; forwarding messages, images, and files; group chats creation, sending out invitations. Here are the links to their and . official website project code Advantages: Saving time and money on developing A ready-made API for the chat main functionality allows not to create a realization of those functions by yourself Same advantages as with the Firebase Cloud Messaging Disadvantages: Not all functions are possible to realize If you use a ready-made API for the chat functionality, you can only realize the functions in offers. For instance, it doesn’t support showing unread messages, deleting messages, and has a limitation of 100 users in the chat group. The full functionality list is difficult to find, but you can get an impression by their API methods here Same disadvantages as with the Firebase Cloud Messaging Firechat only uses Firebase Realtime Database from the box. There is no choosing a database, like in the Firebase Cloud Messaging, Firebase Realtime Database, or Firestore. Sendbird is a ready-made chat platform. It offers a multitude of prepared features, including an indication of the number of unread messages, blocking users, and admin dashboard. Sendbird Advantages: Many functions Lots of features are already realized and work right away: message or file exchange, invitations, users blocking, typing indication, editing messages, automatic translation, admin dashboard, group chats for up to 100 users A ready-made UI with limited customization possibilities Creating a UI and its design isn’t necessary. Sendbird offers standard UI options, which you can use as is. You can also apply your own design on top of the standard one, changing the color and form of chat components. So, we can simply add Sendbird with default settings into our product and get a char with a default design. Then, customize some components whenever the need arises. Scales automatically You don’t need to worry about having too many users so your server doesn’t catch up to the number of requests, New servers will create themselves. Sendbird supports more than a million simultaneous users. It uses AWS. Disadvantages: You can’t realize all functions Chat and functionality behaviors are strictly set.  A user logs in and gets access to a list of channels. They can choose an existing channel or create their own. Channels are either public or private. Users can exchange messages in either one. This is the standard structure for the majority of chats. If you need something more exotic for your product, it will be really problematic to realize that with SendBird. Some functions are outright impossible to implement, others can take much more time than if they were created from scratch, for example, with Node.js and socket.io. For example, you can’t create threads to answer a message, like in Slack. Not all available functions can be realized the way you see it SendBird provides more customization opportunities than it seems. There are serious limitations, too. For example, SendBirds allows storing additional information about any user, but not more than 5 parameters. Let’s say, those will be a name, last name, city, sex, weight, eye color. So, it is not nearly enough for dating chats Not as popular as Firebase and Socket.io Popularity is an important metric when choosing a framework. The more popular a framework is, the more developers using it are out there. It helps get important resources, support, answers. If other pros and cons are equal, this will help make the development faster (and cheaper if you pay for time) Price Depends on the number of users. The base package costs monthly for 5k active users. With 100k active monthly users, the price will go up to $5000. Or even $7600 if you also want automatic message translation and advanced moderation. For products with more than 100k users, the price is decided individually. There is a 30-day trial period $400 Node.js + Socket.io Server platform , going with the real-time data exchange library helps build a chat with unlimited customization possibilities. Node.js Socket.io Advantages: Allows realization of any functionality The developer has full control over all components: interface, logic, and server data and endpoint can be whatever is needed. For instance, it helps organize threads to answer chosen messages, which you can’t do in SendBird. You can implement message deleting, which is nowhere to be found in Firechat. Scales Provides an opportunity to realize automatic scalability that depends on the load. It’s possible to do on AWS and other ready-made solutions, such as Oracle. However, scalability isn’t provided right away, it has to be developed by a programmer. You can choose the database type that suits your product best For instance, if in the future product you are going to realize many difficult search inquiries, you can choose the SQL database, instead of using Firestore or Firebase Realtime Database that don’t support these functions The chat works quickly Client and server exchange messages directly, which results in fast work. When you use Firebase Cloud Messaging, the message goes from your server to Firebase server, and only from there will it travel further to the device. It’s important to mention that, though, that if there is a 0,5s delay, it’s not critical for a text chat. Free to use Open-source free solution - you don’t have to pay monthly for this technology. But please note that you have to pay for a server rent, where your product is based. However, this cost is usually way lower than that of Firebase Cloud Messaging or Firechat. We will discuss forecasting server costs in a different article. Disadvantages: , as the developer creates all functions from scratch You will need someone with the relevant experience Requires more time and money Not everyone can develop the chat. To sum it up Ready-made platforms will give you quick results because the functionality is already there. But you are limited to those functions. Node.js and socket.io allow creating any chat you need but each function will have to be developed from zero. It takes time and money. What to choose? The first thing to think about, when answering this question, is what kind of solution fits you and your company best. If your chat requires a minimum base functionality, you don’t have high level of requirements to it, then or a -based solution is the way to go Firechat Firebase Cloud Messaging When you expect a chat to be more advanced, take a look at . Compare monthly payments to against creating a chat from zero on and SendBird SendBird Node.js socket.io If there are a lot of requirements for a chat or you need lots of customized options, and are your friends! Node.js socket.io Why we recommend Node.js + socket.io? Developing the chat functionality on Node.js + socket.io takes about 40 hours. Embedding and customizing a prepared one requires around 24-32 hours. Ready-made chats charge you every month. It is more expensive than paying just for servers in the case of Node.js + socket.io. A little increase in the development costs is usually recouped in a few months. In exchange, they: Are not bound to any limitations. They can implement any functionality in the future Do not depend on third-party components that developers can just stop updating someday, and your chat will stop working. To find out more about chat creation, do not hesitate to contact us! Previously published at https://blog.forasoft.com/2020/09/02/what-chat-solution-to-choose/

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It is 1943 and you are Head of the United States Eighth Air Force. Your mission is to destroy Germany's ability to wage war and free up the skies for the Allied Forces. The problem is that your Bombers are being zapped out of the sky like mosquitos drawn into the fire in a summery night. German anti-aircraft fire and Luftwaffe  - the German Air Force - are making your life hard. You cannot afford losing more Bombers and more personnel else the war is lost. The solution to most problems is data. Data is also the culprit of most problems but that is a different post. During the WWII, the United States after suffering terrible losses turn to Statistical Research Group (SRG) that had the best statisticians in the world. The Bombers had to be reinforced with metal in order to cover any weak points. Sadly, you cannot cover the whole plane with additional metal as metal is heavy. The weakest points had to be identified and only these points had to be patched. The data collection started with analyzing the location of the bullet holes that were found on the Bombers that made it back safely. The obvious idea was to patch the areas that had the highest concentration of bullet holes. More bullet holes around the wings? Patch that part. More bullet holes around the tail? Patch the tail. Data driven decisions at its best. Looking for the missing bullets There was one critical issue with that theory: The US collected data from the planes that made it back, the planes that survived and obviously weren't blown out of the sky. If anything, they should have been looking to patch . The planes that went down were never included in the data. the areas that had no bullet holes at all Abraham Wald from SRG suggested, the bombers were going down because they were shot the engines - an area that had zero bullet holes on the returning planes. at Making assumptions based on a winning, surviving dataset is called and it can be devastating for Entrepreneurs. Survivorship Bias Looking for missing opportunities It is easy to idolize the person that worked for 5 years in a bad idea but at the end made it and now is a multimillionaire. Or the Entrepreneur that left a well paying job and decided to build a new company and now he has more money than the budget of a small European city. As Entrepreneurs, we learn to listen to the data but what happens when our whole dataset is made up from "planes that survived"? What happens when only 1% of bombers make it back? Fixing the blind spots We all have blind spots. Every single one of us. We become better by making these spots as small as we can. We do that by stepping back and looking at the big picture instead of getting closer and closer. From up close, even a dot seems like a huge black hole. The first step in finding what "brings us down" is start looking for what might be missing. A good example is customer reviews.  Relying on customer reviews is a terrible idea to improve your business. I know a Startup that had brilliant reviews but was bleeding customers. The majority of these customers never cared to provide any feedback - they just hated the product. only The same happens when you ask for opinions from your friends or family. Even if they are hard on you, it is no comparison with the feedback you will get from strangers that don't care about your feelings. I am not saying that "all feedback is good", you still have to filter it but at least collect as much as you want. Unless you like getting blown out of the sky. Previously published at https://jon.io/your-blind-spots-will-bring-you-down

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The Unseen Areas Augur Your Future Failure

"All you need is ( ) AI in agriculture." – A slightly changed Beatles quote. love Modern-day farming gets smarter by the day: a symbiosis of cows and drones has never felt so natural and necessary. And surely it means that AgriTech creates more and more data while automating greenhouses through IoT, monitoring field variability in precision agriculture solutions, and so on. But have you ever felt like there must be something else this vast data collection can do? Something far bolder and way more ambitious? Well, ITRex has, and our believes that this data is dying to jump into an artificial intelligence solution and get agricultural companies more business insights. To prove our point, there’s no use in trying to dazzle you with random examples of how companies already use AI in agriculture because that won’t give you a true understanding of what this impressive piece of tech can do for agribusinesses. Instead, let’s see how basic agricultural processes in crop and animal farming can be enhanced with artificial intelligence, what benefits it brings, and what common misconceptions we need to steer clear of. AI consulting team Highlights: Benefits How AI fits agricultural processes: - In crop growing - In animal farming Common AI myths Benefits of AI in agriculture Before we start, let’s make it clear that artificial intelligence is not an annoying know-it-all tech. It only provides businesses with insights that stem from the data they already have — or automates processes that previously required human involvement. We’ll examine how it happens later on, and now let’s look at top four benefits that make agricultural AI a promising investment: Yield improvement. By analyzing operational data and highlighting process inefficiencies, artificial intelligence finds ways for agribusinesses to increase yields without using any extra resources. Automating crop and animal farming processes with drones (e.g., used for sowing or milking), eliminates human error and streamlines those processes to allow an increase in both quantity and quality of labor. Cost reduction. Crunching the numbers on how resources (water, energy, fertilizer, herbicide, etc.) are distributed and used, AI solutions spot wasteful resource consumption patterns and suggest optimization scenarios. Costs like vet services and equipment repairs are reduced by preventive practices of monitoring livestock health and equipment performance respectively. Profit increase. Given that AI maximizes yields without requiring farms to use any additional resources and cuts costs associated with various stages of agricultural processes, an increase in profits follows as a natural and pleasant consequence of employing AI in agriculture. Alignment with sustainable farming practices. The concept of sustainable agriculture revolves around finding a way to meet current food and textile needs without using up too many resources and leaving next generations with nothing. AI helps farmers find sustainable patterns of resource consumption to avoid water scarcity and land degradation. How AI use cases enhance basic agricultural processes As an intricate technology with multiple subsets and types, artificial intelligence can provide agriculture with algorithms and applications of varying levels of complexity. For example, you can use AI in agriculture for something as simple as monitoring livestock vitals to identify health problems. Or you can employ and classify tomatoes by variety using machine learning. Or you can go even further and predict weather using deep learning. If you do, AI will uncover weather patterns in historical data from satellites and sensors and spot pre-weather-change markers in real-time data to warn farmers about upcoming rains or storms. All in all, the tasks that AI carries out in agriculture can be boiled down to (using robots to carry out tasks that previously involved humans), (revealing inefficiencies by analyzing operational data), and personalization (growing sales by better adapting to demand). It may not seem like much but you can do a lot with a little. To get a better idea, let’s look at the basic processes of crop growing and livestock care. computer vision workflow automation data analytics Artificial intelligence and soil preparation By analyzing data coming from sensors placed in the soil, supplied by soil analysis drones, or sourced from smartphone cameras, an AI solution like can detect soil defects and recognize nutrient deficiencies. This helps farmers identify how much and what type of organic matter they should add to make the soil more workable and suitable for the given crop. Plantix Artificial intelligence and sowing Analyzing drone-supplied imagery, artificial intelligence can help farm workers identify places best suited for sowing particular crops based on geographical characteristics of the field, chemical composition of the soil, or any other parameter. Besides that, farmers can use AI-powered crop planning tools like to determine how much of each crop the farm needs to sow in a greenhouse per week, when the crops should be transplanted in the field, etc. Although a comprehensive crop plan goes way beyond the sowing process alone, it is still nice to know that by using such tools farmers can reduce herbicide and fertilizer consumption by 25-35% and increase yield by 3-4%. Before sowing begins, AI can also examine seed photos and compare them to images of healthy seeds; a supervised machine learning algorithm will determine seed quality and figure out what crops they are seeing. Using this data, AI algorithms can instruct farming robots (like a developed by the Agricultural Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture) to filter out subpar seeds or sort seeds if they get mixed. eAgronom computer-vision seed sorter Artificial intelligence and fertilizing Artificial intelligence systems — especially smart applications running on devices rather than in the cloud — require powerful chips. Unfortunately, for decades, the lion's share of computer chips have been manufactured in With the help of data from precision agriculture software, soil sensors, soil analysis drones, or simply smartphone images in case of Spacenus’s , agriculture artificial intelligence solutions can continuously monitor nutrition levels in the soil and, if needed, cross-check them with the levels that historically brought the best yields on the given crop. To make farming more sustainable, AI can use third-party datasets to check the environmental effects of using various amounts and types of fertilizer to find such a dosage that will minimize negative impact while maximizing yield. If the soil needs fertilizer, the artificial intelligence solution can recommend the best-suited fertilizer that the agribusiness has in stock at the moment using sensors in storage rooms and dispatch, say, a to spray it on the field. Agricultural Nutrient Assistant PrecisionHawk drone Artificial intelligence and irrigation The concept of sustainable farming requires smart usage of freshwater. And this is where AI tools like , , and come in handy. Some of them simply monitor water usage productivity, others automate irrigation workflows. But you can go further and use AI capabilities to analyze historical irrigation data, map it against crop health and yield stats, and find the best water consumption patterns that fulfill all required conditions. Using weather prediction capability provided by solutions like Fasal, farms can alter their irrigation plans making use of free rain water (checking its quality is also a possibility for AI in agriculture). Together with adjusted irrigation plans based on soil moisture monitoring, it can save farms up to 50% of water resources. Not bad, right? Similar mechanisms can be applied to energy consumption optimization as well. This way, an agricultural company can reduce water and energy-related costs without sacrificing productivity. Heliopas CultYvate WaPOR Artificial intelligence and crop protection This is the area where AI offers perhaps the most use cases for an agriculture business to enjoy. For example: Herbicide and pesticide consumption optimization is aimed at making farms sustainable and efficient while securing food safety. AI solutions detect current weed and pest activity and adjust herbicide and pesticide spraying activities to it instead of running these processes on a fixed schedule. This is enabled by companies like and that focus on weed control, as well as companies like and mobile apps like (delivered by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and Pennsylvania State University), which take over pest control. Blue River Technologies PyTorch FarmSense Nuru Pest attack prediction is achieved by analyzing satellite or drone imagery, uncovering patterns in pest activity, and watching new incoming data to notice pre-attack signs. With this data at hand, farmworkers can prevent attacks without affecting crop health or using pesticides. For example, an early pest warning system by is used in India for cotton crop protection. Wadhwani AI Crop health monitoring is enabled by soil and plant sensors, as well as multispectral images sourced from satellites or drones. By using this data, AI solutions identify or, if more intricate unsupervised machine learning algorithms are applied, predict diseases in crops. This helps cut crop loss and increase yield. is an example of an app used for monitoring crop health on vineyards (however, it also covers harvesting and irrigation use cases). VineView Intruder identification is focused on securing field territory. AI solutions can monitor drone imagery or surveillance camera footage to detect wild animals and birds or unauthorized humans who can damage crops. For example, , a leader in the smart surveillance domain, enables farms to reduce crime and theft. Twenty20 Solutions Weather prediction can help farmers watch out for extreme weather conditions to save crops from damage before heavy rains or winds start. The for AI-powered precision agriculture allows doing just that. OneSoil app Artificial intelligence and harvesting By comparing current field footage to how this crop looked at this point in the growing cycle during the previous season, an artificial intelligence solution can accurately predict when the crop will be ready for harvest. And as soon as harvesting time comes, robots can start removing crops from the field. , for instance, offers a robotic harvesting solution to pick strawberries that minimizes waste, enhances food safety, and reduces CO2 emissions by 96% compared to traditional harvesting methods. If an agribusiness knows where the crops are transported to and sold afterwards, the solution can identify different harvesting points for same-variety crops that are planned for various locations based on how much time different crop batches will have to spend in transit. Harvest CROO AI in agriculture: animal farming Animal farming processes vary a lot based on what the end product is (milk, meat, eggs), so the simplified process below is not linear, some steps can occur in a different order or can be skipped altogether: Animal purchase/birth → Housing → Grooming and cleaning → Feeding and grazing → Health monitoring → Breeding → Harvesting Artificial intelligence and animal birth or purchase Analyzing data from previous reproduction cycles, AI farming solutions can predict how many animals are going to be born and calculate related care costs to enable tweaking reproduction plans if needed. If a farm buys animals, artificial intelligence technology can calculate how many animals the company needs. Such calculations can target the highest yield while balancing it with how many animals the farm can sustainably care for under given farming conditions. Artificial intelligence and housing Tapping into historical data on livestock diseases and correlating it with various housing conditions (humidity, temperature, animal density, etc.), artificial intelligence helps farmers establish the best conditions to keep animals in while also decreasing animal treatment costs. is a great example of a company that leverages AI to deliver solutions for smart cow housing. Lely Artificial intelligence and grooming and cleaning Using correlation capabilities and livestock sensors, AI can help select and schedule grooming and cleaning procedures so that farms don’t waste resources on excessive maintenance or badly affect livestock health in case of insufficient grooming and cleaning. Barn hygiene is a major factor in livestock health. That’s why companies like Lely and offer barn cleaning robots and agribusinesses like an Icelandic farm owned by the . By using cleaning workflow automation solutions in tandem with milking and feeding robots, the farm saw a 30% increase in milk outputs and slashed their vet costs by four times. GEA Hallgrímsson brothers Artificial intelligence and feeding and grazing It can be difficult to find the best balance between feeding and grazing, which is where artificial intelligence can help farmers. Besides that, AI can reveal: What foods work better for different types of livestock How much salt cows need to stay healthy based on breed, age, etc. How to schedule grazing around weather predictions for better livestock health How to manage pastures for better grazing quality (say, through paddock rotation or soil health monitoring) by Cainthus is an example of an AI farming solution that enables smart feed management, improving animal health and increasing milk outputs. ALUS Artificial intelligence and health monitoring Since disease management is the prime source of costs for animal farmers, this is the area where AI can bring the most value and allow animals to recover two to four times faster while getting less antibiotics in the treatment process. Artificial intelligence not only cuts disease management costs but also improves food safety. Besides all activities mentioned in other animal farming steps that lead to improving livestock health, AI can continuously monitor livestock’s vitals, body weight, metabolism, and other parameters to alert a vet if an animal’s health is worsening. AI solutions can also continuously look for new correlations between care conditions and livestock health to prevent diseases. Solutions like , , and ALUS are used for monitoring cows’ health, tracks bees’ wellbeing, and keeps an eye out for changes in the health and wellbeing of pigs Rex Ida ApisProtect Piguard Artificial intelligence and breeding Tools like Fertile-Eyez by are focused specifically on smart breeding and can identify livestock’s reproductive quality and help with fertility management. Solutions like Ida, meanwhile, give relevant breeding advice to farmers and cover AI use cases beyond animal reproduction. Another AI use case in this area covers breeding aimed at product quality improvement. If a farm tries to breed a new variety of cows to achieve better milk or meat quality, AI can crunch the data on relevant meat/milk parameters and reproductive qualities of available animals and suggest a ‘smart breeding recipe Verility Artificial intelligence and harvesting Most harvesting procedures are already automated by machines like milking, meat finishing, and even egg picking robots. Besides enabling and facilitating harvesting, AI uncovers ways to maximize output quality. For example, AI can use of chickens, pigs, and beef cattle to predict best harvesting points and cut over-finishing costs, as well as estimate body condition scoring, liveweight, milking traits, and lameness in dairy cows to maximize milk outputs. 3D imaging to estimate liveweight What are the most important uses of artificial intelligence in farming? With all the capabilities of AI in agriculture available today, farmers can tweak a lot of details about how they run their agribusiness: from automating workflows that previously were much more time-consuming to uncovering optimization opportunities for bits of their day-to-day agricultural activities. But however cool these tweaks may seem on their own, all of that is just a means to an end. The most important task that AI farming performs is predicting yield and optimizing agricultural conditions to sustainably push it up. What else does AI do for farming? Outside the described processes, there are some more AI use cases that can be relevant for agricultural companies, for example: Variety selection. Ahead of the season start, farmers can choose which crop variety to plant in order to satisfy demand. AI can help farmers achieve that with market analysis and calculations of potential costs and profits. Pricing strategy development. Based on the predicted costs of farming each crop or animal that are likely to pile up in the upcoming year, agribusinesses can adjust their pricing strategies to maximize revenue and still be able to offer competitive prices. Storage and transit conditions monitoring. To decrease product loss that results from poorly storing and transporting harvested goods, agribusinesses can use artificial intelligence to monitor and adjust temperatures, humidity levels, and other parameters in stock rooms and transit vehicles. The latter applies only if farms deliver goods to customers or farmers’ markets on their own. Predictive maintenance. Farms have relied on a wide range of farming equipment for a long time now and that range has recently been extended with numerous drones and robots. To reduce downtimes in case of farming equipment failures, agribusinesses can use AI to monitor equipment performance and notify maintenance teams about upcoming failures. What’s stopping AI and agriculture from being together? With all the abundance of artificial intelligence use cases at hand, you’d think that the popularity of AI in agriculture is at its peak. And while it is indeed growing, it’s not quite there yet. It seems like AI’s reputation of being a risky tech affair precedes it across industries and somewhat curbs its growth. Let’s see what causes an air of caution around artificial intelligence: The first reason would be concerns around AI costs. Obviously, this is a high-end technology that requires skilled workers and time. But we’re ready to bust the myth about its prohibitive cost. You can check in our blog post with examples drawn from our own projects, and you’ll see that it’s not all that scary. how much AI costs in 2021 It also doesn’t help to learn the staggering failure rate where 47% of AI projects don’t reach production. But once you see what’s under the hood of those failures, you understand that there’s simply a way to be smart about and not fall into the pit. The rule of thumb here is to know what you’re doing and start small – with a POC – to test the AI waters and prove their benefits in practice from the very beginning AI implementation challenges Thinking of exploring the powers of AI for your agricultural needs? Let’s think together! and their AI consulting team will locate the best way for AI to fit into your tech plans. Drop ITRex a line

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Telemedicine and Telehealth are the future of healthcare. Telemedicine encompasses remote clinical services, and telehealth is remote non-clinical services. Telehealth is a $20+ billion-dollar industry that’s expected to reach $186.5 billion in 2026.  18% of the U.S. GDP is healthcare-related.  90% of physicians have experience with remote treatment and 77% want a shift towards telehealth.  Not only does telehealth bring in revenue, but it also increases patient satisfaction and retention by 81.5%. thanks to its many formats; video calls, mobile health, remote patient monitoring, texting services, and phone calls are a few of the wide array of telehealth platforms available.  Telehealth is less than 100 years old but is growing at an unbelievable rate.  In the first quarter of 2020 alone, 1,629,000 telehealth visits occurred.  During the pandemic, 69% of patients managed their concerns with telehealth guidance. Telemedicine is booming Telehealth has continued to thrive, even with many opposing barriers. 41% of patients have limited access to the internet, but this is currently being solved with Federal broadband initiatives.  Patient privacy was another concern, but consumers are growing more comfortable with private records in the cloud.  Studies show no significant difference between in-person and telehealth diagnoses, so concerns of misdiagnoses are less relevant. The majority of studies now show that patients prefer telehealth over in-person visits. Telehealth has created new innovative solutions for holistic healthcare.  28% of consumers use tech to moderate their health; remote clinical tools can monitor blood pressure, administer anticoagulation testing, and contain ECG devices.  These impact the fields of cardiology, pulmonology, and endocrinology.  With new technologies like apps and smartphone gadgets, mail-in labs, and wearable technology, telehealth has continued to help those in need. Telehealth will continue to boom after the pandemic. COVID-19 spurred many to try telehealth for the first time, and now that they’ve tried it, most Americans want telehealth to continue.  82% of Americans say telehealth makes it easier to get the care they need.  Telehealth is convenient, allowing patients to stay at work rather than taking time off to commute to the doctor’s office.  It is less costly, and many feel less anxiety when seeing a doctor remotely. The future of medicine is just a few taps away.

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Hacking the Future of Healthcare: Telehealth and Telemedicine

These days I find myself faced with a rather interesting dilemma. On the one hand, digital media presents small, local businesses with legitimate avenues to reach vast audiences and sell their products. On the other hand, while I don’t mind sharing some data about me to access social media or certain apps, it is important to me that the platforms I use behave in an ethical manner, that consent is not taken for granted, and there are some boundaries to the data they collect. But that’s just wishful thinking. I’ve realized over my last 5 years of trysts with data and analytics that once you’re addicted to data, you’ll do anything to get more and more of it. The bigger you are, the worse the addiction. In my profession, the big question everyone has is, the Digital Advertising Era threw a nice party. We are about to enter the Age of Privacy. Will the party go on, or is it So Long, Farewell to digital advertising? What will happen to all those businesses for whom digital advertising is the only affordable and scalable ad medium? Well, guess what? Businesses and brands have been getting built long before digital advertising and its data-driven approach were touted as a veritable silver bullet. Brands old and new will continue to thrive long after digital advertising and data have made way for the next shiny new thing with its own set of gurus and influencers and mantras and whatnot. Because you see, advertising is not the business of data-driven decision-making or prying under people’s kitchen sinks or tracking their every breath. It’s simply the artistic science of communication. It’s about knowing the audience at a personal level, understanding how a brand solves a problem for them and having an ongoing conversation with them about it among other things. Data – either in the form of numbers or in the form of behavioral patterns – can't help you know the audience all by itself. The best way to know the audience is to genuinely be one of them. The second best way is to talk to them face to face, on a regular basis, about their life, their routines, their dreams, their fears, their aspirations, their goals, and maybe a few words about the product category as well. Tracking user activity on the internet doesn’t give you that kind of information. A/B testing can only take you a few steps further if the fundamentals are already in place. An oversimplified overview of how tracking works Tracking by digital platforms identifies people with similar activity, group them into “lookalike audiences” and show ads in the hope that since about 10% of their behaviors overlap, maybe 2% of them will buy this product once they’ve seen the ad and interacted with the business and its website a bunch of times. For all the data-drivenness of the digital platform, this isn’t an acute degree of precision or prediction that makes you go Shut Up And Take My Money. It’s not all that different and not more targeted than a newspaper ad, by any experienced traditional media executive’s estimates. The only difference is that here data tells you exactly how many people saw the ad, how many times, how many clicked on it (0.1–3%), out of the people who clicked and went to your website how many bought products worth what amount of money. Google Analytics shows you the number of website visitors who came from different sources, how much time they spent, how many pages they visited, how quickly they exited, how many of them came back later, and so on. This being the basic extent of how data is used by ad platforms, and what data you get to read from visitor activity on your website, here is a 3-step plan for businesses to tide over this seemingly unfortunate situation. Step 1: Product experience FTW The hardest part of all that you can do to build a successful business - the product, or your core offering. Very often, once the proof of concept has been achieved, companies are in a hurry to go to market. Once in the market, there are the challenges of day-to-day operations, marketing, and hitting revenue targets. Whether it is a large corporation or a fledgling startup, doing consistent marketing to bring in new traffic and new sales often takes priority over improving the product/service, and making sure that the value you deliver and the experience the customer gets are unmatched by your competition. When was the last time you were so blown away by an app or a product you purchased that you went right back and bought more without seeing an ad ever again? I have a few products I buy without ever seeing an ad. One is the Scotch Brite scrub with a sponge. Second, my Victorinox peeler and zester. I once recommended the peeler to a friend who was so overjoyed with its awesomeness that he inaugurated the peeler by peeling every single vegetable and fruit he found in the house. And then his family had to eat all of it including 1 kilo of carrots. This, and a scene from the movie Julie & Julia, actually inspired me and a couple of friends to come up with a campaign for Victorinox in which everyone's peeling and chopping everything they can find like crazy because . "the knife made me do it" I also fell in love with a rented Lenovo ThinkPad that I was using, I bought one. I spilled a quarter-liter of water on it, and it just went on working like nothing happened. My friends who own Macs have panic attacks when they see a glass of water within spilling range of a MacBook even if it’s not theirs. Having a winning product and experience BEFORE you start spending huge sums of money on marketing, will have you scuttling less after more than satisfy your vanity, and more after things that need to be done to actually grow your business. data points that will do nothing Two things I always tell myself - every time a potential customer lands on your website and leaves without taking any action, you are not only losing the time, effort, and money you spent in getting the customer to your website, you are also preventing them from coming back soon. Based on the last visit, the customer would believe that they’ve seen everything they needed to see; you have nothing to offer to them. Every time a customer spends money (and time) purchasing and using your product and is underwhelmed, they will most likely never come back. If they do, it’s because you spent even more money on getting them back. A great product lets you do data-driven advertising in a different way. Imagine having such a high percentage of customers who are so happy with your product that they leave such effusive reviews and data points you can showcase in ads! Imagine having over 70% repeat customers, or a website with <10% bounce rate, or a 30% conversion rate with first-time visitors! The most basic reports and metrics in Google Analytics (or any other analytics tool you might be using) can tell you so much about your website and your product. You only need to spend a little bit of time consistently looking at the numbers, thinking about what they can possibly mean, and how to improve those numbers. So, if you have only enough resources to get one thing right, may it be the product. Step 2: Relationship and Loyalty Someone has just come to your website and bought something. Or filled a form, or signed up, or asked a question. Don’t you want to know who they are, what they want, how you can give them what they want, delight them while at it, and make them have the best experience ever? If you don’t feel this way, regardless of the size of your company, you probably don’t care about your product enough. Getting visitors to your website is easy. Getting people to buy the product one time is also not that hard. But that’s as far as advertising can take you. Businesses become sustainable and successful when people buy your product almost every time they need that product. Sometimes (for example in the case of a Saas product or a service), a relationship gets built while the customer is starting to use the product or service. Other times, like in the case of eCommerce, there are hidden opportunities to build a relationship with the customer, turn them into loyalists. This can't be done just by getting bots to chat with customers and sending them only automated emails no matter how personalized they are. It can only be done with a dedicated effort to build real relationships. Companies often forgo direct human interaction because it’s not scalable, or people misuse it. But customer support, helplines, quick resolution of complaints, accommodation of special requests, listening to customers, seeking feedback and suggestions, what you do with the feedback and how the customer is treated during interactions go a long way in giving confidence, building trust, and inspiring loyalty. It’s really hard to treat someone like they’re your family. It has to come from within the leaders, and permeate to every team member as a part of the ethos of the company. This is most visible and felt in direct customer interaction. If the product is great, but you made someone feel angry or insignificant, your product doesn’t matter. “How you do anything is how you do everything.” Customers who relate with you, or feel like you’re family, will be your best advertisers delivering the highest conversion rates at zero cost. Imagine having thousands or millions of brand ambassadors without spending a paisa. Imagine what such an enormous fan base can do for you. That’s an advertising channel that doesn’t invade anyone’s privacy. Step 3: Communication as the glue If you don’t know what your brand is really about, communication seems super easy. You can say anything you want, and whatever you say will get you some kind of traction. But getting results from it is super hard. But if you take the trouble of finding out what your brand stands for, communication seems hard. Suddenly, you can’t say anything you want. You need to get very specific about your communication. The good thing about it is that your ads, website, or emails appeal to the right people as opposed to everyone. So take the trouble, map out what you are really about, make an original content plan and ideas that align with your brand’s core. And create communication that expresses exactly that. Generic communication will get you thousands of clicks and maybe 1-3% conversion. If your communication can filter out people who wouldn’t buy your product anyway, your ads have a 10x higher chance of reaching people who actually would. The chances of them converting also go up because they resonate with the ad, as opposed to if it were a generic message. One example of this is niche products and services that use their 1-star rating as their ad. There’s a course by CXL Institute, which is advertised with their 1-star rating and a review that says this course is too tough. Simple, but effective. Most businesses would take this as a negative review and hide it away. Rather than be cool and clever in communication, be authentic, consistent, and interesting so that your genuine tribe can find you. Conclusion The world is moving towards privacy, transparency, and consent, whether platforms will cooperate or not. There are consent-based data management products like , which offer a password-less authentication solution that people can use to sign in anywhere, without filling forms giving away our personal information. Hypersign I love this idea because we should have control of our digital identity, not a social media company or a search engine. An old fintech client with a million+ people using their app once told me, yes, they do need to collect some data to ascertain whether the person availing their pay later service was going to pay them back. But they want to do this in the most transparent, respectful, and consent-based manner possible. It was one of the best moments in my career when the co-founder said, . "we want to build a billion-dollar company; but we don't want to get there anyhow, we want to get there doing the right things, which I believe is possible" Transparency, consent, and respect are part of the ethos - of individuals, small businesses, communities, large corporations, or governments. Either you build your foundation with these values because you believe it's important, or you don't because ________________ (fill in the blank with whatever; all answers except "because there's no other way" are correct). “Privacy is not an option, and it shouldn't be the price we accept for just getting on the Internet.” --Gary Kovacs People have stopped trusting big tech to treat their data with respect, and not track their every online activity. So it’s not long before they will take matters into their own hands, use a data privacy tool that will help them own and keep their data. At the same time, Big Tech, instead of understanding and accepting that privacy is a basic human right, is still going around fighting for their right to intrude without asking for permission. In this day and age. In the recent Facebook vs. Apple exchange, it seemed to me that Facebook wasn’t as concerned about not being able to track as about having to get consent first. It’s like with every step they take, Facebook manages to lose our trust a bit more while trying to position itself as the savior of small businesses. I have no doubt that Facebook provides the best platform for small businesses to advertise. I am a big fan and beneficiary of the results Facebook advertising delivers. Instead of fighting our need for privacy, one would expect companies to build solutions to advertise without compromising on privacy. With not much clarity yet about how this is all going to develop, a smart way forward is to build a resilient marketing strategy that doesn’t depend on excessive, obsessive tracking of the audience. Data is everywhere. Not just in the numbers that big tech companies show you. Let’s learn to break out of the notion that data comes only from tracking or that it looks only like numbers and graphs. Look, listen and act, and you’ll get all the data you’ll ever need.

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When you you also automatically get , which lets you work with our built-in databases on your site. You may also want to work with data that you maintain in an external database. Velo lets you connect your site to an external database and then work with that database collection in your site just as you would with our built-in collections. enable Velo Wix Data That means that you can display data from an external collection in Editor elements, use the data to create dynamic pages and connect it to user input elements. You can learn about adding an external database to your site . To work with external database collections you need to create an external database adapter. This adapter implements a Service Provider Interface (SPI) that enables your site to communicate with your external database collection. This is the basic structure of the system: here Let's look at each step in more detail: . A data request is generated by your Wix site and sent to your adapter. A data request can be the result of any visitor activity that relates to your collections or code you add that calls the wix-data API. This request is in the form of a REST API call. The request payload includes specific information about the request. Site data request . The adapter receives the request. It converts that request into an API request that your external database can receive, based on the external database's API. Adapter translation of data request . The data request is sent to your external database using your external database's API. Adapter data request . Your external database responds to the request, based on its API. External database data response . The adapter receives the response. It converts this response into a response to the REST API request it received from the site. Adapter translation of data response . The adapter sends the response to your site, including response payload information, and your site automatically handles the response and its payload. Adapter data response Adapter Implementations Wix has created the following prototype adapters on GitHub that you can experiment with and adapt to your needs: Adapter for MySQL databases deployed to Google AppEngine Adapter for Google Cloud Firestore with Cloud Run or AppEngine Follow the steps in the README file to deploy and test the prototype adaptor. Building the Adapter The adapter takes the request from your Wix site and converts it into something your external database can receive. It also takes the response from the external database and converts it into something your Wix site can receive. This is where you come in. You need to build the adapter that implements the SPI and translates requests and responses between the two systems. To create the code in your adapter you'll need to understand the structure of the API requests that your site can send to your adapter, and the structure of their associated payloads. You can find that information . here You'll also need to understand your external database's API. You'll need to understand the format that it expects as a data request as well as the format it uses in its responses. Your Wix site and your external database will handle their parts. The critical steps in the process, and the ones you need to manage, are steps 2 and 5. You can see an example implementation of an adapter . here Step 2 - Adapter translation of data requests from your Wix site to the external database Your Wix site sends an API request, but it is not in a format that your external database can work with. You need to add code in your adapter to: Take the request and its payload from the Wix site and convert it into a request that the external database can receive. Send that requests to the external database in a form it can receive. Step 5 - Adapter translation of data requests from the external database to your Wix site Your external database will receive the request from your adapter and send a response back. This response will be in a format native to your database, but your Wix site can't work with that response. You need the code in your adapter to: Receive the response from the external database. Convert that response into a response and payload that your Wix site can receive and send it back to your Wix site. Important Information for Building Your Adapter The following is information you need to consider when building your adapter and managing your database. _id Each table or collection must contain an _id column or attribute of type string. The Wix Data backend will generate a unique 36-character UUID for each item created in your site. The `_id` can be any length, but if items are created by your Wix site, it must be at least 36 characters long. _owner (optional) The Wix Data backend will send an owner ID when creating a new data item. This is a 36-character UUID identifying the user who created the data. Use the _owner field to sort or filter data by user. Dates All dates must be an ISO string encapsulated in an object. For example: "myDate" :{“$date”:”2001-02-11T00:00:00.000Z”} Authentication The External Database Collections SPI uses the request context object to manage authentication and authorization. HTTP authentication is not implemented. The settings object within the request context object can be used to send a key for authentication purposes. In the prototype, the secretKey property is used and used to authenticate each request. The settings object is defined in the Wix Editor when , and sent by the Wix Data backend with every request. adding the external collection Permissions for external databases Velo's built in collections include a , which you can use with your external collections as well. You can also implement your external collection's permissions model, based on how you implement your adapter. Using the members, you can set permissions based on any of the following: permissions model context object's instanceId - the Wix site making the request. installationId - the external collection defined in your site making the request. memberId - the id of the site visitor making the request. role - whether the visitor is the owner, a member or a guest. You  can also control access to your external collections based on which endpoints you implement in your adapter. See below for a description of the required and optional endpoints. The datasets on your site recognize which endpoints were implemented in the adapter. For example, if you only implement endpoints that read data, the dataset mode will be read-only. You can view a read-only version of your collection's permissions in the . Site Structure sidebar Required and optional endpoints The following endpoints are mandatory and must be implemented in your adapter. All other endpoints are optional. Find Schemas Discover the database tables  or collections that are visible to your database user. List Schemas List the details of a given list of database tables or collections. Get Item Get a specific database row or item based on the item's _id field. Find Items Get a list of items based on a filter. Count Get the number of rows or items in a table or collection. Provision Establish the connection between your site and your adapter. Working with reference fields You cannot work with in external database collections. You can only use single references in external databases, with the following implementation rules: multiple item reference fields The reference must point to an _id field. The reference field must be of type string. To allow references from other collections to the external collection the _id field needs to accept the hasSome filter. Working with dynamic pages To use Dynamic Pages with external collections at least one of the fields needs to accept the urlized filter. That field will be used for generating dynamic page links. Previously published at https://support.wix.com/en/article/velo-working-with-external-database-collections

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By simplifying the way developers deploy and manage their cloud native apps, the new platform aims to address the $300B lost annually in developer productivity Today, , announced the launch of its serverless Kubernetes platform that makes it easy for developers to deploy and manage their cloud native applications. This powerful, yet easy-to-use, platform makes product delivery teams more efficient and eliminates the complexity experienced by developers when applications are deployed on top of a self-managed Kubernetes cluster. The CTO.ai platform was created to address the estimated $300 billion* lost in developer productivity every year, much of which comes from complex modern cloud tooling. CTO.ai Software teams typically spend inordinate amounts of time and money creating their own custom workflow tools or must buy several specialized tools that need to be integrated to make managing Kubernetes easier for their developers. The CTO.ai platform eliminates this issue by enabling software developers to easily adopt Kubernetes at any stage of development, without the exponential cost of retraining, hiring, or manually building the developer workflows needed to operate Kubernetes efficiently. Startups can use the platform to host a monolith or microservice based application; enterprises can layer the platform into their own private cloud cluster using a service mesh. “Our platform is the first in the Kubernetes market to go to this length in prioritizing a complete and intuitive experience for developers that allows operations teams to still harness the full capabilities of Kubernetes. We created it so that developers can focus on actually developing applications, not operations,” said Kyle Campbell, founder and CEO of CTO.ai. “We love Kubernetes, but anyone with experience knows that it can be complex to manage and scale. Our platform addresses this by providing software teams of any size with an unmatched “PaaS-like” developer experience for their cloud native application development workflows.” The CTO.ai platform enables developers to easily manage all of their CI/CD, staging, and production systems on top of a shared Kubernetes cluster, without forcing them to manage Kubernetes directly. As deployments scale, companies have the option to offload their cost of compute to public cloud providers like AWS via the CTO.ai service mesh, which enables them to bring down their cost to scale and internalize their infrastructure operations directly. The platform also monitors delivery workflows and provides stakeholders delivery insights so they can better understand their operational cadence for estimation or planning. Insights are calculated in real time from events that happen across their workflow systems and this enables teams to measure important metrics like deployment status, velocity, and stability. The CTO.ai mission is to simplify adoption of Kubernetes for developers, enabling them to make use of world class tooling but without being forced to compete for scarce DevOps talent to do so. From startups to enterprises, development teams at all levels can benefit from the efficiencies delivered by the CTO.ai platform. It enables a consolidated strategy for delivery systems and provides data-driven insights into delivery cadence. Optimized for fast-paced product delivery, the CTO.ai platform helps startups speed time-to-market since it doesn’t require the support of hard-to-hire DevOps engineers. Enterprises can accelerate their digital transformation and lower their cost of digital teams by consolidating their delivery systems and adopting a data-driven approach to development. CTO.ai has been developing this unique platform over the past three years with support and input from the DevOps teams at venture funded startups such as Axial, TrueBill, Cedar, YellowDig, and Remine, as well as others in the DevOps community. “Having this technology available is going to make it easier to develop dev operations around new systems, and it’s definitely going to be a big advantage for us going forward,” said Zack Weheim, director of engineering at Axial. “Without CTO.ai, we would have to adopt the bare minimum tooling. Anything new would have to be written in a language our team was familiar with and we’d be running scripts manually.” Pricing and Availability Deploying the first application using the CTO.ai platform is free and includes hosting for the CI/CD pipeline, as well as GitOps and ChatOps workflows. As deployments scale, services for managed application deployments are $19 per service per month; pipelines to build, test, and release with CI/CD are $14 per service per month; and custom GitOp and SlackOps workflows are $7 per service per month. Data insights to measure delivery across all tools is $99 per team per month. Free support is available via Slack and email. The growing CTO.ai Slack community has more than 700 developers. About CTO.ai CTO.ai is a provider of developer workflow and automation tools. Founded in 2017, the company is headquartered in Vancouver, BC. Investors include Tiger Global Management and Slack Fund. More information can be found at . CTO.ai * The Developer Coefficient: https://stripe.com/en-ca/reports/developer-coefficient-2018 Also published on: https://containerjournal.com/news/news-releases/cto-ai-launches-serverless-kubernetes-platform-for-managing-cloud-native-apps/

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At SlashData, our mission is to help the world understand and support developers. In this way, we aim to contribute to evolving technology in all the ways that matter to developers and, consequently, to end-users too. are our means of doing just that. We track key trends in 13 development areas, namely Web, Mobile, Desktop, Cloud, Industrial IoT, Consumer Electronics, Embedded software, AR & VR, Apps/extensions for 3rd-party ecosystems, Games, Machine learning & AI, and Data science! The Developer Nation surveys For the areas you tell us you’re involved in we ask you which #programming languages, tools and platforms you use, how happy you are with the ones that you use (say, with your selected Cloud PaaS), and what you consider important in tools/platforms of this category (for example, scalability, ease of development, community). We ask you not just about the “how”, but also about the “what” and the “why”: why you got into development to begin with, what type of projects you’re working on, if and how you’re building a business around software development, and more. By understanding your motivations, projects, and aspirations the technology builders can design solutions that are better suited to help you achieve your goals. We also ask about your learning interests, methods, and needs. Hopefully, that will lead to learning experiences suited to your style. Last but not least, and in order to help focus efforts on the most promising technologies, we gauge interest in and measure adoption of relatively new or emerging technologies, such as fog/edge computing and self-driving cars. If you ever wanted a chance to make an impact on the developer ecosystem, now is your chance. , the 21st edition, is calling all developers, software creators and designers to join and voice their views about popular technologies, platforms, and tools across 13 different software development areas. The Developer Nation global survey Every year, more than 36,000 developers from 159+ countries take part in the survey and all the developers who take the survey can enter a prize draw for a chance to win one of the USD $16,000+ worth of prizes such as MacBook Pro, Samsung Galaxy S21+ Plus, GitKraken Pro license, Amazon vouchers and many more. Additionally, EVERY developer who will take the survey will receive a goody bag with many surprises! The survey results are published in the State of the Developer Nation, one of the leading developer trend reports. And remember, it’s not just data we give back to the community. For the past five surveys and for every qualified response that you provided us, we have been donating $0.10 to a good cause within the developer world! What are you waiting for? Take the survey . here

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Being a developer is pretty serious work. Especially considering that you have to keep track of so many projects, that everything should look good, the database queries should provide all the data needed, then the backend has to send this data to the client fast and efficiently as well. But to get to the beginning of everything, I’ll give you a brief introduction about myself. I am Vlad, an 18 years old web developer that has started his journey in the world of programming at just 14. Living in Romania, we have a certain choice when going into high school; that being the certain specialty we want to graduate with; for me, it was Math & Computer Science. We started with the more complex C++, the language chosen to learn about Data Structures, Algorithms, Efficiency, etc. Fast forward 3 years, and as I got bored and tired of the more basic DS and Algorithms, I thought to myself: “Is this really all that programming is? Just the never-ending types of data structures and algorithms?” and after that, I started looking around for some more insight into what it really is, starting into this . ‘adventure of finding the true meaning behind programming’ I quickly found about Python, which actually matched my expectations of how much mystery and awesomeness there might actually be farther than what I was studying at the time. The ‘Python Chapter’ As I became more and more amazed and got lost in the wonders of what can be actually done, I started consuming tutorial after tutorial, from simple hashing scripts to basic games using Turtle, to web scrapers, and whatever else I can find using this fascinating new tool I had in my toolbelt. It was actually at the start of the pandemic when everyone was locked up in their houses. Although everyone else I have talked to says that that was one of the worst periods they encountered, I believe that it might’ve just been the best for me, as it enlightened me with what can be done further down the road and how. As a few months went on, I started looking into more advanced concepts and things I could work on, although, being at the start of the journey in programming, I didn’t really know much about the concepts more advanced tutorials were talking about. The easier tutorials were getting boring, and the ideas behind the presented projects in them no longer fascinated me, so I started stagnating. I thought that the only door left open for me was finally closing, and I think it was until a certain point. The ‘Entry Into Web Development Chapter’ What my ‘desperation’ brought me into was what I was actually looking for in the first place; it was a platform that provided an abundance of options, project ideas, for short, everything that I could have thought of, and not only that; it was Web Development. On my adventure in the world of programming, it has happened a few times that I encountered HTML. Although I was so captivated with the possibilities of Python and what I can do with it that I never really dug into web programming, as I didn’t really think much of it; if I really think about it, I think I also believed that the web is done mostly using Python or C++ (being true for C++, as it’s what Browsers are mostly based upon, although not the pages themselves). But nonetheless, this was what brought me on the path I am on when I am writing this very blog. As I found more and more about HTML, the fact that it is what all of the internet pages are based upon, I started digging deeper and deeper into what can be done, how I can make a blank page into what other gorgeous websites look like, how I can make the popups, modals, create users, posts, etc. It has taken me a couple of months to get myself comfortable with having a UI similar to what bigger platforms have; it was demotivating at times, seeing how much I don’t know, but it didn’t stop me because I knew that after all, everything was done by humans for humans, so I kept studying and learning as much as I can to reach a level where I can develop my own good-looking and reliable websites and platforms. After the first 2 or 3 months, I believed I was finally ready to dive into the realm of the almighty JavaScript. This language was pretty similar to Python in a way due to its ease of use and reality, but pretty foreign compared to what I knew from C++, having worked with it for more than 2 and a half years at the moment. Still, I continued my path with the same mentality and motivation before jumping into Python. I have to say; it has been a very rough path looking back; seeing all the magic that could be done with JavaScript and not knowing how to apply it as well, but after 2 or 3 months further down the road implementing JavaScript into the prior websites built using only HTML and CSS, I have to say that I’m still surprised with what I was able to do. My very first complete JS project was actually a memory game packed with animated card rotation functionality, some kind of user logging, as I used some PHP as well, as I was learning it on the side, as well as some statistics and all of the magic of storing it into a MySQL database (would probably cringe looking at the backend stuff if I were to look back at it). The next projects were pretty similar as well, as I was locked for some time into making some games using JavaScript, like a Guess The Number Game with an alright interface and the functionality in place, or a rough mockup of a roll the dice game as well; but after some time I decided I have to take it to the next level, so I started searching everything I could about how Facebook was made, or how Medium, Pinterest, or how ‘insert major platform name’ was made, so that’s when I found out about React, Node.js, Express, MongoDB, Laravel, Django, Flask, and many other web frameworks based on either JavaScript or Python / PHP, which I knew a bit about. React, Node, and all the frameworks you love After getting comfortable with having a database connection, having a solid UI / UX, and making stuff work, I have taken a short break, as I wanted to know what I will be getting myself into further down the line, so I started researching what frameworks would be reliable, if I like them (In the beginning I think that it’s a good thing to do, as it will dictate a lot your perception of web development, whether or not you will give up and other details as well), so that’s how I got into the ‘mainstream’ MERN Stack. What I mostly liked about the MERN-Stack Technologies is that there is a lot of support out there for them, there are a lot of communities, groups, pages, all dedicated to React, Node/Express, or MERN in general, so I believe that for a beginner it’s a wonderful place to start, and even for more seasoned developers, don’t get me wrong, it’s great, it’s performant, it’s modern, and there is a lot of support out there, so it’s all good for more years to come. As I have been mostly working with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, it felt just right to start off with the Front-end, as I didn’t really know much of what was happening in the Back-end, so I decided to go on that road and continue my path learning React; as I first started off, I met Git, Node’s package manager — NPM, webpack, and lastly, the whole different way of doing things that frontend frameworks are using. I have to say, it took me a while to get used to this new perspective of what’s happening at a higher level of abstraction, but at this point, it started becoming a joy learning about all of these technologies and the new ways of doing things and the fascinating technologies used at this level. After I got used to the npx create-react-app and all of the files/folders included within what will be created after this command, as well as learning a bit more about all of the theoretical things that were happening under the hood from the official React website, I was on my way to bring my websites to the next level of cutting-edge. After a few days/weeks of playing around with the basic tools such as useState, useEffect, useRef, as well as the other magical keywords available from the React library, getting used to the way that Class and Functional Components worked, the inheritance, parent-children relationships between the components, studying and learning more about what State Management was in theory, what cleanup and cache were, as well as a lot of other concepts present not only in React but also JavaScript directly, I was ready to dive into some real-life practical projects hands-on; The Real Deal — Diving into the Advanced Parts Getting used to all of the things aforementioned was a tedious and hard process, but it was all I needed to get right on track with the parts that would soon follow, such as proper State Management, Data Transfer between the server and client, as well as other processes that I will talk about as well. After around a month, I was ready to get into some projects and explore the true perks of working with a framework instead of the basic vanilla JS. At this time, I was also applying to do gigs on Fiverr. Although unsuccessful in the first 2 months, I wasn’t discouraged, as I knew there was still time to learn other things whilst my proposals were out there; but what I did was, other than working with tutorial projects, to actually try and do what the Fiverr clients requests were. If I saw, for example, a project saying: I would try to actually do that, even though I hadn’t gotten the project, for the sake of checking whether or not I would even be suitable to work on such projects. “I need a website similar to the one I attached here” Due to this approach, I actually got some real-world experience, as these types of projects are what actual people would actually want to publish online and manage. It was exactly what I needed until I would get some real clients. I have to say - it wasn’t exactly easy working with such projects, as the first ones were actual platforms such as full-functionality eCommerce websites or Social Media platforms. But in the beginning, I tried my best to work on the interface and to make everything look and feel, such as the linked platforms. In the end, I would come close to replicating them frontend-wise, being one of the best things I could do, as this made me look up a lot of stuff I was either uncomfortable with or completely unaware of, which, in the end, made me learn a wide variety of things regarding the plethora of technologies related to React and npm, or styling, such as libraries like as well as , which proved to be my favorite option when it came to styling, as it provided so much flexibility and choice when it came to the UI/UX. styled-components, chakra-ui, reactstrap, scss I saved you the time of actually listing the technical details of the projects or any other insignificant details. Still, if I were to start over again, I would do the same thing over again, as I believe it was an incredible thing to do, especially in the beginning, because due to the lack of actual real projects, I could find another way into finding what websites actual clients would want to have built, and how they talk about the way they want them done. Going back As I mentioned earlier on about 2 months with no clients, that was all it took until I received my first order; it was something like 10 pm when I was checking my notifications when I saw I received a notification from a green application icon; I didn’t recognize it at first, but the moment I opened the notification and saw the Fiverr logo at the top I knew it was a client chat. There was it. My first Fiverr Order. Finally! After all the excitement of getting an actual order from an actual client, I started talking with him about what was it about; after we exchanged a few replies, I knew the project would be a bit over my skill set, but I knew that after all this time it would be a pity to refuse my first project, so I accepted it and thought to myself: , so I told him I would be able to deliver the website he needed. “It might be over what I can do at the moment, but after all, I will be able to learn along the way” Since I knew I wouldn’t be able to deliver fully with the skillset I had at the moment, the way I thought approaching the situation was to actually start with what I didn’t know, that way I can finish off the project easier, as the final part of it would be the frontend, which was my actual proficiency, working very little with backend technologies such as Node.js, Express, and MongoDB, my only knowledge back then was with PHP and MySQL, which, despite still being backend technologies, weren’t exactly Node.js, Express & MongoDB as requested in the gig, so I started consuming tutorials as much as I could in the first few days.  So I get an idea of what I have to do and the differences between what I knew and what I had to do. After some days of intense researching and studying, I was able to actually come up with a backbone for the backend, mostly inspired by one of my favorite tutorials and instructors, that being The Net Ninja, which I, at this day, consider to be a complete and efficient backend system with all the common integrations in place; system that I still use to this day, with, of course, some tweaks, to provide me with a quick headstart when working with MERN projects. Long story short, the project was a success and a pretty consistent one as well, as the website is still working with those implementations to this day, with a couple of minor tweaks I’ve recently made to it. But it was the ideal confidence boost to know I could do the job well enough for everything to be working great. What’s Next? After the success of the aforementioned project, it wasn’t long before other projects started coming in due to the client’s testimonial, which was very pleasant and positive. The rest of the projects coming for the months after were similar in difficulty, each one of them coming with their specific differences from the first one. It was mostly the stuff I knew and decided to excel in. So I didn’t have any problem fully delivering great websites/platforms from that moment on, as the confidence and skill were there to get the job done. Although I am aware that there is still a very long way to walk to become a true expert. I believe that it all comes down to the way we approach clients and projects. As for me, even if I don’t have the best skill set for the job, I am determined to learn stuff down the road and to give my best to every project, no matter how easy or hard it is. After all, the experience we offer to our clients and the way we go over the top for the client matter sometimes the most. And just one more thing before I finish regarding the last paragraph; one of my most memorable projects was for a Canadian client looking for a platform to manage custom projects, talk with clients, and have an administration interface with all the good stuff included. Although the project was taking a bit longer due to my lack of experience at the moment, the functionalities and ideas, as well as the experience I tried to offer him, proved to be great since I got to work with them at the agency on a contract, which proved to be beneficial, as not only did it give me new work opportunities, but he proved to be a great person to talk with as well, so calling him a friend at this point would be only right. All the best, Simon! The goal of this blog was to possibly motivate anyone out there not to shy away from projects they think are not ready to handle because as long as you really believe you can learn as you go, it shouldn’t be a problem. You can always discuss with the clients any shortcomings regarding either some project requirements or your skillset. This also teaches you that social skills might be a problem until you master them. Also published on Medium's subdomain .

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How I Became a Web Developer at 17

Access to comprehensive, quality healthcare services are not only central to human well-being and the development of society but also plays an important role in economic progress. The healthcare industry is also one of the fastest-growing industries in the world and is expected to reach a value of $11,908.9 billion by 2022 [ ]. Access to efficient, affordable, and scientifically progressive healthcare is one of the key necessities of modern life, affecting everyone on a global basis. 1 During the last half of the 20th century, many countries have moved on to introduce nationwide healthcare systems, both via public and private channels which have improved health standards across the globe. The introduction of electronic health record (EHR) systems enabled the digitization of health data and was the first step towards more efficient healthcare systems. However, the industry is still characterized as cumbersome and opaque, mostly due to an inefficient and outdated infrastructure. In this context, can have a significant impact, assisting all stakeholders, across the entire healthcare spectrum, including patients, practitioners, pharmaceuticals, insurers, and medical equipment producers in solving the existing challenges in the healthcare industry. Nearly all functions across the healthcare value chain are in a prime position to benefit from blockchain technology. blockchain technology Challenges in Health Care The introduction of electronic health record (EHR) management systems has certainly improved the quality of healthcare through the digitization of health data. However, EHRs in their current form are criticized due to potential privacy and security issues, and often provide inaccurate information [ ]. Other important concerns regarding EHRs include data manipulation, delayed communication, and trustless cooperation in data collection, storage, and distribution [ ]. 2 3 Despite the existence of EHRs, which do facilitate data sharing to some extent, it is evident there is a clear lack of interoperability between health information systems. The EHR system of a patient's provider might be different from the EHR system of another of its providers. Hence, this results in knowledge and data still being kept siloed and separated. According to a survey by Black Book, 70% of hospitals are not using data outside their own EHR system [ ]. In the current scenario, it remains difficult to share patient data between various actors within the healthcare industry, affecting treatment and medical research. 4 Healthcare professionals often lack access to all of the patient’s relevant information or need significant time to gain access to it. These delays have large impacts on the quality of treatment and care. In the best-case scenario, patients are engaged in costly and time-consuming redundant medical care, such as undergoing the same procedure several times. However, in the case of emergencies, not having direct access to all medical records of information can lead to improper treatment and mistakes, as prior conditions or allergies might not be detected. According to a study published by Johns Hopkins University, every year over 250,000 people die due to medical errors, which is also the third leading cause of death in the U.S. [ ]. A significant amount of these mortalities could certainly be avoided by having full visibility of the patient’s medical history and other relevant data. 5 An emerging problem within the healthcare sector is that of counterfeit and illicit drugs. The circulation of fake and non-approved medicine can compromise the safety and the treatment of patients and can prove fatal in the worst cases. The BBC reported that around 250,000 children a year die due to fake drugs [ ] and “falsified and substandard medicines” have already been classified as one of the urgent health challenges by the WHO [ ]. 6 7 Moreover, it causes losses in revenue for pharmaceutical companies and has a significant effect on growth and jobs in the industry [ ]. In addition, just in the EU alone, IPR infringements caused a loss of 16.5 billion from 2012 to 2016 in the healthcare sector. 8 The existence of accurate patient data and records is crucial for the provision of care and is an integral part of the healthcare system. Therefore, secure and efficient storage of medical data is essential. Unfortunately, due to the many isolated systems that exist in the healthcare industry, the administration of patients and record-keeping can be quite complicated. Furthermore, over recent years, medical data has become an interesting target for hacking attacks. Data breaches in healthcare are not only the costliest in comparison to those in other industries, but have also recorded the largest increase over the past years [ ]. According to the Proenus Barometer, 41.4 million patient records were compromised in 2019, and the number of hacking attacks targeted towards healthcare services increased by 49% [ ]. 9 10 Benefits for Enterprises & Individuals Blockchain technology can have a significant impact in solving these challenges, as it has the ability to benefit enterprises as well as individuals in many aspects. The key characteristics of blockchain technology, decentralization, and immutability, play a primary role in this context. Decentralization means that data stored on the blockchain is visible to everyone, and immutability refers to the fact that this data cannot be tampered with or changed by an individual. These very important features lay the foundation for efficiency, security, and accessibility in areas that have never been attainable previously in the healthcare industry, from managing patient data to tracking drugs through the supply chain. Blockchain technology can benefit virtually all functionalities across the healthcare value chain. Blockchain enables a secure sharing of medical data Blockchain technology can make healthcare information systems more interoperable and accessible by establishing a secure method to share data between healthcare providers. Records of patients can be stored securely on a permissioned blockchain and be made accessible for all relevant healthcare providers. Blockchain gives patients control over their data On a medical data blockchain, as described above, patients would have full control over their data. While healthcare providers are able to update and add more information to a patient's records, the patients themselves can decide who has access to their data. Having people in control over their own health data would be an important and unprecedented new change, as it is currently very difficult to access one’s own data. Blockchain prevents medical errors By allowing practitioners easy access to patients' records via medical data blockchain, blockchain technology can help avoid medical errors caused by missing information. In critical situations, practitioners are able to see all diagnosed preconditions, allergies, and personal information immediately, and furthermore can have access to prior treatments, which can assist them in prescribing the right treatment. Blockchain deters counterfeited and illicit drugs Blockchain technologies' decentral and immutable nature enables the tracing of medicine from its production to its reception by the patient. This allows patients, practitioners, and companies to identify the source and originality of the drugs, which prevents counterfeit and fraudulent products. As a result, the monetary losses related to counterfeit drugs and medicine decrease, whilst simultaneously preventing the negative consequences that can be caused by the use of fraudulent drugs. Blockchain increases data security in healthcare Blockchain technology makes the storage of medical data more secure and reduces the risk of data fraud. The decentral and immutable characteristics of blockchain technology, together with smart contracts and custom transactions, provide the perfect foundation for developing a blockchain-based solution to store data that can not be changed or tampered with, and which malicious hackers cannot threaten to delete. Blockchain can reduce healthcare costs Blockchain technology can help reduce the cost in various areas of the healthcare industry and is expected to save up to $100 billion annually by 2025 according to a study published by Bisresearch [ ]. 11 Blockchain technology can prevent data breaches, reduce the number of redundant treatments, and medical mistakes through more accessibility. In addition, blockchain offers the possibility to store medical data more efficiently, automate payments and transactions and can reduce losses caused by counterfeit drugs. A more specific example of how blockchain can reduce costs are clinician credentialing, which often involves a month-long process. By facilitating this process on a blockchain, clinician credentialing can become shorter and more efficient, as credentials do not have to be verified by many stakeholders but can instead be verified immediately. According to JP Morgan, blockchain technology can reduce the costs and time invested in this process by 80 percent [ ]. 12 Blockchain improves medical research. Blockchain technology enables better knowledge transfer between medical researchers and can provide healthcare organizations and governments with more accurate data about the health of their citizens. Blockchain Technology Applied Enterprises, as well as governments, have already recognized the impact that blockchain technology can have on the healthcare industry. Start-ups as well as larger healthcare organizations are experimenting with blockchain technology. Some of the most well-known use cases of blockchain technology in healthcare are those covering the prescription tracking of drugs, clinical trial management, data sharing through telemedicine sharing, creation of cancer registries, digital identity patient management system, and the evaluation of health insurance claims. World Health Organization - Tokenization of Real Estate [ 13 ] The World Health Organization (WHO), has partnered with many collaborators, including Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle to create a blockchain-based data-sharing platform in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. The goal is to establish more secure and verifiable data sharing between individuals, state authorities, and health institutions to combat the recent ongoing outbreak. MiPasa is the name of this multi-party, multi-source verifiable data-sharing platform and allows the uploading and sharing of data about COVID-19 infections. It is “designed to make it possible to synthesize data sources, address their inconsistencies, help identify errors or misreporting, and seamlessly integrate credible new feeds” [ ]. With MiPasa it might become easier to monitor and foresee epidemiological trends, locally as well as globally. 14 Benefits of the Initiative: Verifiable data sharing More high-quality data available Healthcare Blockchain Applications Built with Lisk Healthcare enterprises can benefit greatly from exploring the potential of blockchain technology. Lisk provides the tools to experiment with this technology and to develop proof of concept blockchain applications to solve challenges in healthcare. The ‘ ’ is a proof of concept blockchain application built with the Lisk SDK and enables the secure and decentral storage of scientific measurements. Global Data Chain Although it is not particularly focused on healthcare, it could easily function as a patient's health data registry. The Global Data Chain illustrates the already existing possibilities to develop proof of concept blockchain applications for healthcare use cases. 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Chainlink is a crypto oracle network introduced in 2017 to provide oracle solutions to the crypto and Defi world. Oracles are tools designed to provide data feeds from the non-blockchain world(off-chain) to the blockchain and smart contract world(on-chain). Although there are multiple platforms offering oracle services, the most popular one is . Among the reasons crypto and Defi projects prefer Chainlink include quality data, complete decentralization, security, and a good reputation. This guide will look into how some Defi projects leverage this network to provide services. Chainlink Aave is one of the top Defi platforms to interact with Chainlink in service provision. By definition, Aave is a Defi borrowing and lending platform. There is a need to get price feeds on the prevailing rates in the market or other parallel blockchains. Aave is an Ethereum based platform that can only easily access data that is on the Ethereum blockchain. Aave Aave partnered with Chainlink, where it can benefit from the oracle capabilities provided by the network. In addition, the platform gets Chainlink price feeds, which have been collected from different blockchains and exchanges. Therefore, Aave became the first lending platform to start leveraging off-chain data to predict lending rates. As a result, borrowers and lenders in the network benefit from the market standardized lending and borrowing rates, which are possible because of the oracle network. Defi Yield Protocol is an Ethereum based Defi platform designed to provide users with ample income-earning opportunities. DYP is the pioneer platform that allows users to provide liquidity and earn rewards in BNB and ETH. Since its launch in 2020, DYP has made excellent steps towards the achievements of a reliable network since its launch. Defi yield protocol A significant step by DYP is the partnership with the Chainlink network. Primarily, all the services offered by DYP rely on quality data and information. However, since DYP is only currently connected to ETH and BNB, it lacks access to a world of other chains and off-chain data from markets. DYP's interaction with Chainlink will help in providing excellent price feeds for ETH-USD and BNB-USD pairs. According to their medium page, DYP will, in the future, ensure that all the staking and farming vaults have access to the Chainlink price feed solutions. The decision to use Chainlink is because of the platform's reliable oracle solutions and infrastructure designed for security. Synthetix is another Defi platform connected to Chainlink. The Synthetix network is a platform designed to bring crypto and some non-crypto assets to the blockchain world. Among the non-blockchain assets include stocks, which once introduced, are changed into blockchain transferable assets called synths. Synthetix Synthetix partnered with Chainlink to benefit from the data collected by Chainlinks oracle. For instance, Synthetic as a blockchain network is not fully capable of accessing market data on shares and other assets in the financial markets. Therefore, the platform needed to chainlinks price feeds on the latest in the financial markets. The Synthetix exchange platform benefits from the partnership since the exchange of Synths is based on real-time data feeds. Furthermore, by integrating with Chainlink, Synthetix provides further decentralization of its services. bZx Another Defi platform that has vastly benefited from its integration with Chainlink is the protocol. It has two products, namely Torque and Fulcrum. Torque allows users to borrow assets but with policies like fixed interest rates and indefinite term loans. Fulcrum is a lending and margin trading tool. bZx A platform requires a reliable data source to provide services more efficiently. Therefore, bZx integrated with Chainlink to benefit from the platform's oracle capabilities by accessing tamper-proof data or high quality. Chainlink helps the bZx network with price feeds that are invulnerable to API failures. Even more, bZx launched a tool called polygon in a mission to expand the vastness of Chainlink price feeds. Ampleforth is another Defi network that leverages Chainlink and its oracles to ensure it provides highly efficient services. In addition, this network offers an elastic supply for a digital asset, thus reducing price volatility by creating supply volatility. Ampleforth Ampleforth's currency, AMPL, benefits highly from the set policies since it maintains long-term price stability. AMPL supply increases when the prices go up and are reduced when the prices lower; thus, AMPL will be a stable asset in the long run. The integration of Chainlink oracles has vastly helped the Ampleforth network decentralize its services, offering them efficiency. By collecting data using the oracle data feeds, Ampleforth will quickly reduce the number of tokens held by each user and protect the average price. Final Word Chainlink is currently one of the most trusted oracle networks, providing services for many platforms in the Defi world. There are lending platforms like Aave and bZx, which leverage oracles to collect the best lending rates in the markets. Synthetix network leverages the chainlink oracles to collect data about synthetic assets in the platform. Ampleforth uses the oracles to collect price feeds that maintain the AMPL and remain decentralized. Since DYP just recently with Chainlink, the users will enjoy getting efficient services in the network. DYP plans to in future ensure all pools and vaults enjoy the Chainlink oracle reach. Chainlink also works with several other Defi platforms for efficiency purposes. interacted

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Hyperthreading is Intel’s proprietary technology where a single processor-core can work on not one, but multiple, sequences of instructions in parallel. It is a hardware-level feature done by efficiently dividing the tasks by the processor so it can execute multiple threads simultaneously in each core. In other words, hyperthreading will create logical/virtual cores for the operating system. So a quad-core will be perceived as an 8 core processor by the operating system. Each core can independently interrupt or execute the instructions. Hyperthreading can efficiently divide a physical into two logical cores by the time of writing, and the processing is performed on two threads at the same time. However, hyperthreading is only beneficial for performing certain tasks. Image: Intel Hyperthreading vs Multithreading vs Multitasking vs Multicore introduced hyperthreading back in 2002 but it has recently gained popularity because of the changing demands of customers. High-end processors like Intel i9 and Xeon are so fast that they have ample idle time when they are doing nothing but waiting for the next set of instructions. Intel Think about a warehouse, where a lifter needs 2 minutes to pick up and drop packages to the conveyor belt. On the other hand, the receiver needs 1 minute to pick up the goods and send them off. The receiver sits idle for 1 minute until the next package arrives. The idle time could be reduced if we double the number of lifters. The modern processors are sometimes even faster than an OS can perform a context switch, increasing idle time of cores. With cores becoming more efficient they can do more. That is why the idea of a further level of split in the shape of hyperthreading has become a need. By adding logical cores the idle time of a core could be reduced. Hyperthreading under the hood are hardware threads, and the goal is to increase performance of the CPU by reducing waste time. In the case of multithreading, which is done at software level, multiple sequences of instructions are given to the CPU to process. With multithreading capabilities, modern operating systems can provide multitasking experiences to the users at the software level. Here, it is important to know that we perceive multitasking on a computer as our processor performing multiple tasks at the same time, like running multiple Chrome tabs with VLC playing in the background. However, it is actually the processor jumping between all the tasks so quickly that it feels like it is performing them at the same time. So a single-core processor can provide multithreading and multitasking if the operating system allows just like a multi-core processor. Furthermore, for a processor to not get blocked on a one big task, the operating system takes the responsibility to split tasks into multiple subtasks and feed them as instructions in a timely fashion known as . context switching An operating system, aka OS, can create threads at OS level, regardless if the hardware is single-core, multicore or hyperthreaded. At the hardware level to improve the multithreading experience, chipmakers have added more cores, which can execute multiple instructions in parallel on different cores. A multi-core processor like quad-core can simultaneously perform 4x processing in general than a single-core processor - many other factors can affect the actual performance. With hyperthreading, the OS would see 8 logical cores but in actual the power will stay at 4x. How can I benefit from it? It is not straightforward to define who benefits from hyperthreading because when it divides the power of a core for two tasks, it certainly slows down the speed for one. It is not very useful if you are someone who has everyday tasks relying on basic single-threaded apps. If you are a streamer or a multitasker, then hyperthreading is a huge plus for you. that hyperthreading increases CPU throughput by up to 30%. Intel claims Some processes that require multiple threads to run at the same time include 3D rendering, video encoding, photo manipulation, etc. These are some highly professional tasks therefore performed on stronger systems with an i7 processor or better. Therefore, hyperthreading is beneficial if done on such a strong system. Intel is now supporting hyperthreading technology for the latest , the , the , and the . Intel Core vPro processors Intel Core processors Intel Core M processors Intel Xeon processors Should I choose Hyperthreading over more Cores? The number of cores in your CPU defines the hardware processing power of the system. You should always prioritize having more cores in your system instead of the option for hyperthreading. However, if you are stuck between two systems with the same number of cores but only one of them offers hyperthreading, then go with the one that does offer hyperthreading. The Intel Core i9 processor offers hyperthreading and it is one of the fastest processors to do so. Hyperthreading is a technology that only benefits people in a specific domain. Intel also maintains a of hyperthreading supported processors. list Traditionally, gamers and video editors used to increase the clock speeds that could make the processor execute more instructions in a given time. But as we now have high frequency and multiple cores, hyperthreading can process a much larger set of data. A hyperthreaded computer can handle a live Twitch broadcast and a multi-player online game simultaneously better than a non-hyperthreaded processor. Hyperthreading: How to enable or disable it? It’s a hardware-level feature so you cannot do much from the OS or some app. In order to access the option for switching the hyperthreading on or off on your PC, you need to enter the BIOS settings. BIOS refers to the Basic Input/Output System, a set of settings where you can work on connections of physical components. To access the BIOS settings, start your system you’ll find the option to enter your BIOS settings by pressing the F2, F11, Del, Esc, or any other button, it may vary depending on the manufacturer like Lenovo, HP, or Dell. The key name is often displayed during the boot process. Once you have entered your BIOS settings you will now find a menu with a lot of options. In this menu choose the option that says “Processors” and in that toggle “Hyper-Threading” to Enable or Disable using arrow keys. A dialog box will open up offering you to turn hyperthreading on or off. 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"Why is nobody reviewing my code?" I often witness new engineers (or even seasoned engineers new to the company) submit code reviews that end up sitting idle, gaining zero traction. Often, these code reviews get published but comments never flow in, leaving the developer left scratching their head, wondering why nobody seems to be taking a look. To help avoid this situation, check out the 3 tips below for more effective code reviews. 3 tips for more effective code reviews Try out the three tips for more effective code reviews. In short, you should: Assume nobody cares Strive for bite sized changes Add a descriptive change summary 1. Assume nobody cares After you hit the publish button, don’t expect other developers to flock to your code review. In fact, it’s safe to I know, that sounds a bit harsh but as Neil Strauss suggests: assume that nobody cares. "Your challenge is to assume — to count on — the completely apathy of the reader. And from there, make them interested.” At some point in our careers, we all fall into this trap. We send out a review, one that lacks a clear description (see section below “Add a descriptive summary”) and then the code review would sometimes sits there, patiently waiting for someone to sprinkle comments. Sometimes, those comments never come. Okay, it’s not that people don’t necessary care. It has more to do with the fact people are busy, with their own tasks and deliverable. They too are writing code that they are trying to ship. So your code review essentially pulls them away from delivering their own work. So, make it as easy as possible for them to review. One way to do gain their attention is simply by giving them a heads up. Before publishing your code review, send them an instant message or e-mail, giving them a heads up. Or if you are having a meeting with that person, tell them that you plan on sending out a code review and ask them if they can take a look at the code review. This puts your code review on their radars. And if you don’t see traction in an appropriate (which varies, depending on change and criticality), then follow up with them. 2. Strive for bite sized code reviews Anything change beyond than 100-200 lines of code requires a significant amount of mental energy (unless the change itself is a trivial updates to comments or formatting). So how can you make it easier for your reviewer? Aim for small, bite sized code reviews. In my experience, a good rule of them is submit less than 100 lines of code. What if there’s no way your change can squeeze into double digits? Then consider breaking down the single code review into multiple, smaller sized code reviews and once all those independent code reviews are approved, submit a single code review that merges all those changes in atomically. And if you still cannot break down a large code review into these lengths and find that it’s unavoidable to submit a large code review, then make sure you (I’ll create a separate blog post for this). schedule a 15-30 minute meeting to discuss your large code review 3. Add a descriptive change summary I’m not suggesting you write a miniature novel when adding a description to your code review. But you’ll definitely need to write something with more substance than a one-liner: “Adds new module”. Rob Pike put’s it succinctly and his criteria for a good description includes “What, why, and background”. Good example of descriptive change summary from the IntelDPDK code base In addition to adding this criteria, be sure to describe how you tested your code — or, better yet, ship your code review with unit tests. Brownie points if you explicitly call out what is . Limiting your scope reduces the possibility of unnecessary back-and-forth comments for a change that falls outside your scope. out of scope Finally, if you want some stricter guidelines on how to write a good commit message, you might want to check out Kabir Nazir’s blog post on “How to write good commit messages.” Summary If you are having trouble with getting traction on your code reviews, try the above tips. Remember, it’s on , the submitter of the code review, to make it as easy as possible for your reviews to leave comments (and approve). you

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This is the first in a series of blog posts in which we outline the benefits of TDD for your organization and what are the projects to consider while adopting this agile process. Test-Driven Development essentially lets the testing process drive the development and design of your application. This incorporates acceptance tests, functional tests, and unit tests. It leads you to create very different kinds of tests that tend to be more resilient to change in the future because you’re verifying behaviors rather than testing pieces of code. If you are asking why TDD, we will just say that “it’s the easiest way to get both good test coverage and good quality code, which leads to 40%-80% fewer bugs in production”. Wouldn’t it be better to write the code in a manner where a bug can be spotted immediately and not after the production stage? If this sounds good to you, let’s go to the next step. How do you successfully roll out TDD in your organization with the right team? We’ll explore this here, as well as share some important insights on TDD. What Are The Expected Benefits of TDD? It helps to understand how the code will interact with other modules and will be used. It results in more maintainable code and better design decisions. Better designed, extensible, and cleaner code: It helps in writing smaller code having single responsibility rather than monolithic procedures with multiple responsibilities. This makes the code simpler to understand. TDD allows problems to be detected as early as possible, which has the effect of reducing the number of bugs. De facto, the technical debt is better controlled with a reusable, maintainable, and flexible code that allows the addition of new functionalities and reduces time to repair. Reduced Scrap work and Time to Repair: Developers get quick alerts when a code change introduces a bug, and TDD’s tight feedback loop quickly notifies them when it’s fixed. Eliminates fear of change: It provides better code coverage than writing tests after the fact. Because we create code to make a specific test pass, code coverage will be close to 100%. Better code coverage: Without TDD, developers are supposed to manually test each change to make sure that it works. With TDD, unit tests can run on-change automatically, allowing faster-debugging sessions and feedback during development. Faster developer feedback loop: Common Pitfalls of TDD While TDD generally results in higher-quality code, it is often a time-consuming process. But at the same time creating and maintaining a test suite, in addition to the software itself, is a significant investment. Time-Intensive: Many teams have seen significant reductions in defect rates, at the cost of a moderate increase in the initial development effort. The TDD process involves a great deal of overhead in the form of unit tests. Poor choices of testing, design, or architecture strategy at the early stage can be difficult to recover later in the project. Hence, it becomes difficult or impossible to make changes in the codebase without making dozens or hundreds of existing tests fail. Increased Overhead: Whereas, businesses that prefer to invest time in manual QA, or the ones that lack the technical resources to implement unit tests, are not the ideal candidates for TDD. Choosing projects for TDD Existing Project (Legacy code) And New Projects A common TDD implementation problem rears its ugly head when an organization has inherited a system that wasn’t built with testability in mind. In such scenarios, questions arise like — Should the code be refactored? If so, how much refactoring is important to start practicing TDD in an achievable, and meaningful way? So, if the legacy code is already out there and working, the risk associated with the technical debt is low relative to the risk of new untested work. By applying TDD to the new code you’re writing, i.e., making changes in the existing code, you minimize the risk as well as don’t increase the technical debt. Microservices Microservice-based architectures have far more complexities and dependencies than traditional application stacks. Creating tests for microservices-based applications and other complex architectures can be difficult due to the requirement for advanced stubbing and mocking. A microservice-based architecture, however, presents the opportunity to leverage TDD best practices in a very efficient way. The TDD pragmatist approach becomes very useful when you think about treating the microservice as the unit, rather than the compilation unit. Who should use it? Most organizations simply do not have enough developers or time to cover all of their use-cases. This is especially true for enterprises that have a mix of skills and roles contributing to their projects. Leveraging TDD helps address the issue of limited technical resources by defining tests against the contract. With this approach, stakeholders, business analysts, testers, and other non-developer resources together can contribute to the TDD testing efforts since the Requirement Gathering phase. Conclusion: TDD is a process that helps you start development projects with a healthy base of tests to ensure software quality throughout the development lifecycle. It helps you to produce maintainable, testable, and efficient code. But real-world conditions do not always make TDD adoption easy. It depends totally on your product requirement and can be made easier with the kind of team you have onboard. to know more about the development process and how we can help you to build and launch your application. Contact us In Part Two , we enumerated the skills and factors to consider while picking the best team. And we highlighted the right questions to ask the team to ensure how your requirements will be met w.r.t. the project. Originally Published - https://blog.galaxyweblinks.com/test-driven-development-tdd-how-to-choose-the-right-team-to-drive-tdd-part-1/

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