Fantasy football analyst Chris Allen breaks down some key storylines we have to see develop in Week 8.

Fantasy Football storylines to watch in Week 8: Does Marvin Harrison Jr. really have a Kyler Murray problem? - Yahoo Sports

Fantasy football analyst Dalton Del Don delivers his game-by-game recap for Week 5.

Week 5 Wrap: Should fantasy football managers be worried about Marvin Harrison Jr.? - Yahoo Sports

The big-name rookie receivers of the 2024 NFL Draft showed out in a big way in Week 2. Fantasy football analyst Tera Roberts analyzes their performances.

Fantasy Football Week 2 Pulse Check: Marvin Harrison Jr., Malik Nabers deliver monstrous bounce-backs - Yahoo Sports

Fantasy football analyst Dalton Del Don gauges the panic level of some big-name players who disappointed in Week 1.

Fantasy Football Panic Meter: Is it already time to worry about Marvin Harrison Jr.? - Yahoo Sports

Marvin

marvin

Hey Hackers! I’m Marvin Kweyu and I’m a software engineer, nominated for the 2022 Noonies Award. A huge thanks to the HackerNoon community and staff for considering me worthy of this opportunity. I’ve been nominated in the following categories and if you like my writing, please do check out these award pages and vote for me: : HackerNoon Contributor of the Year- PROJECT-MANAGEMENT Leaderboard : HackerNoon Contributor of the Year- SOFTWARE-ARCHITECTURE Leaderboard As a tech writer, I believe that the most exciting technology of the present is 1 + 1 because we all need the fundamentals. Learn more about my thoughts and opinions on software engineering and my journey in the tech industry via the interview below 1. Tell us about your journey. What do you do and what do you love about it? Well, I guess it’s obvious at this point; I write code and stay weird. Hahaha. I’m kidding. Or am I? I curate experiences for the web. Whether it’s an experience from a black shell, or from your favourite browser. What I like about my career in software engineering are the paces I walk before a random bulb pops up in my head. Another side project you might say? Well, yes, but also no. I might just have a different way of solving something that has been bugging me or might as well have come up with an automation script for my personal use, or yes indeed, added something to my product hunt page. Most of it  comes as a side effect of a lot of daydreaming. 2. Tell us more about your work. What do you make/write/manage/build? Other than the endless stream of side projects and careful accidents, I am a lover of the open source community. While some of my projects are still closed-source, I may join a team of developers randomly online all because a guy was strange enough to create a site for his own wedding invitation. A whole project with tests and all. Hi Adrian! I may even go back and work on my development community organisation and or make a review. I am following a number of these and mostly go there to read code. 3. How did you start writing? What made you choose HackerNoon for publishing your work? It boils down to the community in the end; the opportunity to interact with like-minded individuals with a goal in mind. After a while of reading from some of these incredible contributors, I realised I had more to say than the comment sections had to hold. You can say I took a dive. Building, writing, learning and engaging with these very people I looked up to and sat beside. Yes, I would do it all over again. 4. What excites you in tech? Tell us about your favorite technology and why you are passionate about it. The most exciting thing for me is evolution. I’m a techie, but I am more grounded in the fundamental principles than I am about the up and new. In the end, I have found that they form a firm footing upon which anything else can follow. To echo a wise sage in my circle: ‘Treat it  like an art‘; evolve and grow with it. 5. What were some of the challenges you faced being a tech writer and how did you overcome them? Research my fellow readers. Research. I do not go bland. I come back after escapades of reading through, experimenting and making sure that it is feasible. Because this is a process, I have found that it takes time. To anyone out there, I might suggest that you start off small, start with a simple project, product or implementation based on what angle or direction you want to head in with your writing. 6. What are you learning/reading currently? Any recommendations for our readers? I’m reading about sand. Who would have thought? It’s all soil for now. Well, that and a little algorithm and architecture here and there. 7. What is your biggest achievement so far? I’d say, looking at software engineering with different limelight. Building for me is fine and all but what really counts is what societal impact my creation goes on to enable.  Listening to how someone uses a product I created a while back to solve a rather unique problem for them is my win. Sometimes, you, the creator had not even realized you could have done that. Strange, huh? To add to this, I have had really interesting conversations with my readers over time. They span from curious inquiries that lead to more inquiries to project collaborations. Now those, are nice. 8. If we gave you 10 million dollars to invest in something today, what would you invest in and why? Uhhh, do you have it right now? I want it. No. I’m not going t mention NFT or web3. I would channel it to a merger of mental health and technology; This is for my own cause. Another avenue I would go for is agritech. No matter how advanced a civilization is, you will always need food. The only way this happens is if it actually exists and our advancements actually make the process more seamless. 9. What advice would you give to someone just starting in this field? It takes time. Anyone who has done it knows this. Not only will it be time-consuming, but also energy-consuming as well. Remember to have a firm foundation with your algorithms if you are into software development. Give it not only the hours but also the intensity it deserves; consistent, undivided attention. x As a plus to this, remember that things fail every time. Things break. Be kind to yourself on this path. Remember that this is a marathon. Have enough breaks in order to get there and see the creations you make come to light. 10. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? Go sleep. I’m not even kidding. Rather than expending your energy feeling miserable on a challenging item that does not seem to budge, you would rather use that time to sleep. Let your neurons recover. Like any muscle, they get tired. The same way your brawny arm muscles need time to recover after 3 hours of boxing is the same way your neurons need time to relax and connect the new nodes. Any final comments? Watch out for the next publication on Software architecture. This series is going to take us into a dive. And ohh, yeah, go forth and vote! Project Management Software Architecture

How I Curate Experiences For the Web - Interview with Noonies Nominee Marvin Kweyu

Kicking off from , we create our project boilerplate; assuming you have the vue-cli already installed. Right on, our A guide to better predictable code awesome-todo vue create awesome-todo We manually select our project setup. Using Vue-2, allowing the , as well as along with the defaults selected. We select when it comes to our unit testing solution as well and store the configuration in our package.json file. Are you ready? Good, let's get on to the next step. router vuex unit testing jest For purposes of this guide, we'll use bootstrap; particularly, bootstrap-vue. Let's shorten those CSS classes. npm install bootstrap-vue In your file, add the necessary configurations. main.js { BootstrapVue, BootstrapVueIcons } Vue.use(BootstrapVue)
Vue.use(BootstrapVueIcons) import from 'bootstrap-vue' import 'bootstrap/dist/css/bootstrap.css' import 'bootstrap-vue/dist/bootstrap-vue.css' Spot on! On the home/ landing page of our application, we want a welcome message displayed. For our case; ' ' Welcome to TheGreenCodes awesome to-do list First of all, though, we test. As I said, we think before we implement. We think of the feature we want to implement before actually implementing it. We then write tests for this feature, to avoid the addiction cheat trap where we say we'll write a test after then never actually get to it. Create a file under the directory in the folder. home.spec.js unit tests Notice how we name the file. Our test runner will look for javascript files with the keyword, through the project, under this directory. Now copy the following code snippet below. spec { shallowMount } Home describe( , () => { it( , () => { welcomeMessage = wrapper = shallowMount(Home)
    expect(wrapper.text()).toMatch(welcomeMessage)
  })
}) import from '@vue/test-utils' import from '@/views/Home.vue' // what componet are the tests referring to 'Home.vue' // what feature or spec are we targetting specifically 'Displays a welcome message' const 'Welcome to TheGreenCodes awesome to-do list' const To run this as well as consecutive tests: npm run : unit test Our test fails; rather horribly. Reading the shell, you see: expect(received).toMatch(expected)

    Expected substring: Received string: "Welcome to TheGreenCodes awesome to-do list" "" We gave it a variable with the message to expect in the component . What we know for certain, however, is that we haven't even touched that component, hence the failure. Head over to the Home component under views, remove the HelloWorld import and add an tag with our welcome message. Re-run this test and see the difference. Home h2 Before we get any further, we should explain what the elements in our Home test mean. As we have made use of comments, we shall describe target areas: wrapper = shallowMount(Home) const We create a variable , , that holds our component. How we do this you ask? We import from Vue test utils. Just like the default component life-cycle hooks, our component is initialized, only this time, since we specified we wanted a shallow mount, any child component within this parent component is not included. wrapper shallowMount We then ask the question: 'Hey! Is there any mention of our title from within this component?' To which the suite complies with a yes or no depending on what we have. We expect this component to have text, not only text but that which matches our welcome message. Behold! We have done the foundation building block of a test; tests must fail, tests must pass and the code must be refactored. We break this statement down: Tests must fail Our feature has not been implemented yet, so why on earth would we expect a test to pass? Test must pass Hey Marv, I wrote down that cool little feature. What next? Simple; the test must pass. The test whose feature we just wrote should pass. Code must be refactored When the same piece of code is edited later, does the code still pass? Can this component or code be edited and still let the test pass gracefully? Do we get the 'It broke everything else!' exclamation? Tests must fail, tests must pass and the code must be refactored. We could go further with this test and specify what element we wanted to have the title: titleFound = wrapper.find( )
    expect(titleFound.text()).toMatch(welcomeMessage) const 'h2' You get the same result. Ignore the warning for UI element registration, in case you are already using it within your code, for now, we'll fix this in a while. Let's not just make our application, but let's make a great UI. Adjust your code to look as below: Home component Welcome to TheGreenCodes awesome to-do list < > template < = > div class "home" < > h2 </ > h2 < = > div class "container" < = > b-card class "list-container" </ > b-card </ > div </ > div </ > template < > script { : , : {
  } export default name 'Home' components </ > script < > style scoped { : ;
} .list-container max-width 170% </ > style Refactor the routes: (This would mean another component under views with the name `Completed`) { : ,
    name: ,
    component: () => (/* webpackChunkName: */ ) path '/completed' 'Completed' import "about" '../views/Completed.vue' Our application entry component would also have a link to the completed. section, either as a replacement to the about page or an add-on Completed < = > router-link to "/completed" </ > router-link In the end, we should have something similar to this: We have a basic layout up, and a first taste of what testing involves. To dive or not to dive is the question I pose to you. Hush for a moment and let it settle. We will proceed with our application in an upcoming article. Be sure to check the code, if need be, from repo. Specifically, the project tag . TheGreenCodes awesome-todo v0.1.0 Stick around for a while as we delve more into the internals; and yes, we can continue this conversation on tech twitter, where Potato, oh, my bad, and I, , talk everything between code and smelling flowers over the weekends. Larry Marvin Peace out. A small laugh, in case Lewis , finds himself here again: 'Kuingia kimahuru'  - which means, at least for us, going in without tests. Also published on: https://thegreencodes.com/vue-unit-testing-tests-must-fail

An Example of True Test Driven Development in Vue

A moment of reflection dear dev, dear engineer, and dear LANister. A brief reminder that yes, we are here, and yes we are alive. We made it to this day! What a joy! Ohh, hey Kelvin! Let's talk about our mental health today. A little sanity in all the chaos of whatever bugs, errors, and painful hours we might have had to this moment. Often than not, the life of a developer revolves around getting up, throwing laundry on the bed, coding, letting the laundry hug the seat once more, and sleeping. We've been here once or twice. Do this often, and we know what happens. It's exhausting, draining, and demotivating. In as much as we strive to perfect the skill, or do one more ' , the natural order of things is to let things settle in. if fail print success! To allow your body to absorb that new way of doing what you've just got a Eureka for. So code, perfect, and learn, but get out as well. The trick? Learn one thing then move to the next. One step at a time. One side project (to completion damn it) at a time, one breaking change at a time and one small commit at a  time. Beginner or advanced, give it time but make it quality time. Shred some or leave some, may the force be with you. So if I am taking on three projects for a weekend, does this work? Or does this end up with multiple shitty lines of code on the last one and most probably a burn out early Monday morning when I am actually supposed to get something done? What works for you? Will this motivate you or leave you dreading code for a couple of days? At the end of this road - up for interpretation-, will you say, ' ' (that you might have thrown away and moved on to the next unfinished side project) Ahhh... I remember the beautiful algorithm back when I was xx years or will you say ' '. I made this one project that was quite challenging. I met this random person that helped me while out on a trip that weekend One thing at a time! Got a bug? Get out of the chair and take a walk, have a breather instead of glaring into the bottomless pit of red - error lines. Builds fail all the time. You looking at the error message printing 'failed to build' for three hours will not make it magically disappear. It might, however, go away while taking an impromptu coffee break with a friend or two - and you'll go ' '. ahh... why didn't I think of it?! It was right there! We know it was right there. It was taking coffee with you. A thought just came by when your mind was not applying pressure to one part of the brain. Avoid, if you can, long eternal coding sessions followed by an even longer break - can take days, weeks, or even months - of body unrest resulting from pushing yourself too hard during which you forget 90% of whatever it is you worked so hard on. Prioritize, consistency over intensity. No bug will go solved if the person looking for it is not okay, either mentally or physically. So let's do more. And what oh what do I mean? I mean more living, more workouts, more balance, getting more outside of our constrained world of pixels, of conversations ordained by algorithms, destined to make us meet people thinking exactly like us, ignoring the opposites. We do have two brain hemispheres by the way - one head(think about that). So dear dev, go meet a friend and talk about something other than code. Yours, Marvin PS: By the way, Kelvin, are we going out this weekend or what. I need a fresh brew of brain cells. Ziplining will work just fine. Previously published at https://thegreencodes.com/a-developers-mental-day

The Importance of a Developer's Mental Health Day

Let's go back one moment. A little further down to our data structures. The dear heaps and stacks of them.Quite literally. What happens when I assign a variable? What about when I pass it as a parameter? How does the program know this is what I'm talking about? Before we go to a higher level of abstraction, that is, looking at it like a note title taken on a piece of paper so that you can flip the page and just look at the variable value, we should look at how the machine 'thinks' about it. Close your eyes for a moment and declare a variable: my_variable = ; "random" See, when you do this, you're adding to the list of things the program has to remember. It's like one on top of another of 'cart' lists. A stack. As it stands, your program will store your string as below: Where the first diagram with the pointer(location of the variable in memory), len(for the length of the string) and capacity(the amount of memory, in bytes, the machine gives to this variable for use) is a stack and the other is a heap. Whatever we do with this variable, be it a mutation, concatenation, making a sub-string or whatever there is, refers to the stack. In the stack, the pointer holds the location of where the actual data is stored. So we are just given a reference to it. Why do we do this? Why do we store it in different data structures? Simple. It's about the speed. Stacks are faster compared to heaps. So instead of moving around a whole chunk of data(the heap) while mutating it, just carry the reference to it. I mean, the program is already doing its tasks (whether heavy or not), so there is no need to add overhead here. A point to remember, not all data is assigned as such. For , that is, , , , and , variables are added directly onto the stack. So we would have no heap to store a simple because the sizes of these types are already known by the program except in the rare case it is user input! static data types boolean integers floats chars 456.98 The size of these types, more so numbers(integers and floats), are determined based on whether they can be negative (signed) or exclusively positive(unsigned). This should remind you of how you declare your variables in math. You would say that any number in your paper is positive unless stated otherwise, or as we call it here unless signed. So this assignment would work with - the result of combining two or more . compound data types static types Example: string (a combination of chars) arrays tuples ... and so forth, depending on how your language of choice calls it, for instance, dictionary vs JavaScript object. Back to copying. You want two variables to refer to the same thing and you want to edit one of the variables without affecting the other. I suppose you could assume a simple re-assignment, right? my_variable = my_other_variable = my_variable "random" Whether it's , or , (choose your weapon and let's make the battle legendary!), anything that your muscle memory has right now. The two will show in stdout/ output. The caveat? console.log() print() printf() random Yes, you've duplicated the stack, . Being as it is, every language's goal at optimum performance. Keeping it as tidy and efficient as possible. No overhead. Pointing to the same memory space. not the heap So what happens if I mutate one variable? my_other_variable  + print( )
print( ) 'ramblings' f"My second variable: " {my_other_variable} f"My variable: " {my_variable} In both cases, the output is a string: random To get completely two different items with the same data, in that both can be mutated independently, you have to take a different approach; . deep copy A warning As far as memory is concerned, deep copying is memory consuming as it has to get the pointer and follow it to where the data is stored then duplicate this heap. Depending on what language you are using, we have the inbuilt module in python,  javascript and or copy for lower-level languages and so on and so forth (We cannot simply list all the ways to deep copy across the multiverse) copy copy

my_variable = my_other_variable = copy.deepcopy(my_variable) import "random" Love javascript much? myVariable = mySecondVariable = mySecondVariable = + mySecondVariable .log( ,myVariable) .log( ,mySecondVariable) let "ramblings" let ` ` ${myVariable} 'random ' console 'My first variable' console 'My second variable' There are, of course, other multiple ways of doing this. It is, after all, javascript. A point to mark, especially with objects, , dearest or work perfectly. Custom method for your implementation? Go ahead, just not . lodash ramda rfdc JSON.stringify() The mad rustacean? my_variable = ::from( ); my_other_variable = my_variable.clone(); let String "random" let Having done this, you can manipulate your new variables in any way you want. Go to the moon if need be. Just need a couple of dollars more. It is this same principle that governs the passing of variables across functions and objects. Passing a pointer to the original data and not the whole . Comprende? I sure hope so. So go forth and choose wisely. heap Let's leave this piece at that, and chat in the comments if need be. And yes, we can chat tech on twitter too marvinus_j Previously published at https://thegreencodes.com/memory-management-deep-and-shallow-copying-cke5wp0rp015d9ds1ak7d54gg

Deep Vs. Shallow Copying

Nowadays, cultivating a constructive and encouraging labor atmosphere is critical for the good health and attainment of any squad. A benevolent professional milieu not only boosts personnel contentment but also . In this piece, we will traverse numerous approaches for forming a helpful workspace that leads to squad welfare and achievement, taking motivation from triumphant companies and thought leaders. increases efficiency and creativity Prioritize Physical and Mental Well-being A successful workspace begins with prioritizing the health and comfort of team members. Businesses can invest in ergonomic furnishings, give wellness packages, and aid. Google, for instance, has set an outstanding precedent by constructing offices that stimulate physical exertion, relaxation, and mental clarity. Integrating areas for breaks, fitness centers, and serene zones can vastly contribute to the welfare of employees. provide mental health Along with physical health, mental wellness is coveted ever more in the commercial realm. Businesses such as Microsoft have instituted staff aid schemes and mental health days to focus on the psychological components of well-being. By fostering a workspace that freely talks about mental health and provides essential sustenance, organizations can build a culture that cherishes the general wellness of their employees. Encourage Open Communication and Collaboration Effective communication is the foundation of a successful team. Establishing and cultivating a collaborative setting can dramatically improve team dynamics. Platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams have redefined the way teams communicate, enabling them to conveniently inhabit ideas, pass on feedback, and work together on projects in real-time open pathways of communication Atlassian and other businesses are utilizing the idea of open collaboration areas, both digital and physical, to remove any obstacles to communication. This helps in the cultivation of teamwork as well as providing a sense of connection amongst team members. Team gatherings, digital or in person, make it possible for free conversation and concept exchange, exemplifying the significance of a collective work setting. Provide Opportunities for Professional Growth Investing in the career development of staff members is essential to creating a prosperous working environment. Firms such as Salesforce have built comprehensive learning programs and mentorship schemes to encourage their workers. Through furnishing chances for skill enrichment, organizations not merely augment the proficiency of their personnel, but also demonstrate a dedication to personal progress. Professional development surpasses customary training arrangements. Encouraging personnel to participate in conferences, classes, and trade events not only extends their understanding but also builds a feeling of pride and possession in their profession. Additionally, mentoring initiatives can help knowledge transmission and construct a helpful framework within the company. Embrace Flexibility and Work-Life Balance The contemporary nine-to-five labor pattern is transforming, with more businesses appreciating the efficacy of versatility and work-life harmony. Distant work opportunities, adjustable hours, and results-oriented labor atmospheres add to employee contentment and overall health. Tech behemoths, like Facebook and Twitter, have fully embraced the concept of remote work, providing their personnel the freedom to decide on the environment and methodology they find optimal for their tasks. By putting their faith in their staff and focusing on the outcomes of their toil rather than the number of hours, these enterprises have cultivated an environment of autonomy and . Such a strategy not only lures skilled individuals but also leads to the eventual prosperity of the organization. work-life balance Cultivate Diverse and Inclusive Environment Varying backgrounds and outlooks are pivotal for the establishment of a favorable professional setting. In response to the necessity of such an ambiance, high-profile corporations such as Airbnb and IBM have instituted projects to nurture diversity and inclusion and apprehended the advantages of different mentalities and origins. A heterogeneous team brings a plethora of ideas, encounters, and strategies to resolving issues. By building an inclusive milieu wherein everyone feels prized and respected, companies can take advantage of the entire potential of their conglomerates. This includes unlocking diversity at higher echelons of authority, executing unprejudiced hiring schemes, and establishing a system that commemorates distinctions. Promote a Culture of Recognition and Appreciation Giving due credit and expressing gratitude towards team members is essential to cultivate a healthy work atmosphere. For instance, Cisco has put in place recognition systems that go beyond the standard employee-of-the-month accolade. Peer-to-peer recognition, vocal accolades in the virtual sphere, and customized compliments are some of the tools used to create a buoyant environment that is . driven by mutual encouragement Acknowledgment not only raises spirits but also corroborates a sense of achievement and purpose. Routine suggestions and productivity reviews provide opportunities for beneficial critique and objective-defining, confirming that staff members perceive treasured and connected with the organization's aspirations. Conclusion To bring this to a close, to guarantee the well-being and prosperity of a team, it is paramount to approach the situation holistically and comprehend physical, psychological, and professional components. Above all else, by ensuring well-being, setting up two-way communication, delivering progress prospects, welcoming flexibility, celebrating diversity, and recognizing successes, companies can create a constructive and thriving work atmosphere. As organizations persistently adjust to an ever-shifting climate, investing in the prosperity and flourishing of their teams remains paramount for enduring development and novelty.

Workplace Strategies for Team Well-being and Success

In the ever-advancing world of technological development, (AI) has come to the fore as a revolutionary entity in multiple industries. Immigration law is one field where AI has the potential to bring about a profound impact. Artificial Intelligence As various countries struggle with the complexities of managing their borders, visa processing, and upholding the law, AI offers a solution that could make these processes quicker, decision-making more accurate, and the whole immigration system smoother and more equitable. Automated Document Analysis: The transformative ability of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to rapidly process large volumes of data is bringing immense changes to immigration document evaluation. Conventionally, immigration officers have had to keenly examine and establish the authenticity of many documents, a practice which is often liable to mistakes and slowdowns. AI provides a way to automate document authentication, thereby enabling a quicker and more precise assessment. By taking advantage of machine learning algorithms, immigration entities can swiftly recognize any inconsistencies, false documents, or potential security menaces, thus, being able to make more informed decisions in a much swifter manner. Predictive Analytics for Visa Processing: AI's predictive analytics powers provide a vision for the future of visa handling. By inspecting past information, AI calculations can anticipate visa endorsement probabilities, handling times, and possible challenges. This not only quickens the deliberation procedure but also provides for improved resource partitioning and within immigration administrations. workload control Visa candidates can gain from more transparent timetables and prospects, inspiring a sentiment of trustworthiness and certainty in the framework. Natural Language Processing in Legal Research: Immigration law is a tangled web, with regulations and rulings that frequently alter. can considerably simplify legal research for immigration attorneys and agents. AI-operated natural language processing (NLP) tools These devices can rapidly scan massive legal records, pinpoint applicable case law, and create comprehensive summaries, enabling legal pros to stay in the loop on the most recent developments and make educated selections. Enhanced Border Security With Facial Recognition: Facial recognition powered by Artificial Intelligence is becoming a crucial part of bolstering border security. This technology compares facial features against massive databases, letting immigration officers accurately check individuals' identities and detect possible security threats immediately. Not only does this increase border control, but it assists with speedier entry for legitimate travelers, making for a smoother and safer immigration experience. Virtual Immigration Assistants: Artificial intelligence (AI)--powered virtual assistants are revolutionizing the way people deal with immigration matters. Through natural language understanding, chatbots and virtual assistants are helping users throughout the visa application process by addressing queries, supplying current information, and guaranteeing that applicants furnish meticulous and comprehensive details. Not only does this create a better experience for the user, but it also decreases the amount of work for immigration offices. Language Translation: AI-driven linguistic translation services can help immigrants and legal practitioners connect, bringing down language barriers. This can expedite legal processing and make sure people know everything essential for the immigration procedure. Biometric identification can be utilized to ensure accuracy. AI is commonly deployed in biometric systems for authentication, such as facial recognition and fingerprint examination. These developments have the potential to optimize the accuracy and security of immigration procedures, guaranteeing that people are accurately identified. Automating of Tasks: At present, Artificial Intelligence enables immigration workers to allocate resources more productively by taking on roles of work that are highly time-consuming and often tedious. AI can thus free these personnel from mundane activities and allow them to concentrate on more intricate tasks. Conclusion: As we mark the first year of this technological revolution, it is clear that AI is remaking the world of immigration law. Automating document work and projecting visa outcomes, the incorporation of artificial intelligence anticipates a more efficient, lucid, and secure immigration system. While there are issues such as data safety and ethical matters that must be addressed, the advantages of AI in immigration law are far-reaching, paving the path for a more straightforward and equitable way of traversing borders.

The Impact of AI on the Evolution of Immigration Law

Over the past few weeks, I have been exploring the world of entrepreneurship, attending various events where accelerators gather, joining breakfasts for entrepreneurial-minded individuals, and participating in debates on the subject. Throughout this journey, I have been focusing on funding opportunities, education, and mindset shifts that ultimately lead to the creation of successful businesses. An opinion piece that caught my attention was one by Adam Molai entitled " ," along with the paper " ," both of which form the basis of my thoughts today. Africa lacks the right kind of entrepreneurs Jobs, Economic Growth and Capacity Development for Youth in Africa Indulge With the world at 8 billion persons as of , Africa remains one of the poorest continents on the globe, despite the fact that it will account for 2 out of 5 working-age individuals by the end of the 21st century. The peculiar part of this statement is the quality and purposes with which we build our ventures within the African economic zones. 15th November 2022 The crux? Was this business built out of a pure innovative spirit - to create what once was not - or was it a means to an end? Returning to the population question, with a 245.0% increase in population within the working age group, we expect a rise in the number of graduates and professionals alike. All this while, the market is not primed to absorb this number of individuals. If anything, the that have happened over the last couple of months have been a testament to what happens when projects fail and companies are bloated. tech lay-offs Was this business built out of a pure innovative spirit - to create what once was not - or was it a means to an end? This raises the question, what does this mean for education? Having been brought up in an African household and in relation to how we raise this generation of dreamers and builders alike, provided we exist in the space where entrepreneurship is treated as a ‘side-hustle’ for those incapable of being absorbed into the job market, we cease to create foundations upon which the future can stand. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them. - Peter Thiel (Zero To One) It is high time we create sustainable solutions that navigate from bringing in the everyday meal to those that impart beyond sustenance. To leave you something to nibble and ponder, here is an article from TechCabal about . tech talent navigating its way back to Africa Thought: Perhaps the danger of Artificial Intelligence is not in it taking away employment ( unless you champion ) but in that with the increased use of the same technology, AI relearns from itself and other old content rather than what is made a-new. The limit remains; Artificial Intelligence will only learn from what already exists. bullshit jobs Also published . here

Necessity versus Opportunity — Africa’s Relationship With Entrepreneurship

Up and away with scalability I thought I knew what scalability was. Just the same way most of us thought we knew what distributed systems were. I realized I had to completely relearn these systems because of the cloud.~Satya Nadella There are a number of considerations that you as a developer, architect or engineering team have to make as your user base grows. Going from products with 10 to say 30 or a million and so forth has its considerations. This, of course, depends on the user base we are talking about. . Remember astute reader: a customer can be an organization with a plethora of other members inside it, or just as well be a single user called Jack Explore with me Imagine thousands, half a million and so forth people performing a search query against a server. If those queries land on your end, would it break? Would it be able to hold? We should be able to handle more data, more concurrent connections and higher interaction rates. A note on interaction rate: How often a user changes the interface on a blog application vs a game. Before we begin, it is important to note that setting up our product for scalability should be as easy and cheap to grow 10x as it should at 0.2x as is common with startups whose needs change rapidly over a short period of time. Foremost, there are two types of scaling we need to observe. a) Vertical scalability b) Horizontal scalability Both of the aforementioned have their pros and cons - each with a use case that would be deemed fit. Let's narrow this down. : Example For solo and relatively small ventures, you might opt for a VPS(virtual private server) which is essentially a physical machine holding multiple 'servers', yours included, each with its own OS and so forth. Once at a certain cap, you might see the need to increase resources and hence, the incremental hunt; more RAM, more storage, more CPU and so forth. almost everything gets more. The example above is one implementing vertical scaling, where, we upgrade the hardware and or the network throughput. In short, you do not need to modify your application architecture. Vertical Scalability Broken to bits, we resolve to a number of techniques. Adding more drives in RAID arrays and thus distributing our reads and writes during database interaction. Switching to solid-state drives from hard drives Increasing the RAM Adding more cores to the server to reduce the context switching. Upgrading network adapters, especially for systems reliant on media file processing. There are a number of drawbacks, however. For instance, the change to a solid-state drive might not show a significant difference if working with MySQL which uses its own data structures for sequential disk operations or Cassandra. At a certain point, is bound to catch up and here, more CPU does little to any good. Vertical scaling also comes with a steep financial cost as you add more and more given the cash input doubles or triples as a unit of resource is added. lock contention Example: A RAM chip will double in cost as it grows in size. That is, x GB is $z, 2x GB is $2z and so forth. A reality check hits us once we get to a stage, say 128GB where the rules are not quite the same. Horizontal Scalability The alternative and preferred method - horizontal scaling. While it may come at a steep cost initially, it does get significantly cheaper as your enterprise grows to reach more users. Let's see how. Caching Use of content delivery networks (CDN) To manage our assets, we save the hassle of having to perform the read and write operations on our own servers. Ever wondered why we have CDNs for most packages(Bootstrap, Material etc)? Example: We have our servers for, say in South Africa. For access, an audacious Sergei (hint - thy knowest thyself) an enthusiastic early adopter from Germany, will hit the CDN(which are just data centres on their own). The CDN, acknowledging it lacks this data - images in our case, will hit our server for the resources it needs (CSS, images, javascript) and serve it to him while storing the same data and resources for further calls to the site. In this way, the next time, the call does not have to go a whole continent away. UrbanDesk Services like Cloudflare, Cloudinary or GoogleCloud CDN should ring a bell. We have our static assets sorted out, but what about our data? Edge Cache Servers I've expounded on the data server to include , yet, another enhancement to our scaling needs. The concept behind it is that our project should be decomposed into individual actions those components need to perform - to group components of our application based on what they do. functional partitioning For instance, we have sections that address this page you are currently reading ( ), then others that speak to different types of users, say, those interested in merch ( ), or the admin ( ). Each of these sections has been compartmentalized. thegreencodes.com merch.thegreencodes.com admin.thegreencodes.com We might also move the database to its own server and update our configs to point to it, hence to each its own, that is, the server the application runs and the server the database runs are different but still communicating. You will notice that I also added the GeoDNS. It works very similarly to an ordinary DNS, the only difference being that it is ' geo-tagged '. The DNS A Domain Name Server(DNS) is a way to identify your server's IP address on the web. In this way, if your server has an IP of say 127.0.0.1, it is displayed as , to whoever else is looking at it. example.com Back to GeoDNS Essentially, when you attempt to connect to , the server IP will be resolved to the data center closest to you. thegreencodes.com Elaboratively, once your product has a certain cap of users , serving all across the globe, having a single server in a single location might degrade the experience these very users get. Example Google has multiple servers. While you might connect to its root domain from Australia and person B from Germany, these might not be served from the same server. The GeoDNS works to resolve the IP addresses of these servers/ data centers based on the location of the end user. You will access the same data, only without knowledge of what IP the domain you are visiting is currently resolving to. What makes horizontal scaling stand out is the basis on which it stands. At its core, horizontal scaling lets you deploy and maintain your project on several medium or small servers. A single server does not necessarily have to be extensive with vast amounts of resources - we split the load between different servers. Of note, is that we need to consider whether our project is or . What this means is to identify whether the split needs data and whether that data needs to be synchronized. stateful stateless Managing data in stateful horizontally scaled products Behold, the and the ability to identify whether we need more reading or more writing of our database. CAP theorem If we indeed have data that needs management, we might opt for three techniques. Sharding by data Sharding by hash Data replication a) b) c) On the one hand, we have sharding by data. In a case example similar to the one shown, we can have a database that holds data from those in Europe and another that holds data from those in America. On the other hand, we can opt to use a consistent technique of hashing specific keys on our model and use those hashes to store data in different databases. For instance, hashing the and stating that data for users with the hash algorithm ABC will sit on this server and not the other. profile_id The above are optimizations meant to prevent hitting the same database for all requests. While not in-depth, I do intend to come back to this in the future. So keep an eye up for this. More than the type of scaling, we have to consider a number of techniques and practices to maintain. As these platforms grow, the following have to be considered. Testing There is more to testing than . Larger systems eventually comprise larger subsystems. How these systems work together (integration testing), whether the application is behaving according to the specification(functional testing), whether it can handle different loads (performance testing) and so forth. unit tests Logging The more the components, the more integration is needed and the more the system is prone to fail. The more servers we have, the higher the chances. We hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Your team needs to know when a module went down, whether the data maintained its integrity, which modules are still up and so on. Choose to go for the approach; let the system always be ready for a crash and whenever it reboots, it should be able to continue without human interaction. An example of such a system is Netflix's which runs to kill random components of the system within working hours to test its reliability. Crash-only Chaos Monkey Conclusion The practices above are intertwined. Functional partitioning would lead to the decomposition of the project, decomposition would lead to a ' ' use of microservices, this would bring a restructure of your team to smaller domain-driven teams, a change in how data is cached and managed and so forth. Build upon this. Go agile and iterate. This path is not linear, nor should it be treated as such. maybe Treat these principles as your northern star, but feel free to morph them based on the value they create for your business. Understand In the creation of sustainable software applications, we place the business logic at the center. The inverse, you'll find, will get you great code, rather than solving the need to be addressed. By placing technology first, we may get a great rails application, but it may not be a great pharmaceutical application ~ Robert C. Martin Onto architecture - the stuff we wish we'd gotten right at the start of our project. Also Published Here

The Aftermath of Going Enterprise

Coming in first in ; the monoliths of web applications - monolithic architectural patterns. the series Broken down, a monolithic system is one that is deployed as a single unit of interconnected components. Let's give an example. We are creating a hotel management system for our local favorite spot in . Our application will hold, amongst other things, account management, rooms, rating, and so forth. Break it into as many modular applications as you might come up with. Django Essentially, a monolithic system is one in which multiple smaller applications live within the same server, share a file system and same database. Sound familiar? To easily identify if a project is monolithic, ask, can you scale an individual modular part of the application (memory or CPU) while leaving other apps unattended? If not, then this is a monolithic application. Projects built like this are known to be simple in terms of development, easy to scale up to a certain cap, easy to deploy, and be fast during the development phase. Fast, because all its components are together hence easy to collect and it would be written majorly in one language hence no need to learn another language/framework. Have in mind, for instance, a java application using a jar file that contains all the app’s logic for deployment. A common architectural pattern, one we aim to discuss, that follows this, is the layered architectural pattern. The  Layered Architectural Pattern (n-tier architecture) Governed by the -  a class or module has one and only one function - the layered approach leverages the separation of concerns. Broadly speaking, it splits software products into the presentation layer, business logic layer, persistence layer and the database layer. Single responsibility Principle These are modular sections of the application. Each section/layer outlined has a specific function without needing to know what the other layer entails. The presentation layer, for instance, deals with the display of information to the user. The business layer gets data from the persistence layer and processes it against application logic (say merge with another table or filter against a third party ) without the need to know anything about the user interface. Hence, you might as well change the presentation without changing the logic of what your project aims to do or change from an SQLite database to MySQL without your business logic requiring to know. On a number of smaller applications, the business and persistent layer may be merged into one business layer. As observed, we get to have 3 layers in one case, four in another and so forth, hence the name n-tier, where is the number of layers. n Requests flow from one layer to the next, say business logic to the persistence layer. This is a classic example of a closed layered system. That is, one in which, a lower-level layer cannot be accessed directly. Example: Not letting the user access the database without walking through the business logic.
What is handled in this 'logic' you might ask? For one, authentication and authorization. No one should just access our local hotel database. at the same time, an ordinary user should not be able to perform managerial actions within our platform. That is left to the manager and only the manager. In its basic form, a layered architectural system works in a closed circle. We may, however, need to have access to lower-level layers without the intermediaries - an open layered system. Example: Given the premise of the architecture, we have an extra layer, . Our project is now a system. Despite having this layer, we might not use it as often. Hence, it does not serve our purpose for every request to go through it and have no change or mutation. What this layer would be adding to this specific request, is time; and time is of the essence. We have it, yes, but only use it when needed. n-tier the services layer 5-tier We bypass all that and keep this layer open. This allows our request to access the level lower to it without having to go through it. Note: Within your project, aim to have at most one open layer. Having more will create
interdependencies between these layers, and you lose the whole point of having the layered system in the first place. Another variation of the n-tier architecture is the use of cached layers. Here, requests may be cached in between layers so that concurrent requests do not have to go all the way down. Plainly put, not every request made must hit the database (save the user some time). Let's take our app idea from the top A guest wants to make a reservation. They log onto our page and see that we have , on top of rooms, fun activities and games for our guests ( ). They go ahead to make a reservation. Our screen gets their request and sends it to our module within the . Here, we want all available rooms and as a bonus, the activities available within the time frame of booking (notice the filtering of time, price and so forth). Now, call the and data access object (dao) within the , our ORM. These will, in turn, execute the queries necessary from the and database table. Push this data back to the user and let them know they can have sushi on the house! the presentation layer business logic layer room activities persistence layer room activity A little perspective So, we've given a primer on monolith architectures using the n-tier approach. We have seen a case application that uses the monolith system and used it to get our new client a room. Our system works and our local hotel pays in kind. What happens when they get new outlets? More activities and more traffic? Will it scale? Monoliths are good, and monoliths are great. How you use them depends on your needs. Use a monolith when you want simplicity in development, deployment and scaling, work in a relatively small team or are creating a prototype. That works 100%. A monolith will, however, bite you as the system gets larger due to a number of reasons. Framework /Language lock The whole codebase is in one framework that might not be suited for future feature additions. For example, we wrote our application in one language that is good for speed but we now need a section of it to use image processing libraries. How suited is it for image processing? Inefficient resource allocation If one endpoint needs more time either due to IO operations or processing, other functions may be locked. Scaling becomes difficult 1000 or so requests to the search functionality have been made. In monolithic architecture, a new instance of the running application might be created during load balancing to handle multiple accesses. Here, we have a whole new instance of the same application created, when all we needed was the search to grow. Slowed development Take it that we now have a chain of hotels across the town. Heck, across the country. We have added feature 1 and gotten to feature 300. We now want to change a variable name within an application in our project. We have not touched anywhere else but that section. The whole codebase, including the untouched, has to be compiled once more. We are still developing, remember that! That's 10 minutes for build and compilation that could have been better served elsewhere not to mention an IDE load time that puts us all to sleep. Conclusion So far, we have a birds-eye view of what we have been creating. A capture of what monoliths involve and what they do not -  layer upon layer. Great start. Is there more? Stick around a while longer. First published here

An Introductory Guide to Monolith Software Applications

And when you close your eyes, what do you see? Do you see ducktape? Do you see robust infrastructure? Do you see fragile systems? Do you see elegant architecture - Software engineering architectural patterns? Part of the development includes a thought process -  the . software development life cycle(SLDC) A point in time during which we remember that software development is more than just code; it involves more thinking. The software development life cycle involves a series of steps engineering teams undergo to create, enhance and maintain sustainable software solutions. As an overview: Each step outlined above acts as an input to the next and so forth. We focus, at least in this series, on Architecture, which gives room for development (the part all engineers love). Take note, that the steps outlined in the development of sustainable systems (SDLC) may have more detailed steps in each. Do reach out, either in the comment section or directly, if you would like an elaboration of the same. So what is and what do involve? Software architecture Architectural patterns Software architecture is the definition of how components of a software system are organized and assembled and how these components communicate. The output of the architectural design stage includes and is not limited to;  prototypes, pseudocode, architecture reports, and diagrams for technical details. This is a key step. Miss this or mess it up, and development becomes a financial and technical nightmare. Sidenote: Understand that design patterns and architectural patterns . are not the same When determining the software architecture you intend to use, you ask a number of questions; does the system need high performance? How adaptable should it be? How secure? How modular should it be? Do we start with large components that have smaller sections, much like layered systems, or do we start off with small sections that form larger components - similar to the use of microservices? Herein, and in the shares that follow, we shall discuss the most known patterns. We shall aim to understand: Monolithic patterns Service-based patterns Distributed systems We shall break these down to know when and where to use layered systems, microservices, service-oriented patterns, space-based architecture, event-driven, and microkernel architecture. Through this, we discuss the advantages of each against its cons; whiteboard software development. Walk with me through this series, and let us talk about architecture.

Stories, News & Mentions about MARVIN

Marvin’s Stories on HackerNoon

Marvin's News & Mentions