AlignMinds Technologies logo

SINCE 2009

Founded over 15 years ago, we’ve grown from a small team in Kochi, India, to a leading global technology consulting company that transformed businesses by our design led product engineering.

info@alignminds.com
+1 850 999 7458 | +91 484 485 4333

Category: Programming Languages

Posted on

What Makes Kotlin The Fastest Growing Programming Language?

Kotlin is one of the fastest growing programming languages in the world. It is open-source, statically typed language primarily developed by JetBrains programmers based in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Statically typed programming language means Kotlin performs type checking at compile-time as opposed to run-time.

Java was once among the most popular, most favourite programming languages. However, looking at the limitations and errors caused by Java, developers required a desperate rescue. That’s when the JetBrains developers created Kotlin which proved to be much more efficient than Java.

Kotlin has advanced benefits in terms of reliability, efficiency, runtime performance and maintenance when compared to Java, yet fully interoperable with Java. It provides seamless integration with Java frameworks and libraries and supports backward compatibility. Kotlin also boasts about the fact that fewer lines of code are required to solve a problem resulting in clean, concise, easy to write and understand the code.

Kotlin is developed just recently and is already gaining popularity among developers. Kotlin is becoming a strong competition to Java. The common issues that are a cause of frustration to Java developers are well covered in this young rival.

In May 2017, Kotlin was named as the official language of Android by Google. The team just decided to name it after an island and that’s why the name Kotlin (from Kotlin Island, near St. Petersburg).

Stack Overflow says that Kotlin is becoming developer’s favourite programming language and is outranking languages like Python and JavaScript. According to some survey reports, around 80% of Kotlin developers are using Kotlin as a programming language. Around 30% use it for Backend/server-side applications and another 30% use it for SDK/libraries.

Coursera, Atlassian, Basecamp, Pinterest, Keepsafe are already using Kotlin in their mobile applications.

What makes Kotlin the fastest growing language?

Concise

This is the biggest advantage of Kotlin over other programming languages that you can solve the same kind of problem using fewer lines of code with a reduced number of bugs and crashes. Also, it makes the code more readable, easy to make changes and to maintain.

Safe

Kotlin helps developers write robust and stable code. Kotlin’s smarter and safer compiler detect errors at compile itself and perform lots of compile-time checks reducing runtime errors.

Interoperable

Kotlin is fully interoperable with Java. The existing codebase can interact with Kotlin and all existing libraries in Android can be used in Kotlin as well.

Better productivity

As it requires lesser lines of code, results in better productivity.

There are other lots of features in Kotlin that will speed up the daily development tasks.

Conclusion

Kotlin has undoubtedly won the heart of developers and has become a highly competing programming language. As it is open source and bring all advantages of a modern programming language into the Android platform, it is a great fit for Android developers.

Migrating to Kotlin will really be a piece of cake for them. With all the cool features of functional programming, Kotlin is only getting brighter and better in the Android community.

However, only time can tell whether the popularity achieved by Kotlin in the Android community can be achieved in other communities.

– Susan B John

Posted on

Why Should You Use Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets (SASS)?

Sass is the most mature, stable, and powerful professional CSS extension language in the world initially designed by Hampton Catlin and developed by Natalie Weizenbaum. Sass is completely compatible with all versions of CSS. We take this compatibility so that you can use any available CSS libraries. Sass boasts more features and abilities than any other CSS extension language out there.

There is an endless number of frameworks built with Sass. Compass, Bourbon, and Susy just to name a few.

Sass is an extension of CSS3, adding nested rules, variables, mixins, selector inheritance, and more. It’s translated to well-formatted, standard CSS using the command-line tool or a web-framework plug-in.

SASS Syntaxes

Sass has two syntaxes. The main syntax (as of Sass 3) is known as “SCSS” (for “Sassy CSS”) and is a superset of CSS3’s syntax. This means that every valid CSS3 style sheet is valid SCSS as well. SCSS files use the extension .scss.

The second, older syntax is known as the indented syntax (or just “Sass”). Inspired by Haml’s terseness, it’s intended for people who prefer conciseness over similarity to CSS. Instead of brackets and semicolons, it uses the indentation of lines to specify blocks. Although no longer the primary syntax, the indented syntax will continue to be supported. Files in the indented syntax use the extension .sass.

Pros and Cons of Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets (SASS)

SASS Pros

1. Clean Code

If you are coming from Python, Ruby (you can even write props with symbol-like syntax) or even CoffeeScript world, it will come very natural to you – writing mixins, functions and generally any reusable stuff in sass is much ‘easier’ and readable than in scss(subjective).

2. Shorter Development Time

With Sass, you can save a lot of time if you know how to use it well. In addition to CSS, sass lets you write functions, mixins, you can import styles and many such time-saving bits. With proper naming of classes, you can create your own common styles which can be used whenever you want instead of calling the same styles repeatedly. This saves a lot of time just like bootstrap does when you need a ‘text-centre’ class or a ‘pull-right’ to position your element.

3. Consistency

It is always easier to reuse what we have already written than to write new patterns. Along with the fact that this saves a lot of time, you can also have a consistent pattern throughout your page. You won’t have to scale through each element while continuing through the website development.

4. Reduced HTTP requests

Unlike the regular CSS, Sass lets you to breakdown your style sheet into several bits or parts and can be called using @import keyword. The Sass compiler will then combine your style sheet into a single CSS file, which will not only get your style sheet organized but also will reduce the HTTP requests passed and thus allow it to load much faster.

SASS Cons

1. Space Sensitive

Sass is space sensitive. Sass does not support the use of extra unnecessary spaces. If we, even accidentally leave extra space or forget to include a semi-colon, sass compiler will show an error which sometimes gets really annoying.

For example:On the below image, you can find an error on line 3057 that happened due to missing braces.

An error on line 3057 due to missing braces

2. Need to write all styles initially

One of the advantages of using sass is that we can reuse the same styles more easily. But to do that, we initially need to write up all the necessary styles which are to be later imported or included and which can be considered time-consuming. Nevertheless, it’s worth it.

In general, there are many advantages and disadvantages to using sass. If you know to use it well, you could get the best out of it. Even some of the disadvantages can be considered as an advantage.

Like a small mistake in the syntax will make the compiler to show an error message. This may be annoying but there might come certain situations when this could actually help you to save a lot of time. For example, in CSS, we make a small mistake like forget a space. But we won’t notice it and the compiler will show no error. But we won’t get the expected result either. So, we might actually spend lots of time researching what went wrong until we figure out that it was a small space issue. In sass, the compiler will immediately show the error even if a small space is missing and could be helpful.

Quick Tips

When you’re starting a project and you intend to do it in sass, these tips may come handy:

– Keep your sass style sheet structured so that it will be easy to maintain.

For example,

.logo { Float: left; Width: 240px; img { margin:0; vertical-align:middle; @media (max-width: $x-minimum-width) { width:100%; height:auto; } } @media (max-width: $x-minimum-width) { width:190px; } }

Sass variables must be effectively used. It might look difficult in the beginning but when you get used, it will be really helpful.

For example,

$x-minimum-width:480px; h2 { font-size:24px; @media (max-width: $x-minimum-width) { font-size:18px; } }

Avoid using mixins. Mixins are more like copying and pasting. Not much effective though.

For example,

@mixin transition($property) { transition: $property .3s ease-in; -webkit-transition: $property .3s ease; -moz-transition: $property .3s ease; -o-transition: $property .3s ease; -ms-transition: $property .3s ease; } a { color:$primary-color; cursor:pointer; @include transition(color); &:hover { color:$secondary-color; text-decoration:none; } }

Compiling a SASS file

To create a sass file, first, you need to create a normal CSS file. Save it as ‘file-name’.scss in your CSS directory where your normal CSS files are saved. Also, create a normal CSS file in the same directory. The styles you write in your scss file will be automatically added to your CSS file by the sass compiler.

To compile the sass file, you need to perform the following steps:

Open command prompt

2. Navigate to the location where your CSS files are saved.

For example: cd C:\wamp\www\example\wp-content\themes\example\css

3. Write the SASS command

Write the SASS command to start compiling the SASS file. Command: sass –watch custom.scss:custom.css

Contact Us

– Shekhar R

Posted on

JavaScript: Evolution, Dominance and the Future

JavaScript is the popular choice for frontend developers. Web development is ever-changing and if we take the list of programming language that has kept up with the latest trends, JavaScript will rank in the first position in the list.

Why JavaScript?

JavaScript was mainly developed as a client-side scripting language to be used across multiple web browsers in various web applications. JavaScript has the inbuilt behaviour that lets developer validate each field as the user inputs data in it and provide immediate feedback for incorrect entries without needing to load another web page to process their request.

Using JavaScript, you can provide an immediate response to various actions taken by the user without the need to load new web pages to respond. This interpreted programming language also helps web pages to be more interactive using animations without involving forms. You can even load new images, objects, or scripts into the web page without reloading the entire page.

JavaScript can efficiently handle requests being passed to the server and interpret results coming from the server. Most common areas where JavaScript can be used are Form Validation, Alerts, Image rollovers, advertising pop-ups and AutoComplete feature. With the advent of Node.js framework, JavaScript has become even more powerful and is widely used for server-side and networking applications.

Origin of JS

JavaScript originally known as Mocha was developed in May 1995 by Brendan Eich, then working at Netscape. The name Mocha was chosen by Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape.  In September, the name was changed to LiveScript and in December, upon receiving Trademark License from Sun and for marketing reasons, the name was changed to JavaScript.

In 1996-1997, JavaScript was handed over to ECMA (European Computer Manufacturers Association) to set standards that could be used by other vendors. Series of standards were applied to this language and ECMAScript 3 was introduced in 1999, which is the baseline for today’s JavaScript.

While all these events happening, in 2005, with the combined efforts by Open Source Developer Communities, JavaScript got a new touch by the introduction of a new concept called AJAX –set of technologies, using which data can be loaded in the background without the need to reload the entire page resulting in more dynamic applications. This resulted in the popularity of JavaScript and several libraries such as Prototype, jQuery, Dojo, MooTools, etc were released.

In July 2008, various browser vendors and other interested parties met to hammer out a new language based on JavaScript. Work began on a proposal called ECMA4 and ultimately got renamed to ECMA 5 and got standardized pretty quickly. As soon as ECMA5 was finalized, work began around code called Harmony. Harmony brought some basic changes to ECMAScript and closed a few of the open gaps in functionality. Main goals of Harmony included improve language for writing complex application and libraries used by those applications, keep versioning as simple as possible and adopt de facto standards (as much as possible).

Popularity of JavaScript

The different website provides a different ranking of JavaScript based on different measures like popularity, Search Index, Code hosted etc.

Tiobe Programming Community Index has rated JavaScript at 11th position based on the language’s popularity compared to other popular languages indicating only 1.37% internet searches were made for JavaScript language. Github Code Sharing site indicates that JavaScript is the most popular language accounting for 21% of JavaScript code hosted on the site.  PYPL Popularity of Programming Language index has ranked JavaScript at 7th position.

JavaScript is more about client-side scripting language. JavaScript code can be written using any text editor (like TextEdit) and just a supporting browser is needed to run the code. Such simplicity of code is really useful for beginners to write their code. With the advanced framework of JavaScript called Node.js (server-side), it can now be used to develop an entire website.

Different Framework of JS/Popularity of JS

Some of the popular JS Framework are Node.js, Angular JS, Backbone.js, CanJS, Ember.js, SproutCore, Knockout.js, Spine, Meteor.js, Yahoo!Mojito, etc.

Node.js

Node.js is a cross-platform run-time environment for server-side networking applications. Node.js Framework is gaining high adoption rate as it can now be used to develop real-time applications. Big Giants like Microsoft, PayPal, Walmart, LinkedIn, SAP etc. are popularly using Node.js to create websites.

Node.js was created and published by Ryan Dahl in 2009. It was initially developed only to run on Linux, but after his presentation at JSConf EU Conference, it gained momentum, the package manager for Node.js libraries-npm was developed in 2011. In June 2011, Microsoft partnered with Joyent (where Dahl worked while creating Node.js) and released first build to support Windows in the month of July 2011.

JavaScript has no unified API for I/O providing ability to build modern I/O interface in its best way and this was considered the main factor that Ryan chose JavaScript to define series of asynchronous, event-driven I/O. The major advantage of Node.js is that it can keep alive many socket connections alive and can accept a request for new connections as well.

Node.js application runs in single-threaded environment; multi-threaded execution also supported in Node.js 0.10+ versions. Node.js applications maximize throughput and efficiency using the non-blocking I/O and asynchronous events. Node.js applications have great performance, and huge flexibility to implement both high end and low-end functionality.

Future of JavaScript

Third-party plugins that were used to develop the videos and other UI visuals using Flash are now replaced by JavaScript giving the same user experience. This programming language has made a unique position on the browser side, dominating almost everything a client computer does. With addition like Node.js, jQuery, JSON, JavaScript is conquering the server-side and the internet of things. In the world of mobile apps, JavaScript using Node.js help customers build incredible and responsive cloud-powered mobile apps.

With all the innovation and standardization applied to JavaScript, the JavaScript is prepared for a completely new cycle of evolution and for an exciting future. With the development of Node.js platform, making JavaScript to be used on the server-side, we can have web applications with two-way communications – both client and server can initiate communication and data can be exchanged between them freely.

– Susan B. John