DEV Community: CuriousDev

What do you think about Git integration of VS Code?

CuriousDev — Thu, 26 May 2022 07:30:19 +0000

It is quite usual to use Git Repositories for Source Control and many IDEs have an integration built-in. At the moment I am working a lot with Visual Studio Code and this is the reason for to use its functionalities for Git. Before I also used it with Visual Studio, which I liked, because it offers all I needed after I learned how it works. I understand that VS Code is very different from VS, but still like to compare it. With VS Code it actually is very different. You can get used to it and it will offer important features, like Fetch, Pull, Commit, Push, working with the Branches etc., but I dislike the lack of a complete history of a certain Commit, which you can have with VS. It works for single files, but sometimes I would like to check all changes for all files related to a single Commit. Maybe it is there and you can help me on this, but from what I know, it is not available.
There also is the possibility to use Git with Bash or with Git GUI, I am aware of it being definitely an option, but if I can use a built-in integration, which gives me the important commands, I am fine with it.

What is your opinion about Git in VS Code? You are also welcome to write about other things, like why you prefer Git Bash or not. Thanks for reading everyone!

What are some useful functions of JavaScript, which you like to show?

CuriousDev — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 06:47:57 +0000

Usually I enjoy it a lot to look for posts here, which provide some standard functions of JS. With this I can extend my knowledge step by step and these can be useful many times. At least it feels to make more sense than learning more about a Framework or any other product, which I possibly will not use soon.

What are some funtions, which you would like to share with us?

Let me start as first contributor.

I like the JSON object's functions "parse" and "stringify", because the JS objects are very similar to the stringified representation of JSON. With "parse" you can easily create a JS object from a JSON string and with "stringify" you can do this the other way round. But for the latter you have to be careful: JS objects are more powerful, you will not be able to convert any object to JSON. More here: Mozilla documentation. Thanks for reading and any contribution in advance!

Would you be interested in more articles about Microsoft's Power Platform?

CuriousDev — Fri, 01 Apr 2022 14:20:49 +0000

At the moment I am working a lot with the Power Platform, which basically is a set of applications by Microsoft to allow no-code/low-code development mainly for medium to large companies. You would not need to have much experience in programming in sense of writing code and can focus more on business topics.
I would like to write more about these applications, because it also helps to continue my learning and I surely can provide some expertise.
In case you would like to have a closer look, see here: https://powerplatform.microsoft.com/.

This is why I would like to know if there is any interest. I definitely would put more effort into some articles, especially if you can provide me what you are looking for. It can be basics, but also specific questions. In addition I offer to create the content in German.

Just leave a short comment.

Thanks everybody!

Question for software developers

CuriousDev — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 16:16:49 +0000

I would like to know, if you, if you would like to learn for software development, you would prefer learning an usual programming language or a no-code/low-code technology?

I have to work a lot with both and kinda enjoy the mix of it. But I prefer a lot programming with languages like JavaScript or C#. It is understable, that it takes more time and effort to master it, which can make it frustrating for beginners, but in the end, you can not only solve a lot more problems, but also create better solutions for complex systems.

But I also should add, that there are no-code/low-code applications extended with custom development, which is sometimes needed anyway.

What is your opinion?

Creating a Tear-off Calendar with Azure Functions

CuriousDev — Tue, 08 Mar 2022 13:01:01 +0000

Overview of My Submission

The project I have created is some kind of tear-off calendar, but because of only being for practicing and trying many different possibilities, a lot of things could or should be done different! But maybe you can still find code, which is useful for you.

In the repository you will find the code for the functions and some other files (actually the content to be in the "site" folder), which need to be saved to the file system. A standard plan has been used.

There are basically four different endpoints offered by the Azure Function App, which can be used with your browser:

Main page of the calendar, you can click to remove one calendar page
Tear-off page, which is accessed by the main page and also can be used with URL to remove one
Reset page to create a new calendar (you can use query parameter "days" with a number)
Overview page with the current pages saved to a file

In case this is interesting for you and you want more information, feel free to ask with the comments for it. I am glad to help.

Submission Category:

Computing Captains

Link to Code on GitHub

Github code: Code
The repository contains the content of the "site" folder. This is why you would need to create or update this folder on the server.

Additional Resources / Info

Please note, that not only Azure Functions itselves have been used with a Standard Plan (not usage), but also files saved to the file system of the server.
This project is only for education and experiments.

Is JavaScript good or bad for beginners?

CuriousDev — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 18:10:31 +0000

My view

In my opinion JavaScript can be a great choice to begin with, but it depends a lot on the resources you use and what technologies you try to use with it.
If you actually want to start learning software programming with JS, start with a very simple HTML page (just all you need to execute JS). Do not include any trending Framework, just concentrate on pure JS. Alternatively you can use Node, then there is no need to set up any HTML file.
I think, what learning JS can make difficult is the unnecessary flexibility it provides, but it is still important to understand the "bad" concepts, because you possibly will have to work with the code somebody else has written.
Good articles without explaining too early and too much unnecessary details can be very helpful to quickly learn how programming works. Just think about how equality with "===" is recommended, but knowing "==" is still worth it.

Your view
Please leave your opinion in the comments, even if you do not know a lot about JS. Every perspective is appreciated!

Power Automate - Cloud Flows: What is your opinion?

CuriousDev — Tue, 08 Feb 2022 16:38:42 +0000

Summary (for our beginners here)

As a part of the Power Platform Power Automate allows us among several kinds applications to create the Cloud Flows. These are serverless processes created with a graphical user interface and only for certain cases you will need some code (the expressions).

The Flows can be compared to the Logic Apps (it is identical in many aspects), which are created with Azure. An alternative are the Azure Functions, but this time you are allowed to program with actual code.

Basically you have the main parts you would have for programming, like conditions, variables etc.. Other components are the "Connectors", which represent Web Services (Web APIs) and allow easy integration of these. The complex functionalities are most likely to be provided by the services.

If you are developing Business Applications with Power Platform (which includes Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement), you mostly likely will be confronted with the Flows. This is also because Microsoft encourages to use these instead of the "classic" Workflows.

The important part now

What is your experience about the Cloud Flows? In my opinion these can be great, if the company uses these to allow users, the Citizen Developers, to create their own "little applications". Given that the allowed Connectors are limited and other restrictions. But if you plan to use them as part of a whole system, in sense of the traditional development, you can face some issues. Just imagine using it for data integration, there are chances that you hit limitations (if Flows exceed a certain amount of actions or runs, throttling will happen or even suspending). Another thing, which is annoying, is that Flows get deactivated after some time without being triggered. Just imagine a very important Flow, which usually would run to send a warning message, but suddenly gets turned off. Only the Owner would receive a notification with E-Mail.
There seems to be only one option, if you look at the plans and are currently using the "Per User Plan": The "Per Flow Plan", which is not only limited to single Flows, but seems also to be quite expensive. There are plenty other issues, but for now I would like to read your experiences!

Power Platform: An overview

CuriousDev — Fri, 28 Jan 2022 16:29:50 +0000

Before we start, some words

This is supposed to be a quick overview of Microsoft's Power Platform, which is mostly interesting for businesses wanting to do some No-Code-Low-Code Development.

First it is as a "platform" a combination of several applications, which are part of and accessable with Office 365. The correct setup with the required licenses should be given of course. The parts are:

Power Apps
Power Automate
Power BI
Power Virtual Agent

Power Apps

The "Power Apps" can be considered as a collection of tools to create different applications with User Interfaces. So basically we need to look at different types of apps, because these tools allow all to create these each in their own way:

Canvas Apps
Modell-driven Apps
Portal Apps

Canvas Apps

An editor will allow you to create an application being build up from components (like text inputs and buttons) on several pages. Canvas Apps can make use of so called Connectors in order to call other Services, which can implement more complex functionalities or allow to read and write data, like a SQL database.

Modell-driven Apps

These need the Dataverse to be set up before, which would be some kind of more complexe database. It could be its own topic because of a lot of functionalities, but let us focus on it being just a database at the moment, allowing us to work with SQL-like data.
Modell-driven Apps heavily rely on the data model created with Dataverse together with defined views (lists) and forms as well as other components, like charts and dashboards. These will then be put together to an App. There are less possibilities regarding placement and design in general, but if you know, that you need to deal with table-like data, these can be a great choice.
Please note, that Dataverse ist not required for Canvas Apps.

Portal Apps

If you want to create a more website-like experience, then Portals can be great, especially if there is the need to allow anonymous or guest users to use your App, which is a difference compared to the other Apps. In addition the Dataverse is also required, meaning you would also deal with the setup of tables and more.

Power Automate

This is another set of tools, but this time it is not about users working with a Web Client, but creating "server processes" handling tasks in an automated way. If Power Apps are our "Frontend", then Power Automate Flows would be our "Backend" (to some extent, but I hope you get the idea) together with the Connectors, which just call other systems. We have:

Cloud Flows
Desktop Flows
Business Process Flows

Cloud Flows

Cloud Flows allow us to use a graphical editor to combine components into a process, which will begin with a Trigger to register the Flow for certain events to start it. Possible are manually started Flows (there will be buttons for this in certain apps from Power Automate and is good to start any developing), scheduled Flows (time intervals are used) and many more, like Triggers of Connectors. Then there will be other components, like conditions and loops, which are similar to what we know from programming in general. Functionality is given with the Actions, which are also part of the Connectors. To give an example: You could use the Trigger of the Excel Online Connector to start whenever a line is added to a table and the Action of a SQL Connector to insert it into a database.

Desktop Flows

These allow you to create automations for a desktop computer and are good for automating tasks which are usually done by a real user. Just imagine a Virtual Machine doing automatically repetitive tasks for you.

Business Process Flows

Business Process Flows are very different and a part of Dataverse. These are less for automation and more for guiding users, when working with forms.

Power BI

The idea is to connect to other systems, which provide data, which in turn is changed in its form and forming a data model, used by graphical components (charts etc.) to create reports and dashboards. This is interesting for Data Analysts.
A connection to Dataverse is also possible!

Power Virtual Agent

If you have the need for some kind of chat bot, then this tool allows you to create them.

Extension of the Tools

What all of these Applications have in common, is the possibility to only use No-Code-Low-Code approaches, meaning that you do not need to be a Software Developer (writing a lot of code). But as you can image, there will be limitations to what can (or should) be achieved, even if you know these tools very well. This can be the reason for doing some actual programming and if you add this capability to your "toolbox", there will be solutions for many more problems.

Thank you for reading

I hope, that this article has given an overview for to understand better what the Power Platform is. If anybody feels like, she or he wants to know more about anything regarding this topic, feel free to comment and let me know!

MongoDB Test Application

CuriousDev — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 18:13:28 +0000

Overview of My Submission

For the Hackathon I just want to try to implement a simple app, which connects to a MongoDB Atlas and allows to add records as well as see an overview of submitted data. In fact, whenever the page will be called, it will add a record and put the current number of records to the resulting page.

This is not supposed to be a great example, but it still hopefully can help people to create their own little applications connecting to MongoDB Atlas.

Submission Category:

Choose Your Own Adventure: Web App showing record count with MongoDB Atlas for adding and retrieving records

Link to Code

Link to source code: Github

Additional Resources / Info

Note, that on MongoDB a free and shared cluster has been used. This is possibly the main difference to many other submissions for this Hackathon.

Description

Here I will describe how to set up the project and try the app.

First we begin to create a database with MongoDB with a Certificate used to connect to it later. Because we want to add records, we need to create a Database "DevDatabase" and a Collection "Measurements". Then we need the repository's content and set up Node JS together with the needed modules.

If you use in the MongoDB portal "Connect" and then "Connect your Application" you should find what you need to change later in the code: The String shown has to be replaced in the code according to the example.
Also make sure to include the Certificate file Certificate.pem in the project, which is not part of the repository and needed for authentication.
If you now run the "app.js" file, a local server will start and allow you to visit http://localhost:3000/. Whenever it is opened (e.g. also by refreshing) it will add a record to the database and then retrieve the records to count them for the number to be displayed.

This has been just to practice, but you still are welcome to leave some feedback or questions. Thank you for reading!