DEV Community: keepoSteepo

Breakpoints & Strict Mode

keepoSteepo — Sat, 16 May 2020 19:52:21 +0000

BREAKPOINTS AND STRICT MODE

Breakpoints are locations where the browser will pause the program, this enables the programmer to know if the error has occurred at that point of the script’s execution.

One can use breakpoints in the Google Chrome browser on a Mac by first right clicking on the page and then going to “Inspect”. On the line of code, to the left, there are three dots. Once clicked, after the options appear, proceed to “Break on” and select from the available options.

The purpose of using breakpoints when debugging your code is so that you can systematically figure out where the error in your code is. Since the code will only be run until the breakpoint, one can then progressively debug code.

Strict mode forces JavaScript to strictly apply syntax rules. The use of strict mode enables the script to run faster and more efficiently. It also encourages good programming technique since syntax error will result in load-time or run-time errors.

The way to run strict mode is by inputting the “use strict”; statement on the first line of the file.

Swift talk about Swift

keepoSteepo — Sat, 16 May 2020 00:10:34 +0000

Swift was first introduced in 2014 at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference.

It is the primary programming language for Xcode. It is compatible with Objective-C and is used for iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS.

The primary goal when developing Swift was to build a general-purpose programming language with a modern approach to safety, performance and software design patterns. Basically, the goal was to create the best language possible for developing apps from a range of devices as well as diversity in the functions of the app itself.

Why Bootstrap?

keepoSteepo — Fri, 13 Mar 2020 17:29:52 +0000

Bootstrap is important, not just to myself but to developers worldwide because of the vast library it contains. No longer do you have to define and create your own classes. Classes are now imported as long as Bootstrap is linked and called on any element to style it.

CSS is not required in order to use Bootstrap styles. The styles come from the imported library. I wonder if you can combine the two though, it would only make sense. What if you like the style Bootstrap has, but have some CSS code of your own that you can implement?

With Bootstrap, scaffolding is much simpler, although I enjoy the CSS process of scaffolding. Buttons are a breeze with Bootstrap, alliteration anyone?
Bootstrap also facilitates the use of tables, typography, colors, pagination, drop-downs, forms, navigation bars and even carousel of images!

Enums & Switch

keepoSteepo — Fri, 13 Mar 2020 03:36:56 +0000

When building an app, one might consider using an enum/ enumeration instead of a String or Int to limit the choices a user can pick from. Expecting the user to input their choice via String or Int opens the door to millions of possibilities. Instead, create a new type with an enum where instances of that type can only have values correlating to one of the specified cases. Each possible value in an enum is called case. When using enums, it’s always clear what the possible values are and what they mean. Enum values can be compared using ==, or a switch statement to test for all possible values.

A switch statement is another way of making decisions in your code. They can be used to switch any type of value but work especially well with enums. One thing to note about switch statements is that they must be exhaustive, meaning every possible case in the enum must be dealt with. To handle an unspecified value, use a default case.
Finally, like structs, you can add calculated properties and methods to enums.

Auto Layout, Constraints & Stack Views Overview

keepoSteepo — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 16:59:21 +0000

I was taking an in depth look at Auto Layout, constraints and stack views.

Auto Layout is a tool used to build adaptive user interfaces. With Auto Layout, you can set up rules or constraints to define how views will be laid out. Auto Layout should be used by developers when making applications to make their app responsive.
For example, to ensure the display is centered, horizontal and vertical constraints, best thought of as rules, should be set.

Stack views, keeps views arranged either vertically or horizontally. Once this is done, constraints can be set up on the stack view to make it centered. The proper use of these will facilitate the adaptability of your app, as far as how it is viewed, to every device.

Bootstrap Preface

keepoSteepo — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 20:52:01 +0000

Frontend development can be separated into two eras; before and after Bootstrap.
The reason for this is that in 2011, the greatest frontend framework ever was released.
For example, before this time, if you wanted to code a nice-looking button, you had to declare a lot of styles and classes in your code. The greatness of Bootstrap is in its components, which can be copied and pasted, the stylesheet is another and the last aspect is the JavaScript plugin.

Basically, it made repetitiveness obsolete if you learn how to use it.

Responsive Web Design

keepoSteepo — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 18:03:56 +0000

Last Sen night, I was looking into the importance of responsive design. If you are not in the know, I will let you know the importance of implementing this concept. Responsive design is a way of putting together a website so it will automatically scale its content/ elements to match the viewport of the device it is being accessed on. For example, it prevents images from being larger than the screen width.

Ultimately, the goal is to avoid the resizing, scrolling, zooming or panning that occurs when sites are not optimized to different devices.
Responsive design also does away with the repetitiveness of having to design different websites for different devices. Now, only one website has to be designed to scale up or down automatically depending on the device it is viewed on.

Responsive design is much more encompassing and overall makes for a better user experience when using a website. It also exudes the aura of a professional business, individual, etc.

At the moment, in this “time” and “age”, responsive design is the way to go in order to broaden your reach and make your website accessible to most if not all.

Blog Vent 2 (Actions & Outlets)

keepoSteepo — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 18:40:42 +0000

This time around, I learned how to connect my code to the views and controls created in the storyboard so that they respond to user actions. There are two kinds of connections between storyboards and code; actions and outlets. Outlets connect variables in your code to objects in your storyboard in order to access those objects within your code and get information or make changes when the app is running. Actions connect controls like switches and buttons to methods in your code. I put this in to practice by building the color mix app. This app has a display screen at the upmost part of the screen. Below, three buttons and three sliders, each one assigned a color between red, blue and green. The display screen and sliders are outlets and the buttons are actions. As the button is pressed, the display screen will show the color associated with that button, the slider is the intensity of the color from min to max. The sliders can be in a number of positions and the buttons can be combined by only having blue and green on or red and blue, etc. After, I polished the interface and gave it a clean look. The background is silver, the buttons are black except when pressed, then they change accordingly to their color and the sliders color changes according to how much of the min/max is showing.

I almost forgot; I also added a reset button that does exactly that. The buttons are enabled when the switch is on, otherwise they are nonfunctional.

Blog Vent 1

keepoSteepo — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 16:35:47 +0000

In iOS apps, a scrolling list of items is a table view and each item on the list is a cell. I recently had an assignment in which the task was to work on the part of an app that keeps track of the conversation. The part of the app that deals with table views and cells was already built, which led me to focus on the particular task at hand. I first began by familiarizing/ reviewing the files that make up the app. I updated the data source, which is best thought of as a very effective assistant, to give the correct number of messages. Once I did that, the correct number of entries were in the chat but they were all the same answer. I then inserted an if statement that uses the remainder operator to determine whether the message is a question or an answer. The problem then, was that even though the right number of messages, questions and answers were showing up and different text was seen as you move through the conversation it was still not showing the actual contents of the conversation. The next step was to add storage to the app. I created an array and code so that every time the data source is asked to add an answer or question, it creates a new message and adds it to the array.

An idea for an app has been brewing in my head for some time now. An input that the “brain” would take is the information regarding time per se, and the results it would return deal with rates. It’s a vaguely communicated thought, more to come soon. Actions over words.

Struct Instruct

keepoSteepo — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 17:09:59 +0000

One way to create a new type in Swift is by defining a structure, which is often called a struct. A struct is a way of grouping values of other types together. A struct is a better way to define data rather than declaring a series of variables because doing the latter would result in one having to access different arrays possibly with the same index. A struct is a new type, therefore it should begin with a capital letter. Properties should begin with lowercase letters to distinguish values from types, facilitating the reading of the code. I was listening to Coding with Chris on YouTube the other day and he mentioned that a method is the old way of referring to a function. Basically, they are the same… when you think method, think function.

Arrays for Days

keepoSteepo — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 17:33:28 +0000

Swift supports a collection of objects of the same type in order to write safe code that only works with properties and methods on the type declared in the array definition.

If one wants to access all the objects in an array one at a time, one could use a loop to do this, more specifically, one might use the for…in loop to accomplish this.

To check if an array is empty, one might could use the .isEmpty property, otherwise, one might check the .count == 0, if it does not, then the array is not empty.

Different Types of Functions

keepoSteepo — Sat, 01 Feb 2020 03:48:38 +0000

Contain functions are functions that are made from scratch, per se. These are function in which every component in the function is defined to achieve a desired outcome. The hasPrefix and hasSuffix functions are built in functions for a certain type, which just so happens to be type String. They are functions that do not have to be created from scratch every time, they were pre built into the type.

A problem that is sure to be encountered if the user inputs uppercase or lowercase is when a function is tied to certain case. The function might be able to take any input in that starts with a certain value, but if it is tied to a certain case it will not return the desired outcome.
Fear not, there is a fix for this. Instead of writing a function for each possible case, one might change the case of the text before trying to match it using the lowercased method.

let lowerQuestion = question.lowercased() lowerQuestion.hasPrefix(“where”)>