DEV Community: Krishna Agarwal

Making a chatbot in PictoBlox

Krishna Agarwal — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 16:07:49 +0000

Walkthrough for making a chatbot in PictoBlox

In this tutorial, we will make a chatbot in PictoBlox. We will use conditional statements to make the chatbot respond to the user's input.

Getting Started

First, download and install PictoBlox from here.

Launch PictoBlox and choose the Block Coding mode.

Now, let's start making the chatbot!

Making the chatbot

First, let's make the chatbot greet the user.

Drag and drop the when flag clicked block from the Events palette.

Next, drag and drop the say block from the Looks palette, write Hello! I'm your chatbot. How can I assist you today? in the text field and place it under the when flag clicked block.

Now, let's make the chatbot respond to the user's input.

Drag and drop an ask and wait block from the Sensing palette into the "forever" block. This block will allow the user to input their message.

Enter the question: "How can I help you today?"

Drag and drop an "if" block from the Control palette below the "ask and wait" block.

Drag and drop a "contains?" block from the Operators palette into the condition slot of the "if" block.

Place the "answer" block from the Sensing palette into the first slot of the "contains?" block.

Enter the keyword "symptoms" in the second slot of the "contains?" block.

(You can add the name of the symptoms like "fever", "cough", etc. in the "say" block.)

Drag and drop a "say" block from the Looks palette inside the "if" block.

Add the say block for the chatbot to send the details of the symptoms and treatments.

You can add more "if" blocks for the chatbot to respond to more keywords.

Now, To make the chatbot say goodbye to the user.

Drag and drop the say block from the Looks palette, write Goodbye! in the text field and place it under the if block.

Final Look:

That's it! We have successfully made a chatbot using conditional statements in PictoBlox!

You can also refer to this related tutorial: Make a Chatbot using PictoBlox using Speech Recognition

Git and GitHub for Beginners

Krishna Agarwal — Fri, 26 May 2023 10:19:49 +0000

Introduction 🔍

What is Git?

Git is a distributed version control system that can handle small to large scale projects with speed and efficiency. We can use it to do many things, like commit and push the projects remotely on GitHub.

What is GitHub?

GitHub is a platform that can be used to host code online. Git is integrated with GitHub, we can use it to do many things, like commit, tag and push the projects remotely on a GitHub repository.

GitHub lets you host your projects and publish them remotely for free.

Getting Started with Git and GitHub 👨🏻‍💻

Installing Git

Git is available for all platforms, like Windows, Mac, Linux, etc. You can download it from here .

Creating a GitHub Account

GitHub is a platform that can be used to host code online. You can create a GitHub account from here .

Creating a Repository

Repository is a place where we can store our projects. We can create a repository on GitHub by clicking on the New button on the top left corner of the screen.

After clicking on the New button, we will be redirected to a page where we can create a new repository. We can give a name to our repository and make it public or private. We can also add a README file to our repository.

After filling all the details, we can click on the Create Repository button to create our repository. The page will look similar to this after creating the repo:

After filling all the details, we can click on the Create Repository button to create our repository.

Cloning a Repository

Cloning a repository means downloading the repository to our local machine. We can clone a repository by clicking on the Code button on the repository page and copying the link.

After copying the link, we can open the terminal and type the following command to clone the repository:

git clone <link>

After cloning the repository, we can open the folder and start working on our project.

Staging, Committing and Pushing Changes

Staging means adding the changes to the staging area. We can stage the changes by typing the following command in the terminal:

git add .

Committing means saving the changes to our local repository. We can commit the changes by typing the following command in the terminal:

git commit -m "commit message"

Pushing means uploading the changes to our remote repository. We can push the changes by typing the following command in the terminal:

git push

After pushing the changes, we can refresh the repository page and see the changes.

Creating a Branch

Branch is a copy of the main repository. We can make changes to the branch without affecting the main repository. We can create a branch by clicking on the main button on the repository page and typing the name of the branch. For example, we can create a branch named dev by typing dev in the text box and clicking on the Create branch: dev button.

Switching Branches

We can switch branches by clicking on the <'selected repository'> button on the repository page and selecting the branch from the dropdown menu. For example: If dev branch is selected, click on it and switch to other branches like main, etc.

Conclusion

You have successfully learned how to use Git and GitHub. You can now create repositories, clone them, make changes to them, commit and push the changes to GitHub. You can also create branches and switch between them. You can now use Git and GitHub to manage your projects.

Thank you for reading! Happy Coding!

Thank You DEV 😊

Krishna Agarwal — Sat, 03 Dec 2022 03:52:50 +0000

Thank You DEV and the community for providing this opportunity to learn and grow as a coder.

I am excited to be a part of this community and look forward to contributing to the community as much as I can.

It's almost the end of the year and I am looking forward to the new year and all the new opportunities it will bring.

I learned a lot of things from this community and I am grateful for that, thank you for sharing the articles and the knowledge. I want to mention my favorite authors @ben and @dailydevtips1.

I have also built a Git CheatSheet repository which is a much-upgraded version of my article. This repo includes most of the commands and some courses that I have found useful. Do check it out here

Special Thanks to DEV for the '2022 DEV GIFT'

Happy Coding and Happy New Year everyone!

P.S. Do check out my other articles on DEV here and follow me on GitHub here

Do drop your lovely and thankyou comments for DEV community and the community members.

5 Google products that have been built for Developers (Part-1)

Krishna Agarwal — Fri, 22 Jul 2022 10:47:00 +0000

In my previous article, I talked about “20 Git Commands Every Developer Should Know”.

So, this time we will make a difference. We will get to know about technology products. As my first approach to tech products, I would like to tell you about some Google products.

Google is an American multinational technology company that focuses on artificial intelligence, search engine, cloud computing, computer software, etc. It has been referred to as one of the world’s most valuable brands due to its market dominance, data collection, and technological advantages in the area of artificial intelligence. It is considered one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook), and Microsoft usually considered as FAANG companies (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google).

So, let’s learn more information about 5 Google products that have been built for Developers.

So, I’ going to discuss Advantages of each and every product above, in this article

1. AdMob
Google is the No 1 player in the mobile advertising market. It was already the largest online advertising company when it acquired AdMob. AdMob makes earning revenue easy with in-app ads, actionable insights, and powerful, easy-to-use tools that grow mobile apps.

Advantages

Earn more revenue with your apps
Guidance to Get started and improve your Mobile App
Featured resources
They provide a lot of guidance and resources. So, If you have mobile app ideas why don’t you build them and earn more revenue with your apps.

2. Analytics
Google Analytics is an analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic(collecting data for your website or app), currently as a platform inside the Google Marketing Platform. It provides statistics and basic analytical tools for search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing purposes.

Advantages

Track & Provides Real-time Data Reports
Guidance and resources
Integration with other products

Google Analytics provides a report like the above, and you can even customize and manage the report to get the best out of reports.

The report includes:

Sessions and users
Goal completions and conversions
Channel performance
Geo report etc.
So, It is time to track your product by Google Analytics or to build your product to track by Google Analytics.

3. Android

You know, Android is the current leading OS in the market for smartphone operating systems for mobile devices. But, most of you might don’t know Android is not only for mobile phones, it supports tablet, watch, TV (Android TV), and even car (Android Auto). Android powers them all. It’s the operating system inside 2.5 billion active devices.

Advantages

Wide range of devices to choose
Open-source platform (Android is open to everyone: developers, designers, and device makers.)
Support all Google services
Multitasking
Frequent OS updates

There is Android Studio also. Android Studio is the official integrated development environment for the Android operating system.

4. Business Messages
Google Business Messages let developers send messages to your brand or your brand's locations through the pre-created agent. When a user searches and locates a brand that you manage, the results include a message button.

Advantages

Increase visibility to help customers with entry points
Authenticate with OAuth
Track user satisfaction
Guidance and training to start
I personally think that Google Business Messages will help you to engage with more customers and increase the sales and marketing of your business.

5. Exposure Notifications

Google and Apple jointly created the Exposure Notifications System out of a shared sense of responsibility to help governments and the global community fight against the corona pandemic through contact tracing.

Exposure Notifications System

It will help your public health authority, alert you if you’ve been exposed to COVID-19. Using Exposure Notifications helps you protect your community, even if you’ve been vaccinated.

If you found this helpful, make sure to show your support with a like, and if you want to help others in their projects, a share would be greatly appreciated! Let me know what you think about this! Happy Learning!

Follow me on GitHub and DEV.

Part 2 Coming Soon!

20 Git Commands Every Developer Should Know

Krishna Agarwal — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 13:51:00 +0000

20 Git Command I Use All The Time — Git CheatSheet

In this article, I just want to lay down a quick cheat sheet. It will include commands that I shared in that first article, but it will also include some new git commands. Recently, for various senior projects, I have been collaborating with different teams. There are a few commands that have become a staple for me.

So let's get started:

1. git init
This command is used to initialize a project as a git repository.

2. git remote add origin
Example:

git remote add origin https://github.com/MrKrishnaAgarwal/Git-CheatSheet.git

This command is used to add or connect to a remote repository.

3. git remote
This command is used to view connected remote repositories.

4. git status
This command is used to view the status of files in your local repository. Are files tracked? untracked? modified?

5. git add
Example:

git add index.html

git add index.html style.css style.scss

This command is used to stage modified or untracked files.

git add -a
This command is used to stage ALL unstaged files.

6. git reset
This command is used to unstage files.

7. git commit
This command is used to commit staged files.

git commit -m “
Example:

git commit -m "added navigation bar"

This command is used to commit staged files AND provide a commit message for the commit history.

git commit --amend

The git commit --amend command is a convenient way to modify the most recent commit.

8. git push -u origin
Example:

git push -u origin master

This command is used to push committed files to the remote repository(aka GitHub) in the specified branch. Use this command for the very first time you push files to the remote repository. It will establish where you are pushing these files to. The next time(s) you push files, you can use git push

git push
This command is used to push committed files to the remote repository. You can only use this command to push files to the remote repository AFTER having pushed files using the previous command.

9. git fetch
This command is used to fetch the most updated version of your local repository. It checks for new files, new branches, deletions etc.

10. git pull
This command is used to take that information you just fetched and pull it into your local repository. This updates your local repository to the most updated version of your remote repository.

11. git rm -r — cached
Example:

git rm -r --cached config.js

This command is used to remove a file from the remote repository(GitHub) without deleting it in your local repository.

git branch This command is used to preview the branch you are currently on

git branch -a
This command is used to preview all the branches in your local and remote repository.

git branch -r
This command is used to preview all the branches in your local repository (aka branches you have already visited).

git branch
This command is used to create a new branch in your local repository.

13. git checkout — track origin/
Example:

git checkout --track origin/develop

This command is used to switch branches. This is specifically for when you are visiting a branch (created in GitHub/remote repository) for the very first time.

14. git checkout
Example:

git checkout master
git checkout develop

This command is used to switch to branches you have already visited before.

15. git merge
This command is used to merge two branches together. To do this, enter the branch that you want to inherit the changes. And the branch name you would use along with this command is the branch that will provide the changes.

Example: master branch will inherit code from develop branch

git merge develop

16. git merge — abort
This command is used to abort a merge.

If there are no conflict errors, merges will always be successful. Ergo, this abort can only be used in situations where a merge failed.

How will you know this can be used?

For starters, your terminal will say merge failed. It may also tell you to fix the merge conflicts.

Here is another sign:

Look at the very end of the first line. In parentheses, it says (master). This is because we are in the master branch. If you are in the develop branch, it would say (develop).

If your merge fails, it will say (master|merging) or something like that. Maybe it says merge or maybe it’s a forward slash or maybe you’re in another branch. Regardless, you get the idea.

This indicates your merge failed.

git merge --abort would just abort the merge entirely.

17. git merge -X theirs
Example:

git merge -X theirs develop

This command is used to merge two branches together. And if there are merging conflicts, this command will just assume that you’d prefer the changes made in the mentioned branch (rather than the current one).

18. git reset — hard HEAD
This command will erase all the changes you’ve made in your local repository and update it to the latest version that was committed to GitHub.

19. git clean -f
This command is used to delete untracked files in your local repository

20. git clean -d
This command is used to delete untracked directories in your local repository. You can also combine it into git clean -fd to do both.

Suggested by people in comments

21. git bisect

The git bisect command is used to discover the commit that has introduced a bug in the code. It helps track down the commit where the code works and the commit where it does not, hence, tracking down the commit that introduced the bug into the code.

22. git reset HEAD^

This command moves the current branch backward by two commits, effectively removing the two snapshots we just created from the project history. it reverts an accidental commit and keep the changes.

23. git diff

Diff command is used in git to track the difference between the changes made on a file.

24. git rebase

Rebasing is especially useful if you worked on a branch, but then need to apply the changes of that branch on top of the latest main or release branch. With a git rebase you can "move" your branch on top of the latest release. It is also useful if the team (or you yourself) are following common conventions for commits, like squashing commits together or splitting out "big" commits into "smaller" ones. It's basically for "reorganizing" your commits.

git rebase -i HEAD~N

To rebase the last N commits interactively. From there you can decide what action to apply on each commit: pick, reword, squash etc.

25. git stash

Stashing is good when you are working on a branch, but then you need to switch to another branch, but you're not ready yet to make a full commit on your current branch because the current code is "messy". So you stash them, switch to the other branch, come back to your original branch, then unstash your changes.

26. git reflog

git reflog is important when you did something wrong and really messed up your commits.

27. git cherry-pick

Cherry picking in Git means to choose a commit from one branch and apply it onto another.
This is in contrast with other ways such as merge and rebase which normally apply many commits onto another branch.

git cherry-pick <commit-hash>

Thank you for reading! If you have some commands that you use all the time, please share them!

More commands can be found here:

education.github.com

Follow me on GitHub and DEV.

Make Your VS Code Terminal Look Awesome

Krishna Agarwal — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 10:31:00 +0000

Change your integrated terminal from this:

To this:

Summary
In this article we are gonna use oh-my-posh and Nerd fonts. We are not only gonna set this up for VS Code integrated terminal, it’s also be avaliable for our external terminal like below:

Installing Windows Terminal and PowerShell 7
First head over the Microsoft Store and download the Windows Terminal. After that run this command to install PowerShell 7:

winget install --id Microsoft.Powershell --source winget

Installing oh-my-posh
Oh My Posh is a custom prompt engine for any shell that has the ability to adjust the prompt string with a function or variable.

winget install oh-my-posh

Then use this command to activate oh-my-posh

oh-my-posh get shell

Create a PowerShell Profile script:

New-Item -Path $PROFILE -Type File -Force

Open that with notepad:

notepad $PROFILE

Then add the line below:

oh-my-posh init pwsh | Invoke-Expression

Installing Nerd Fonts
After the installations abow, you need to see something like this:

We’ll fix that soon. Now install Caskaydia Cove Nerd Font Complete open it and on that opening window, click install. Then head over to Terminal open Settings > Defaults > Appearance and select the font that you installed.

for now your terminal should looks like this:

Setting VS Code Integrated terminal
Now we are gonna set VS Code for oh-my-posh. Open Command Palette and type:

Terminal: Select Default Profile

and select PowerShell as your default terminal.

Open your integrated terminal, you should see something like this:

Open Command Palette again and select Preferences: Open Settings (JSON) in the json file add following:

// Controls the font family.
"editor.fontFamily": "DejaVuSansMono Nerd Font",
// Controls the font size.
"editor.fontSize": 14,

When you save that file your terminal should look better:

Conclusion
So, This was the final look of our terminal.

If you found this helpful, make sure to show your support with a like, and a share would be greatly appreciated!

Let me know what you think about this!

Follow me on GitHub and DEV.

Also Thanks to my friend Babal.

The Best GitHub Repos for Self-Taught

Krishna Agarwal — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 13:06:00 +0000

Project-Based Learnings

Free Programming Books

Developer Roadmap

Public API’s

My GitHub ReadMe

Krishna Agarwal — Sun, 17 Jul 2022 04:32:53 +0000

Hello Everyone
I want some suggestions on how to improve my GitHub Profile ReadMe.

Some features of my GitHub ReadMe are:

Syncing of Blog Posts
Syncing of Twitter posts and replies
New Quotes Daily
Live Stats

If you want to create a readme like this checkout: https://dev.to/krishnaagarwal/hey-47n1

Give me suggestions by creating an issue.
Link: https://github.com/MrKrishnaAgarwal

Thanks for Reading till here.

New GitHub Achievements

Krishna Agarwal — Sat, 16 Jul 2022 11:55:21 +0000

Some more GitHub Achievements out there.
Check them out on my profile: https://github.com/MrKrishnaAgarwal

But, one more badge remains "stargazer", so go star my repos and I'll see you there 👍🏻

Also I am posting very useful repos, so do follow me too.

MrKrishnaAgarwal (Krishna Agarwal) · GitHub

I'm a Tech passionate who is in the chase of awesome projects and interesting tech concepts. I wish to create an impact in the field of computer science. - MrKrishnaAgarwal

github.com

Share your swags

Krishna Agarwal — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 11:54:08 +0000

Share the swags you have earned.
I have shared many swags images with you.
Now it's your turn.
Fill the comments with surprises.

When you feel lost, be kinder to yourself.

Krishna Agarwal — Sun, 03 Jul 2022 11:27:53 +0000

Author: Unknown

How many programming languages do you know?

Krishna Agarwal — Tue, 21 Jun 2022 15:10:54 +0000

I know around 5

Comment down your number below ⤵️