DEV Community: Mtende Otis II

How do you write a good blog post. What components should the post have ?

Mtende Otis II — Sat, 17 Aug 2024 05:58:59 +0000

Passion, Programming and Creativity.

Mtende Otis II — Fri, 16 Aug 2024 17:17:23 +0000

I read a lot of bios online, on GitHub and personal portfolios included. I see one of the most common things ever which falls in the lines of something like this

I am a software developer hosting a toolbox of skills like Go, typescript and Mongo. I have always had a liking to computers ever since I was a kid and that's how I got into it.

I want you to keep this small bio in your mind as you read the post. I recommend storing it next to your favourite song in your cerebrum :).

When I hear the word passion, it echoes back "something I would do even if I received no external reward for it". This has been the drive for most of the greatest works in human folklore and even history. One thing about passion is that it's not obsolete.

At the beginning of the semester, I would have vowed that I hated hardware. I touched my first Arduino (link) a couple of weeks later. With tears in my eyes, I built myself a circuit with a couple of LEDs. The reason I continued was that I got the chance to program a circuit so that was the silver lining in my thinking. After some troubles, I managed to get the circuit working. I managed to get the LEDs to be blinking. The moment I got it working, I felt the same emotions I do when I work on a bug for a while and I finally get it but that bug allowed me to learn more about the code. I can also equate it to when you put one concept you previously knew and the newly learned concept fits together with the old concept and form a steel frame of understanding.

What I am trying to reach is that if you love one concept of creativity you will love the other. The problem with learning new concepts of creativity is the valley of despair. In this valley, things usually seem like they are stagnant but they are the best form of foundation. Imagine if your codebase didn't have data structures like arrays, you'd have found yourself writing complex code which would be unnecessary. We brush off the valley of despair as "not passionate" but like all emotions, passion can be cultivated. The best way to start cultivating a passion for something is to not do it for applause or external rewards.

Computer programming is the peak point of creativity out there. I dare you to look around, you'll see elements of programming in everything(I'll gamble that every person who wrote a book on Object-oriented programming started with a sentence like this lol). Pick something that has a dose of computer programming and try it out. Go in with the mindset of a child: ask a lot, watch and try.

Writing Better Javascript Classes and modules

Mtende Otis II — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 09:50:37 +0000

Classes are something that took me a minute to understand why I needed them compared to simply using object literals.


let person={
  name:"kwame";
  age:45
}

Object literals were easy to create and less ambiguous to write.
It was all rainbows and chocolate until I wanted the objects I created to share features and to reduce redundancy in the code I wrote. I started writing classes for this and I was happy per say. Some redundancy still remained until I read about the second letter of the SOLID principle, Open-closed principle

OPEN-CLOSED PRINCIPLE

If you have been writing JavaScript for more than 3 days then you have used this principle before. Shocking right? Well, I guess that's the cool thing about JavaScript. My favorite definition of this principle is by Bertrand Meyer.
"A software artifact should be open for extension but closed for modification."

Let's break down this statement's key words.

software artifact may mean a lot of things but in this context take a software artifact as a module or a class.
open for extension. This generally means that your class or module should allow the ability of a user (by user I mean the programmer using that class or module) to create new features for his program using the functions or methods from classes or modules.
closed for modification. This the twist of the Bertrand's definition that makes me love it very much. Well, since our classes have multiple features the programmer would love to use, the implementation of these new features should not involve the programmer re-evaluating the parent class and making tweaks to it.

Khalil Stemmler expanded on this by saying
"Write your code in a way that if you want to add new functionality you don't rewrite the existing code"

If a user wants to change how a certain method is implemented in the parent class then they should simply override the method.
Overriding simply means re-writing a method from the parent class to the daughter class.
For instance, let me create a class Animal

Class Animal{
 walk(){
 console.log("Hop")
 }
 eat(){
 console.log("Chew very loudly")
 }
}

our animal has two behaviours. Eating and walking.
My chicken has these two behaviors but how my chicken does these two behaviors is different. Firstly, it doesn't hop and it doesn't chew very loudly.
Well by tweaking my animal class to match these chicken characteristics then all should be fine. But this is not the best approach because what if I want to add another animal let's say a puppy? we cannot have our puppy show the characteristics of a chicken.
Here is where the open-closed principle swoops in as our knight and shining amour to save us from bad code.
The chicken class will simply override the characteristics of our animal. That way the open/closed principle will not be broken.

class Chicken extends Animal{
 walk(){
 console.log("on two legs");
 }
 eat(){
 console.log("crow after eating a seed")
 }
 sleep(){
 console.log("on the roof")
 }
}

The chicken class was able to add new features without needing to modify the animal class.

Closing thoughts.

This is part two of a series. I would recommend checking out the previous blog post.
This rule helps you write better modules and classes. A good programmer doesn't follow all the principles of code but knows when to use the right principle and when to not follow another principle.

Key principles to writing better Javascript

Mtende Otis II — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 13:46:39 +0000

Since the day I started writing code, I believe I was always writing bad code. I didn’t notice it was bad until I started working on a mini-project that was not really mini. As the project grew , I found myself debugging my project just to slot in the features and updates.

Accepting this was like eating a boiled sweet potato without a drink(a Malawian equivalent proverb to hard pill to swallow). But I had to accept this_ uncomfortability_. I first started by hunting for tips and experiences mostly on Hacker news and Reddit.

The collection of blog post mostly lead to the SOLID principle

We’re SOLID? yes
SOLID is and abbreviation that screams Single responsibility, Open-closed,Liskov substitution, Interface segregation,Dependency Inversion.

It is 100% okay if this sounds like something off a philosophical book.Out of the five, I really wanna tether around Single responsibility.

SINGLE RESPONSIBILITY
This principle drives my daily function architecture. A function should only do one thing. If your function is made to add two numbers that’s all it should do, nothing extra.

You’ll sometimes find yourself questioning whether the task my function is one. Let me support this previous statement with a snippet.

function multiply(a,b){

return a*b;
}

This function above clearly does one thing and thats (drum roll) multiplication. Hence this qualifies as single responsibility.

Evaluate this next snippet

function multiply(a,b,answer){
answer=a*b;
return answer;
}

The second function also qualifies as single responsibility. But the second function is bad code.
The core reason why the second function is bad is that it involves manipulation of outside values(answer). The terminology for this is mutation.

Even though mutation has alot of advantages its downside is that if alot of functions are mutating it becomes hard to track where bugs are coming from. FYI, this reason is also why global variables are discouraged. Some languages even use access modifiers to prevent this.

Single responsibility should always be considered when you are writing your functions because it is easier to track bugs and makes easier addition of features when scaling.

Setting Up for Java on Linux.

Mtende Otis II — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 20:02:25 +0000

Firstly, congratulations for using a great open source software,Linux.
To get started I will have to explain the two main components you need to have Java up and running on your machine. You will need the Java development kit (JDK) and an IDE. Yes, Just those two (does a backflip celebration).

The JDK includes tools useful for developing and testing programs written in the Java programming language. So to install it.

Open your terminal
Run the following command

sudo apt install default-jdk

Fill in your password and voila. You should have the JDK installed

If you are super curious about JDK you can read about it here and watch this Video

Now that we have installed the JDK you may want to know version you are using run the command java --version
This should tell you the version of java on your machine.

Secondly getting an IDE. Well if you have been in the programming scene for a long time you may have come across multiple IDEs, vsCode and code blocks just to list a few. In my works with Vs code it really demanded for me to download alot of extensions just to run Java which i find cumbersome for beginners but If you are a person that likes a challenge then well here is the link to setting it up. Good luck!!!

My personal favourite IDE for java is Intellej Idea. Apart from not demanding the extra extension, It was designed special for Java and Java related languages so it runs java smoothly with great compilation time. so lets install it. Make sure you have snap before installing it

Open your terminal again and then run sudo snap install intellij-idea-ultimate --classic

Note: _You will get the classic ultimate version with this one but if you want the free one you have to get the community editon by running _

sudo snap install intellij-idea-community --classic --edge

After installing it give it a try and create a project.

Why name it Javascript though?Emascript

Mtende Otis II — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 16:29:15 +0000

Well I have always wondered why Javascript was named such even though they are not that related. I got my answer today. I would love to springle the Joy of this new found knowledge or explanation to you all.
Firstly, I got this from a very interesting conversation I had with a programmer who has alot of experience and I tried to cross check it with a blog by Brandon Morelli (https://medium.com/@bmorelli25) and the ideas seemed similar.
Well lets get into it. Javascript was named such to capitalize on Java. What do I mean by that? Back in the genesis years of the web, Java was that shiny toy everybody played with just like it is right now with React (cough!cough!) so naming it off of something famous attracted people. The point was to gain traction in the tech sector; use the name recognition of 'java' to leverage acceptance and usage.

Javascript as a language takes bits of other language like Haskell, Scala and even smallTalk(funny name for a programming language).So apperently the language that has inheritance also inherited.

Why everyone should read the almanack of Naval Ravikant

Mtende Otis II — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 09:56:17 +0000

Last week someone introduced to naval ravikant and well I have to say he is really smart. I found a book about him called the almanack of Naval Ravikant. I'm halfway through it and I really love it and I think everyone should read it.Naval is a software engineer and a tech investor.

The book talks about authenticity at some point and it made me reflect about my tech projects. Most portfolios have the same E-commerce website, todo list, Tic Tac Toe,weather apps. Even though these are great projects they are everywhere and they can be found on YouTube with one search.And for a recruiter who has had alot of experience they'll be demotivated and you will be a basic applicant who doesn't stand out.
I believe that as a software engineer you should have all these projects to show that you can do what a basic applicant can do and add other projects that target a specific niche of people in your area or on the internet and is being used in their daily life. You should also contribute to a couple of open source projects so that you show your ability to repair code.

Imagine if netflix was open source and it has a glitch that has been happening for days that has been overlooked and a person fixes it. Wouldn't you be impressed. That person can be you and you can impress a recruiter.
You can't start from the top with fixing open source material but you should start from somewhere. There alot of open source projects with spelling mistakes go there and fix them.

So my main core thoughts in this chunk of words is be authentic and work smart and hard.

Be patient in tech??

Mtende Otis II — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 16:17:34 +0000

Well one of my friends who is in tech Told me that I have to wait an learn even more before I start applying for jobs. But I believe that in tech you will never really be ready for a job. With the coming of But It will make recruiters add it to the requirements and I will be forever to learn it and at the end I will never be really ready

OLD PROJECTS

Mtende Otis II — Sat, 09 Sep 2023 18:55:27 +0000

I see alot of projects on peoples githubs when they were just starting out as devs and they still have alot of bugs. I think if a person made a project while starting up i think its best to come back and fix the bugs rather than just leaving them.

I think it shows how you use knowledge after acquiring it
This saturday I fixed my landing page https://github.com/Mtendekuyokwa19/AfricaLandingpage
https://startupsafrica.netlify.app/

Making a small commit on a weekend

Mtende Otis II — Sat, 09 Sep 2023 08:49:42 +0000

Making a small push on a weekend lol

New tech resolution

Mtende Otis II — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 16:54:15 +0000

A couple of days ago I stumbled into Linus trovald's (the guy who created Linux) GitHub account and I was really amazed to see that he still codes. His commit calender showed that he makes a push almost everyday, he currently has somewhere about 2093 contributions in the last year. What got me wondering was the fact that he still codes am like you are already rich. Then I evaluated this thought and his action and I came to a conclusion that he probably does it because he loves tech he loves what he created. I also love tech but I sometimes don't commit. This sparked a self evaluation episode. I came to the conclusion that loving something without displine is useless. So from now on I will work really hard and try to make a commit at least once a day. That's the only way for me to become better. Even if I don't have a new project I will go back to my projects and add small new features.

As a newbie should i take the UI of my projects seriously

Mtende Otis II — Tue, 05 Sep 2023 06:48:06 +0000

When Im working on a new practice projects I usually struggle with the user interface and buttons even if the aim of the projects is not the ui but the functionality. I am a newbie so i think i shouldn't be focusing on ui i should be looking at the functionality. what do you think??