DEV Community: Nill Webdev

Useful Books That Java Developers Should Definitely Read

Nill Webdev — Wed, 16 Jun 2021 12:19:10 +0000

Hello folks, If you are a Java developer and wondering what to read in the remaining of 2021, then you have come to the right place. In this article, I am going to share books on Java, Spring, and related technology a Java developer can read.

I have included books for both experienced Java developer who is more inclined to learn about architecture stuff, developing for Cloud, MicroService, Java 9 to Java 14 features, and Spring 5 features and thinking of learning Kotlin to improve their productivity.

Still, I have not forgotten junior and less experienced Java developers or some who are thinking of starting their journey into the Java world in 2021. This means if you have just started learning Java or thinking to learn, those are ideal books to start.

1. GROKKING THE JAVA INTERVIEW

2. CLOUD-NATIVE JAVA

3. MICROSERVICES PATTERN

4. CLEAN CODE

5. MODERN JAVA RECIPES

6. JAVA 9 MODULARITY

7. JAVA: A BEGINNER’S GUIDE, SEVENTH EDITION

That's all about some interesting and useful books that Java developers can read in 2021. To be honest, there is a lot to learn. These books will not only provide you with up-to-date knowledge, but also improve your understanding of new features.

Awesome Ruby Frameworks For Web Development

Nill Webdev — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 12:51:15 +0000

Ruby is a programming language that has been accepted with open arms since 1995, and thanks to its open-source nature, it is still growing every day. Ruby is fast, object-oriented, and secure, which brings a dynamic nature into the project with an MVC support structure that makes development more comfortable than ever. With start-ups openly accepting Ruby, the language has shown remarkable progress in almost every field, especially web development. Ruby’s popularity motivated people to take the development to the next level and bring out some best ruby frameworks for the developers.

Some frameworks are built to ease out middleware and request/response of the application. Some are made for REST APIs and others for web applications. Collecting the best ruby frameworks from across the globe, in this post, we’ll talk about these frameworks and how each framework lets the developer take advantage of Ruby.

Without further ado, let’s delve into details of the best ruby frameworks for web development that will surely benefit your business.

Best Mobile Apps For Learning Code From Scratch

Nill Webdev — Fri, 11 Jun 2021 13:13:47 +0000

Thanks to the advent of technology, the study of code has become available. Therefore, the number of people who want to build a career that requires coding skills is growing rapidly. Despite the fact that now is the best time to learn, it still often happens that we may not have enough time to use computers for practice, so mobile devices came in handy.

People can download coding apps to their mobile devices and immediately start learning the art of coding. For your understanding, below are the best code learning apps I've put together for you.

UDACITY

You will get insight into using all popular coding programs through Udacity application. The student learns how to create Android Apps through theoretical materials and practical tasks. The application comes with a guide to ensure you understand how to build cloud-connected Android apps.

The courses are on artificial intelligence, programming, business, data science, autonomous systems, and development. The content taught is rich and conducted by professionals. The app comes with great support from the learning community. The students also undertake interactive quizzes and schedule their learning hours, making the training convenient. What’s impressive about this training is that it contains approximately 200 free lessons. However, be aware that you won’t get certification in the end.

To graduate with an Udacity Nanodegree,you will need a smartphone and $399 per month paid for the coming five months.

SOLOLEARN

SoloLearn is an excellent app to use in learning various coding languages like JavaScript, Kotlin, SQL, Python, PHP, and many more on any Android or iOS device.

Upon enrollment, a group of friendly coders will make you feel like home. The learner also enjoys friendly support from fellow learners and the teaching team. During the training, you will undertake numerous coding topics and tackle various assignments. The students get an idea of how to run real code using your mobile code editor. Communication within a community will also play a significant role in ensuring you understand and finish your lessons effectively.

Though the download is free, you pay $6.99 monthly or $47.99 annually for the lessons.

CODEGYM

Using your phone, the CodeGym app will teach you Java programming from the very beginning. You will undertake 600 mini-lectures and 1200 tasks to complete the entire class.

The course includes four quests in playing format, with each journey containing ten levels that involve tasks and lectures. As it might be hectic to type long codes in a smartphone, this app developers incorporated a system that will enable the learner code faster through auto tips and examples. Every solution can be written and reviewed immediately. It also comes with a help section to lend you a hand when you are stuck.

From level 1, the company offers two paid subscriptions. The learner can either choose the Premium package of $30 per month or $300 per year, or the Premium Pro cost of $50 per month or $500 annually.

MIMO

If you have an Android or iOS gadget, use the Mimo app to discover how to come up with your own project spending five minutes a day on training. The app covers the most popular programming languages, including Swift, Kotlin, Java, HTML, PHP, Python, Ruby, and lots more.

The students quickly build websites using various coding languages with its curriculum called “Learn to Code”. Other than getting insight into using SQL to communicate with databases and Python to analyze data, the learners get to know how Netflix and Google use extensive data to recommend movies or websites. The course is a great deal for both advanced coders and beginners.

You can download the application for free and subscribe to Mimo Pro if you like — a $9.99 monthly subscription will give you unlimited access to all courses, hands-on tasks, and weekly additions and updates.

PROGRAMMING HERO

With this app, learning programming is exciting. The students learn programming languages like Python, Java and practice on CSS, HTML on their Android or iOS device. Programming Hero allows building a game while you learn to code. After the lesson, you are supposed to apply the concepts immediately and show your published work. You can work anywhere and at any time. You have access to instant help in case of any issue.

The app comes with over 100 coding tasks containing solutions and explanations. You’ll also learn various data structures like Stack, Map, Array, or Linked List. The use of multiple games to explain critical features makes the courses easy to understand and fun. For example, the space shooting game helps the learner to understand Basic Programming.

Though the cost may vary by the country, the courses cost $9.99 per month or $39.99 annually for a US premium package.

CONCLUSION

Coding applications are amazing educational tools that help any person to become a programmer. Many of them are perfect for complete beginners, others are good to go if you already have some previous experience. The apps downloaded on your smartphone will help you sharpen your coding skills while on the go. In short, they are designed to bring much value in the long run, especially if they are used in combination with other training materials.

Best Android Apps To Learn Java Language

Nill Webdev — Thu, 10 Jun 2021 13:15:28 +0000

So, you decided to study Java, even chose a course to take, but here it turns out that you have an extremely busy schedule, and it is very difficult to open a laptop and start learning something. If the situation seems very familiar to you, then the best option for you is to switch to the course, which is presented not only on the desktop, but also in the mobile version.

There are very good platforms on Android that can help you learn Java programming. So, let's talk about these apps.

SOLOLEARN

Programming language: Python, JavaScript, C++, HTML, Java, C#, SQL, PHP, CSS, jQuery, Ruby, Swift.

If you do not have any coding experience, then this course is a perfect choice for you. SoloLearn is designed especially for people with zero coding background. Just like how you edit your pictures through drag and drop of filters, SoloLearn also offers the same kind of coding, you are supposed to drag and drop different snippets of code to solve the assignment.

The practical tasks are very brief and take only a few minutes to solve. There are almost 42,758,088 learners at SoloLearn and the courses have almost 15000+ quizzes. We live in a world where knowledge is just one click away from your smartphones, and the best part of this course is that it teaches you in a fun way.

The user interface is brief and easy to learn with the four main features of SoloLearn:

Learn: Free coding lectures to help you learn

Play: Here you can have a healthy competition by challenging other users to have a battle

Code: An in-built development environment for you to code

Discuss: A discussion forum to get tips from senior developers and resolve your problems.

Pros
-The community at SoloLearn is very helpful and encouraging
-No coding background is required for this course
-More than 2000 free lessons

Cons
Easily conveys knowledge, does not go into depths
The app does have some functionality issues

Price-SoloLearn app is free

CODEGYM

Programming language: Java

CodeGym is one of the most efficient courses for learning Java programming. 80 percent of the course is dedicated to the practice and only 20 percent — to the theory. The main goal of the course is to develop your problem-solving skills in order to prepare you for working on real-life programmer tasks. The course is absolutely suitable for a hectic schedule, it does not require you to give full time.

Moreover, the course gives back the result of every task instantly so it’s easy for you to observe your learning progress. In these confusing times, CodeGym frees you from hectic courses, time bounds, and location limitations, you can learn anytime and anywhere as you have a choice either to learn from the website and mobile application. Completing this course will definitely get you equipped with Java coding.

Pros
There are more than 1200 coding tasks available at CodeGym
The course is gamified so it makes the learning process really exciting
Practice tasks are verified immediately and it’s easy to track the progress

Cons
You need to connect the keyboard if you intend to code

Price- CodeGym app is for free

ENKI

Programming language: SQL, Data Science, JavaScript, Python, Blockchain, CSS, HTML, Security, git, CompSci fundamentals, Linux, and Java.

A platform that facilitates both beginners and intermediate level audiences, is worth opting for. If you are eager to master Java, this platform is the best place for you to practice by solving coding challenges.

The experts monitor your performance regularly. Trainers believe that the way to approach a problem is the way to solve it and the time it takes you to solve it. It is the best method to learn to program when you are being supervised. The credibility of the course can be measured based on the fact that its learners work at Google, Netflix, Microsoft, and Amazon.

Pros
-You are studying under the supervision
-There are many games and quizzes so you don’t get bored

Cons
-The content can be accessed only with the payment of subscription fees
-Low loading speed
-There are performance issues associated with the app

Price
The basic version of Enki is free (very limited content). There is a $9/month subscription fee to access the rest of the course material.

CONCLUSION

If you have an Android phone, you have access to all the above-mentioned courses. It is indeed a blessing that you no longer need to be stuck to the computer to learn a programming language. The above-mentioned 3 apps can help you learn Java programming on the go. The only thing that is required is your dedication to the studying process. Make a bit of effort and you will get maximum results.

Important Web Developer Resources You Need To Know

Nill Webdev — Wed, 09 Jun 2021 09:38:34 +0000

In this post, we’re going to examine incredibly useful web development resources and how you can get benefit from them.

Every resource on this list is free for personal use and will help you to become more productive.

Figma

With annual revenue of more than 130.5 million dollars, Figma is probably the most valued company on the list.

Figma is a web-based tool and design platform that is build to help you make a blueprint for your website.

Figma has a million plugins, themes, and UI kits that you can work with but its greatest strength is that it provides real-time collaboration with your project partners.

It allows you to build up libraries of reusable components which your project partners can access.

CodeSandbox

CodeSandbox is an online code editor which accelerates your process of creating web applications.

But I think it's much more than just an online editor it allows you to share your code and collaborate with other partners.

This is a simple and effective solution for creating small web applications quickly.

30 seconds of code

30 seconds of code is not an online code editor instead it provides you the most popular used code snippets for your preferred language.

Currently, it supports many front-end languages including JavaScript and ReactJS.

You can search for any specific code snippets like shown below and it will give you an idea of how to use that snippet in your code.

Bootstrap Studio

Bootstrap Studio is a desktop application intended to help designers create beautiful and appealing website experiences.

It has a beautiful and powerful interface, which is built around the simplicity of drag and drop.

Because it's built using the well-known Bootstrap framework, Bootstrap studio provides clean and straightforward exportation choices, allowing any developer to easily create websites.

UI Design Daily

This website will soon become your daily driver once you start implementing its UI components in your projects.

It provides every sort of components such as login page, donation page, and forms which you can embed smoothly and speed up your project.

Dribbble

With more than 6 million active users and a revenue of 61 million dollars, this is the largest platform where designers flaunt their work.

Dribble is an online community where designers exhibit their work and made networks with like-minded people.

In short, Dribble is LinkedIn for designers and goldmine for developers looking for design ideas.

Netlify

Netlify has hosted projects for more than 800,000 developers and it’s a very reliable resource that you can trust.

It’s biggest feature is that it’s simple to use and provides you a 10x faster path to host and secure your web apps.

However, netlify only hosts front-end projects and not full stack projects.

But don’t worry I have got you covered on everything.

Conclusion
Learning a skill requires both time and effort. You need to understand the difference between when to start a project from scratch and when to insert code snippets.

Make sure you know how these code snippets work before you copy them for your projects.

Do you want to add any other tools to this list? Do you have any experience with any of these tools? Share your thoughts.

BEST PRACTICES FOR REST API DESIGN

Nill Webdev — Tue, 08 Jun 2021 11:24:52 +0000

1. API DOCUMENTATION
Always provide clear and concise documentation is necessary for any API, it becomes harder to use that API later without good documentation. So make sure that your API has good documentation using simple languages with updates and new releases.

Your API Documentation should include the following:
-Simple and easy to read language.
-Implementation of API in different programming languages.

2. DON'T RETURN PLAIN TEXT
It is not necessary to go above JSON in REST architecture, as most REST APIs use JSON as a data format. But there are times when returning a body that contains a JSON-formated string isn't enough.

Such as you can specify the Content-Type header set to the value application/json.

3. AUTOMATE CACHING
Repeated request and responding to those request consumes resources and this becomes a sign of flawed design. To solve this problem you must store data fetched from the API on the server and serve later from there.

However, there are times when the data becomes outdated and needs to be updated, in this case, we have some industry caching solutions (Redis and Amazon ElasticCache) that can cache data even after making changes.

4. USE PLURAL RESOURCE NOUNS
There is nothing wrong with singular resource nouns, but if you want to just keep things simple, then it is recommended to use plural resource nouns.

For example, GET/post/3/ looks fine but what about GET/post/?. In this case, we are not confirmed if we are getting only one post or all of them.

To avoid this approach and be more consistent you can use plural resource nouns.

5. HANDLE TRAILING SLASHES
Using trailing slashes is a matter of choice, but make sure that you are sticking to that one choice with trailing slashes. As there are times when inconsistency will be there due to some minor mistakes.

For example, in a REST API project, you can receive a 500 Internal Error just because of a missing trailing slash.

6. FILTERING AND PAGINATION
Every database behind a REST API becomes larger with time and there are times when we have to control the flow of the data at once, otherwise, that can bring our systems down easily. This is why always allow filtering in your APIs.

We also need to paginate data to return a few results at a time, otherwise, all of our resources will blow because of trying to get all the requested data at once.

Best Practices For Rest API Design

UI/UX Tips To Design Forms In Web Applications

Nill Webdev — Mon, 07 Jun 2021 13:08:34 +0000

Forms are one of the common ways the user interacts with applications, they are almost everywhere. While making a purchase, creating a profile, or signing up for newsletters, building forms the right way can easily boost your user interaction as the application becomes more friendly. I will be giving some minor and easy tips that can help you build better forms as a frontend developer or even as UI/UX designer.

1. TEST YOUR FORMS

There are times when our application is a specific target to some users, to make sure that maximum users are comfortable while using your application, you must test your forms on real users. However, there will be different cases as target markets are different and your forms need to be tested extensively with real users.

2. USE FIELD STATES

Form fields can have different states based on the user’s action, try to design every form element in all of those states. Start with the basic text input field and then try to customize it with border color, text weights, and shadows for different field states.

-You can also use icons inside such as checkmarks for a validated field or other related icons that show the current actions.

-While designing the negative and invalid states in your forms fields, make sure to provide a short description to let the user know what went wrong, you can use color (red) with different opacity to make it more descriptive for the user.

-Also, avoid adding all the validation displayed under the entire form and keep the description short and to the point.

3. SPACING LABLE
Lable is a small explanatory text with the text field, in most cases, it is simply the description of what is required inside that form field and if your form has a lot of fields, then make sure to space them evenly and far enough to avoid the confusing look in your forms.

-Proper spacing can be done easily by using the cap height (height of capital letters) or 1.6 times the value of cap-height.

-The margin between multiple text fields and their label should be at least twice the height of labels which makes it clear where fields are starting and ending.

4. USE SINGLE COLUM FORMS

There are multiple reasons for using single-column forms in your application instead of multiple columns forms. When it comes to smaller screens such as mobile devices single-column forms are more friendly as they are more readable when it comes to mobile devices because you have a small path to follow with your eyes instead of jumping between blocks.

-Keep forms rather narrow and the best range is 320 and 500p wide. Wider fields will automatically take more time to process, so just keep it simple.

-If you have more than 6 fields or more, then it is recommended to divide them into separate pages with clear information of which step you currently are at the moment.

-Also, don't add the empty spaces around your forms, it is better to give the form the maximum amount of attention and the best focus.

5. USE RADIO BUTTONS

In cases, if you have very few options that will be not changed in the future, then it is recommended to use radio buttons for such options instead of a drop-down menu. Using the radio button also adds a more consistent look to your application as users don't have to find these options whenever they are using the application.

3 CSS Features You Should Know

Nill Webdev — Fri, 04 Jun 2021 10:55:42 +0000

1. MULTIPLE BORDERS

There are times when we want to style our containers with different borders and multiple borders. But when it comes to applying multiple borders in CSS, developers usually end up having way too much useless extra elements.

There are two great solutions in my knowledge to apply multiple borders without polluting your markup code.

box-shadow solution: You must have used the box-shadow property to create shadows. However, there is a parameter knows as spread radius (a fourth parameter), which makes the shadow large or small by the amount we specify. And a positive spread radius combined with zero offset and zero blur creates a shadow that looks exactly like a solid border.

“Note: The reason why box-shadow is a good option to apply multiple borders is that we can simply add more borders by adding them in the same box-shadow property.”

For example;

outline solution: In case we need only two borders, using a regular border with the outline property for the outer one will do the job. This method provides us more flexibility as we can customize our border style ( we can use a dashed border for the second border). Also, we can control their distance from the boundaries of the element via the outline-offset property.

2. FLEXIBLE ELLIPSES

You must have face the issue while applying the border-radius to a square element with a large border radius that can turn into a circle. I have personally faced this problem a lot of times and here is a quick solution.

Slashes: A very lesser know fact is that border-radius accepts different horizontal and vertical radius & if you use a slash to separate the two, then it allows us to create elliptical rounding at the corners.

Percentage: Even though we can use px and other CSS units to define our border-radius property, it also accepts percentage which solves our problem of calculating how many pixels to enter in the property.

For example, if we have an element with the dimensions of 300px X 200px, we can easily turn that into an ellipse with a radius equal to half of its width and height.

3. COLOR TINTING

A very known effect to give a visual unity to a group of photos, where the effects are applied statically and removed on hover or some other interaction. Most of the time developers create two different versions of the image and use some simple CSS which takes care of swapping them. This approach is not recommended as it adds up more bloat and extra HTTP requests.

With CSS we can easily achieve this effect with a few lines of code.

Using Filters: You have to simply apply the filter property to your image and choose the saturation that you want.

For example, we can use the sepia() filter which gives the image a desaturated orange-yellow tint, and change the saturation with saturate() filter to increase the saturation of every pixel. And at last, we can apply CSS transition to get our final results wherever a hover interaction is initiated by the user.

Thank you for reading this! I hope this article ["3 CSS Features You Should Know"(https://exceed-team.com/tech/css-features-you-should-know?s=de&a=a) was useful to you! Good luck and have a nice day, I will be happy to receive your feedback in the comments)

Advanced CSS Selectors

Nill Webdev — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 09:50:28 +0000

I am writing this article because I feel like we are focusing more and more on JS in the front-end world. Forgetting about CSS and HTML possibilities.

In this piece, I’ll cover some CSS selectors starting with a child selector and hope to finish with some more surprising one. Enjoy

CHILD SELECTOR

Direct child selector only identifying p elements that fall directly within an article element.

article > p {…}

GENERAL SIBLING SELECTOR

General sibling selector selects elements that follow and shares the same parent. H2 the element must come after p element.

p ~ h2 {…}

ADJACENT SIBLING SELECTOR +

Adjacent Sibling Selector selects the element that directly follow and shares the same parent
Only p elements directly following img element will be selected.

img + p {…}

ATTRIBUTE SELECTORS

Attribute selectors select an element based on the presence or/and value of given attribute. There are several types, examples below.

Selects all elements that have alt attribute.

divalt {...}

Selects all elements that have alt with exact value.

divalt=”something” {…}

Selects elements that contain value but in selector also exact value. (simply needs to have the something anywhere in the value of the attribute)

divalt*=”something” {…}

Selects elements that start with a selector value.

divalt^=”something” {…}

Selects elements that end with a selector value.

divalt$=”something” {…}

DIV:NTH-LAST-CHILD(2) {…}

Selects the last two div, they have to be siblings/share same parent

:NOT(:LAST-CHILD) {…}

Selects all elements which are not the last child. Combination of :not and :last-child.

DIV:FIRST-OF-TYPE {…}

Select the first siblings of its type.

Hope that helps. Please share your most interesting selectors in comments!

PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES YOU WON’T USE BY 2030

Nill Webdev — Mon, 31 May 2021 10:01:01 +0000

Programming languages are disappearing. It's an inescapable fact of life: the old and tired are inevitably replaced by the new and better (or at least a little different). While it's impossible to predict which languages will actually persist over the next decade (with the exception of Python and JavaScript; I think both of them will remain), it's worth asking which languages are on the road to oblivion—after all, you don't want to waste time learning something that won't be useful for a long time.

Why Will Objective-c disappear?

Apple’s original programming language has been alive for 36 years, and it seems certain that some legacy apps will still incorporate it 10 years from now. But the chances of you actually working with it by the end of the decade? Pretty much zero, unless you land a job maintaining some obscure iOS app that a company absolutely refuses to update under any circumstances.

Apple is dedicated to ensuring that Swift, which launched in 2014, totally replaces Objective-C. Despite that push, however, Objective-C has managed to maintain much of its popularity and market-share. Why is that? The explanation is pretty straightforward: Swift didn’t emerge fully featured, and its creators have spent the past five years adding crucial features such as ABI stability. That’s encouraged many iOS and macOS developers to stick with Objective-C for the time being.

As Swift becomes more robust, though, the use-case for Objective-C will fade. Over the next ten years, companies will also re-write big chunks of their iOS/macOS codebase in Swift, lessening the need to maintain Objective-C legacy code. If you’re interested in building for Apple’s ecosystem, now’s the time to learn the various features of Swift, including Strings, Arrays, and Package Manager.

Perl Will Fade Away

Yes, Perl has its own adherents. Every time an article appears that declares Perl on the list of endangered languages, fans point to the number of open Perl jobs currently available, as well as the fact that there is still an active developer community around Perl and its potential evolution into something new and interesting.

However, RedMonk and the TIOBE index show that Perl is in decline, and while you may disagree with how any site ranks programming languages, if their different methodologies come to the same conclusion, then it's safe to say that something is really going on here. Adherents like to point out Perl's high performance and ability to scale (hence its lovely nickname “Swiss Army Chainsaw”), but other languages—most notably Python—have begun to overshadow it in terms of implementation, libraries, and features.

The number of people using Perl is expected to decline further over the next ten years, putting the language at serious risk of disappearing altogether.

CoffeeScript Is Burned

According to codementor.io, CoffeeScript (a programming language that compiles to JavaScript; yes, we’re counting it) ranked among the worst languages for community engagement and growth in 2019. “CoffeeScript’s Facebook community was nonexistent this year and it ranked near the bottom of the pack for Freenode IRC, Twitter, GitHub, and Stack Overflow tags,” the website wrote in a note accompanying its data. “/r/coffeescript, unfortunately, also had the dubious honor of being the least popular subreddit on our list of languages.”

CoffeeScript has also experienced a decline in Google Trends. Barring some remarkable event that returns it to relevance, it seems unlikely that CoffeeScript will be broadly used within ten years.

Why Is r Dead?

Data science is only becoming more crucial to many companies, leading to a spike in job postings for data scientists, data analysts, and data engineers. Core programming languages to data science include Python, R, and SQL—but there are a lot of signs that Python has begun to swallow up R, which was developed for statisticians and data analysts.

“Behind Python’s growth is a speedily-expanding community of data science professionals and hobbyists—and the tools and frameworks they use every day,” read the latest edition of GitHub’s State of the Octoverse. “These include the many core data science packages powered by Python that are both lowering the barriers to data science work and proving foundational to projects in academia and companies alike.”

For years, various sites have tracked Python gaining ground at R’s expense. In 2018, a KDnuggets poll traced that decline in R usage in favor of Python (especially among tech pros who utilized both languages). Meanwhile, a separate survey from Burtch Works revealed that Python use among analytics professionals grew from 53 percent to 69 percent over that same time two-year period, while the R user-base shrank by nearly a third.

There’s no reason to think this trend won’t continue over the next few years, putting R at serious risk of being completely supplanted by Python.

Java Practice Projects To Improve Your Programming Career Prospects

Nill Webdev — Fri, 28 May 2021 13:12:01 +0000

So, you’ve started to learn Java programming and wonder how to make the learning process faster and boost your career prospects. While reading books and watching tutorials on YouTube is a significant part of honing a new programming language, it may not be still that effective without being accompanied by the hands-on part. Java practices, tasks, and challenges are what can boost your coding skills and take you one step closer to your dream job.

To save you the hassle of surfing the Internet looking for the appropriate programs, I’ve created a list of Java project ideas that will brush up your skills. So, without any further delay, let’s get to the project ideas.

PROJECT IDEAS FOR COMPLETE BEGINNERS

1. Remake of the Classical Videogame

As soon as you polish at least basic knowledge of Java, it’s high time to start creating your own Java practice projects, say, reproducing a classical video game in your own way.

Developing a game is not an easy task, but the CodeGym Games section with its step-by-step mini-courses will make it easier for you. The access to the section is free and divided into levels, so you can choose to write the one matching your current skills.

The games are not small tasks — they are fully-fledged projects split into twenty subtasks. To finish up the game, you need to complete each subtask one by one. The online platform allows you to create your own version of Mine Picker, Hungry Snake, 2048, Racer, and other games. Once it is ready, you can share a link to a published game with your fellow coders so that they can consider it and get back to you with feedback.

2. ATM System

ATM interface refers to a Java console system and allows creating the app to monitor transactions. While working on the project, you will pass five classes and get familiar with the account holder, account, bank translation, bank itself, and ATM.

Right after entering an identifier and pin, users can access records of every transaction, make deposits, withdrawals, and transfers.

3. Currency Converter

This is another Java practice project best suited for novice specialists. It is used to convert currencies: the users enter a certain amount of money in one currency and set the currency they want to check the monetary value of.

The project has a web-based interface that ensures a simple visual experience for programmers when it comes to creating Java applications. While developing the app, the beginners can master classes, variables, algorithms, loops, if statements, and other Java concepts.

MID-LEVEL PROJECT IDEAS

4. Grading System in Java

I also recommend expanding your list of Java practice projects with a grade processing system developed to help you edge your fundamental Java skills. Upon receiving the scores of quizzes, exams, tests, tasks for different subjects, the system outputs the results in the form of grades. An important point here is that the users can add as many subjects as they see fit.

All the necessary information about students, be it an assigned roll number or their names have its own fields in the interface, while students’ grades will be displayed along with the relative rank in their classes.

When creating the project, you will build it with Netbeans (or use the other IDE) using JTextField, JTextArea, JButtons, JPanels, JLabels, JOPtionPane, and other visual components.

5. Pharmacy Information System

Another project you can build is a pharmacy management system with a plain GUI. This medical store system allows its users to keep track of the drug store, add or remove items from there. The project is simple and consists of three modules, including:

-CVS or Consumer Value Stores (American retail company) to monitor medical products and changes applied to the store;
-Pharma to add as many new stores as you see fit;
-Store Admin to add and change the number of drugs, etc.

6. Word Counter in Java

When it comes to honing the knowledge of Java String and File Handling concepts, the Word Count tools project is good to go. It allows newcomers with previous experience in building projects to create a content writing interface with a built-in word count function. While the latter is quite ordinary, the programmers can come out of the box making the project more unconventional — all they need is just to implement new features by adding counting characters and words without whitespaces.

7. Intelligent Hospital System in Java

In terms of a pandemic situation, the hospital system has never been that relevant. Among other things, it can help health care professionals to approximate disease based on the symptoms added to the system.

Right after registration, the doctor, the major unit of the system, enters health records of the patient, including personal information, blood type and pressure, body weight, test results, and other details. Given the received data, the intelligent hospital system builds up a preliminary report on the patient’s health status.

ADVANCED-LEVEL PROJECT IDEAS

8. Email Application

As soon as you get familiar with the Java development environment and master at least OOPs, it’s high time to move further and create projects for advanced learners. The email application is one of them. Other than giving you a clear understanding of the Math.random method, the project also lets you sharpen encapsulation, one of the fundamental concepts in object-oriented programming. When you finish your application, it should do the following:

-Generate an email with firstname.lastname@department.company syntax.
-Determine the department.
-Generate a random String for a password.
-Have methods to change the password, set the mailbox capacity, and define an alternative email address.
-Have methods to showcase the name, email, and mailbox capacity.

9. Sports Management Software

Creating a Sports Manager (SM) system will keep you excited, especially if you are fond of sports management. This Java project allows developing an interface used to handle sporting activities and schedule sports-related events for different educational institutions and organizations.

SM is a hassle-free option for those responsible for managing sports events, as well as controlling information related to players and trophies. SM admin has the right to edit all the necessary data, while users are allowed to consider players’ information and subscribe to preferred events. The active subscription allows users to get notified about the coming events by email.

10. Library Management System

Now, you’ve got to designing MySQL databases. Other than sharpening the knowledge and skill of databases, you will also be able to create a system to make librarians’ work more efficient. The management system will automate manual processes and get all manually-configured data, including book inventory, titles, and genres, stored in one digital database.

When working on the software, you can add as many modules as possible to control library operations and let both librarians and students navigate the database with no hassle. To get to the needed book, they only need to enter the author’s name and title.

11. Flight Booking Software
Let’s face it: web-based online booking solutions are not something that can surprise people. But, you still have a chance to improve the system if you have ideas on how to do that effectively. An airline reservation system Java project will help you with that. Other than making it simple for users to view available seats and get flight records, the app allows proceeding with online payments. Although the project has no option to process the payment and cancel the booking, you still can add those options on your own.

SUMMING THINGS UP

As you might have noticed, all the projects are sorted by difficulty level. Sure, you can stop at one of them. But, I sincerely recommend not staying in the same place. Only upgrading your skills by creating projects of increasing complexity will help you boost your programming career and land the job of your dream. If you have other ideas at hand, feel free to share them.

5 AWESOME JAVASCRIPT UI AND CSS TOOLS YOU MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT

Nill Webdev — Wed, 26 May 2021 11:39:03 +0000

If you came here looking for highly popular JavaScript libraries, let me save you some time. This blog post isn’t for you. There are a plethora of resources out there talking about the “top so and so” JavaScript resources. I don’t want to add to the pile.

I am here to talk about the real MVPs, the lesser-known gems that don’t get the due attention in the overcrowded JavaScript ecosystem.

Some of these tools are libraries and some of them are frameworks. However, most of them are emerging technologies, carrying immense potential, waiting to be tapped by beginner, intermediate, or advanced level developers.

So without further ado, let me get straight to the point, Here’s a curated list of JavaScript UI and CSS tools that have become a part of our design and development processes in 2021:

1. Svelte

There are JavaScript frameworks like Angular and React that come packed with tons of features and strong communities. And then there is Svelte.

Svelte is a relatively newer front-end JavaScript framework that is ideal for beginner and intermediate level developers. It has an extremely easy learning curve so the developers aren’t burdened with a plethora of new tools to learn.

However, its most attractive feature is its ability to convert the app code into JavaScript at the build time itself. So no more diving into the complexities of code conversion at run time!

Like Angular and React, Svelte too has a component-based architecture. You could use the entire framework for your app’s front-end or you could only ship the components you wish to use.

Also, the boilerplate code requirements while using Svelte is quite less compared to other frameworks. As a beginner, you could simply use basic technologies like HTML and CSS to write the code.

2. Gatsby JS

Gatsby JS has been a reliable static-site generator for quite a few years now. Especially for building static progressive web apps, it’s a great tool that is always in sync with the latest web standards.

Obviously then, it leverages modern tools like Reactjs, GraphQL, WebPack, and ES6+ versions to build the web app.

Speaking of WebPack, did you know Gatsby JS makes it incredibly easy to optimize your web app for performance? All you have to do is write the source code. Gatsby JS will find the most efficient WebPack configuration to suit your code and compile it automatically!

Gatsby JS has a vast library of over 2000+ plug-ins for quick design and development of various functionalities. It also lets you integrate or import data from APIs, CMSs, databases and other multiple sources.

What distinguishes Gatsby JS from other static site generators is its ability to avoid re-executing the redundant parts of the app code. So its capable of building and deploying web apps at least 2.5x faster!

3. Bulma CSS

Already quite popular, Bulma is an open-source CSS framework based on Flexbox. Meaning, you don’t have to deal with two-dimensional layouts while designing the UI of your app. It lets you focus on either a row or a column-based layout while writing mode of the document.

Bulma is built to ease the development process of web apps, especially from the CSS perspective. So it’s pretty easy to learn and use. Otherwise, what’s the point of using a CSS framework if you have to spend time learning a new technology!

The biggest advantage of using Bulma for a web application is its responsiveness. With Bulma, you can rest assured that your app will be fully optimized for mobile views.

With a modular architecture, Bulma enables you to use only those elements that you need for your web app. That means, complete access to a wealth of resources with no technical debt.

Lastly, the framework is highly customizable. You can choose the size of the grid layouts once and the rest of the columns (or rows) will adjust to the size automatically.

Bulma comes with comprehensive documentation and is supported strongly by a community of over 200,000 developers. So kickstarting your project using Bulma CSS won’t need much of an effort.

4. Tailwind CSS

Despite being a low level CSS framework, Tailwind CSS has gained huge popularity as a highly customizable tool for building efficient design elements.

In contrast to the likes of Bootstrap, Tailwind CSS doesn’t provide you with ready-use components. Instead, it gives you foundational components that you can use as building blocks for designing custom interfaces for your web application.

With Tailwind CSS, you don’t have to worry about naming classes of all the elements you create. It has an in-built system of utility classes that you can use for most of your components. This makes the whole process of CSS development less painful, if I may say so.

5. Deno js

Most of you must have heard Ryan Dahl’s talk in the JSConf EU in 2018. In the talk titled “Top 10 Things I Regret About Node.js,” he explains how Nodejs hasn’t grown well in response to JavaScript’s evolving capabilities.

So he started working on another, improved run time environment called Deno.js. Yes, Deno is the anagram of Node and is essentially a collection of all the things Ryan had missed out on building in Node.js.

One of the striking features of Deno (in contrast to Nodejs) is its enhanced security protocols. When you use Deno as a run-time environment, it executes the code in a sandbox. That means the run time environment can’t access the network, environment variables, or the file system unless you give them permission to do so.

I like to use Deno as a JavaScript library whenever I feel NPM is going to be too problematic for a certain project. With Deno, you can import packages just by using the URL of the concerned package.So you can host the modules you create wherever you like and import them directly using the URL.

If your modules are reusable, don’t worry about typing the URL time and again. You can just re-export the module from a local file on your system.

On top of that, Deno is browser-compatible, you just need to add a bit of code to transpile the code to the latest ES version.

WRAPPING UP

It's not necessary for a tool or technology to be mainstream for us to trust it. There are a lot of very inventive JavaScript tools out there that haven't gained much popularity yet, and I've shared some of my personal favorites in the content above. However, please check out the official Gitlab sites/repositories of these tools to learn more about their features, pros and cons in detail. Thank you for reading, good luck and have a nice day!)