DEV Community: skillcombo

Harnessing AI and ChatGPT: The Best Free Online Courses to Get Started

skillcombo — Sun, 05 Feb 2023 12:20:58 +0000

When it comes to technology, there's no denying that the world is constantly evolving. AI and ChatGPT in particular are two of the most rapidly growing areas of technology. With the help of these technologies, organizations can automate their customer service processes and provide quick and accurate responses to their customers. Advance your AI skills – find your Ideal AI course on our platform today:

Introduction to AI by Stanford University on Coursera: This course provides an overview of the field of artificial intelligence and covers the basics of machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, and robotics.
AI for Everyone by DeepLearning.ai on Coursera: This course is designed for non-technical professionals and covers the basics of AI, including machine learning and deep learning.
Natural Language Processing with Deep Learning by Stanford University on Coursera: This course covers the basics of natural language processing and deep learning, including sentiment analysis, text classification, and sequence modeling.
OpenAI's GPT-3 Playground: This is an interactive platform where you can play with OpenAI's state-of-the-art language model, GPT-3, and learn how to use it to generate text, translate languages, and more.
AI Programming with Python by Udacity: This course covers the basics of programming with Python and teaches you how to build AI applications, including image recognition and natural language processing.

If you're looking to gain a better understanding of AI and ChatGPT, there are many free online courses you can take advantage of. You'll need to spend some time sifting through these options to find the one that's right for you, but it's well worth your while. Try one out today—the benefits are too good to pass up!

How to become a software engineer after 12th in India?

skillcombo — Tue, 27 Dec 2022 12:43:14 +0000

Software engineering undoubtedly is a very prestigious and promising career path many young people consider for themselves. What do you need to start it? In this guide, we are going to tell you all you need to know to become a software engineer based on the streams you choose.

What is software engineering?

First of all, let's define what software engineering is. The term involves the field of engineering, implying everything about developing, creating, testing, and maintaining a software piece or an app. The demand for these skills is enormously high today as all companies, from small start-ups to corporations, use all kinds of software, and many need it created from scratch. The fields where you can work as a software engineer are broadest than ever. You can apply for positions in state institutions, private companies, corporations that develop software used internationally, companies offering data management solutions, and so on.

What does software development do?

As we have mentioned above, the profession of software engineer covers many aspects of software development. Thus, you should be ready to code for the creation of the app, participate in front-end development to improve user experience, test the software for usability, and find and fix bugs.

Depending on the size of the company and its specialization, you may be involved in developing tools and software for various purposes. Besides, if you reach a high position, you will have to participate in decision-making on the future or existing software features, improvements, integrations, managing the team of developers, setting timeframes, and so on.

What to study to become a software engineer?

Although we defined what software engineering is in general terms, you may ask yourself a question, "what should I study to become a software engineer"? And it's natural. First of all, to make your career path easier, we advise you to choose the science stream. The stream includes such exact sciences as chemistry, maths, and physics as the major subjects. Of course, the main is mathematics for you. First of all, you will have a deeper knowledge of mathematics if you opt for the science stream than if you choose any other, and that will definitely help you with further study to become an engineer. Secondly, having this degree, you will have more chances to easily apply for the next levels of education, i.e., bachelor, university or academy degree.

Bachelor's degree in Computer science - what faculties can you choose?

We have already pointed out that it is best to opt for the science stream if you are thinking about the path of software engineering after 12th grade. But what are the exact faculties you can choose from after? We recommend you pay attention to the following:

B.Tech (Bachelor of Technology) in Computer Science
B.Tech (Bachelor of Technology) in Computer Science and Information Technology
B.E (Bachelor's in Engineering) in Software Engineering
BCA (Bachelor of Computer Application)

Worth noting that you will be eligible for all of the faculties if your stream is science. If you choose arts or commerce, you will not be eligible for some or will have to pass an entrance test. We will cover that later in this guide.

Studying for one of these degrees, you will have an amazing basis for becoming a software engineer in the future. You will get the necessary knowledge and skills and a diploma relevant to the profession. Of course, getting a degree is only a part of the work. You will also need to learn and practice certain skills on your own.

Full version you can read in our blog

Career map of Game Developer

skillcombo — Sat, 23 Jul 2022 18:31:00 +0000

Who is game developer?

When we talk about a career in IT, the first profession that comes to mind is programmer. However, the industry offers much more options. Besides, even programmers can be engaged in absolutely different projects. For instance, some of them work exclusively on website development, mobile apps, software for corporations, and others in game development. If you love games, whether these are mobile, PC, or console video games, you should consider namely this direction in the IT industry to combine your hobby with a profitable and promising specialization.

What is game development?

It is a complex process that can be performed by one person or a company. In our days, it is more common for the game development process to involve a team comprising multiple different specialists. Commercial games are developed by a team of developers hired by a single company. These companies can specialize in games for mobile devices, PC, or video game consoles. Naturally, these types of game development differ due to the peculiarities of the platforms. However, the key elements of the development process are very much alike.

Game development languages

To obtain a game developer profession, first of all, you need to learn at least one programming language. Where should you start from? We advise you to choose the first language to learn based on the platform for which you would like to develop games for:

iOS or macOS – Swift
Browser games - PHP and JavaScript
Unity – C#
Big console or PC games – C or C++.
Godot - C++

If you want to try developing your first game, you can use one of the most popular engines:

Unreal Engine;
Unity;
CryEngine.
Godot.

Each game development language has its benefits and purposes. You should not think that some of them are better than others because they are used for the solution of different tasks. Many video game developers program the major part of the project using one language but the heavy or difficult part demands more flexibility, in another one.

If you want to start with something easier, you should consider becoming a mobile game developer. You can download a popular engine and launch a new app in just a few weeks. Engines are the software that offers ready-made solutions for the work with graphics and physics. And the developer only has to add sprites or character designs and then code several scripts using one of the programming languages. You can even download all of the resources or buy them on the Internet without developing anything new. Your task is just to compile them together and create an interesting script.

One of the most popular engines is Unity. It gives a possibility to code using C# and JavaScript. Here you can add to your project the downloaded files and code several commands, and voila, a simple game is ready!

Game developer skills

For any game developer, it is quite beneficial to be able to work with cross-platform applications and engines. Besides, a specialist should clearly understand the stages of game development:

Gameplay design,
Drawing, rendering, and animation,
Physics and other components of the product .

In a team, a specialist will have to tightly work with a screenplay writer, animation artist, game and sound designer, tester, and programmer.

To summarize, the main skills you need to become a game developer are:

Good knowledge of programming languages C++ and C# (especially if you want to work on big PC games);
Knowledge of Unreal Engine;
Knowledge of Unity and other engines necessary for the development of 2D and 3D games;
Knowledge of SDK integration;
Knowledge of object-oriented programming;
Knowledge of optimization of 2D and 3D games;
Knowledge of 3D editing software;
Knowledge of systems for processing game objects and memory management;
Experience designing and working with artificial intelligence;
Understanding of principles of working with databases.
Knowledge of the basics of mobile game development and many others.

If you want to become an indie game developer, i.e., work for independent projects not financed by the big companies, you must be able to create animation, visual effects, game concepts, design, know the basics of modeling. In such projects, the teams are quite small, and a single specialist should undertake several roles.

Game developer qualifications

You can become a game developer without a special degree. What’s more important for your future employer is your portfolio and skills. However, it would be beneficial to get at least a bachelor’s degree in, for example, computer games development, programming, computer science, games technology, mathematics, software engineering, and so on. Besides, you can complete courses on various educational online platforms such as Coursera, Udemy, or others. You can also get certifications from these platforms, but although some of the courses can be completed for free, you will have to pay for the exams. If you already have a degree in a close field, you can also complete courses to broaden your knowledge and increase your chances of employment. You can consider such subjects as animation, interactive media, games design and art or graphic design, and so on

Game developer salary

The average annual salary of a specialist in this field in the USA is around $65,000. An entry-level specialist can count on $57,000 a year. A specialist with more than one year of experience but less than 5 years is usually paid around $65,500 a year. A specialist working in the industry for 5+ years earns around $74,000 annually.

In Canada, the average salary is C$58,500 a year which makes around $45,500. If it is the first year of working in the industry, the annual salary is around C$46,000 or $36,000. For specialists working more than one year but less than five years, the usual pay is C$56,000 or $44,000. A specialist with 5+ years of experience, on average, earns around C$73,000 or $57,000.

In India, the average salary for the position is around ₹479,000 or $6,400. A young specialist can earn around ₹330,000 or $4,400 a year. A game developer with 1-4 years of experience can expect a pay of ₹494,000 or $6,600 a year. And a specialist working in the industry for 5+ years is paid, on average, ₹860,000 or $11,500 a year.

The major IT giants offer game developers the following salaries:

Microsoft - $70,800 a year.
Google - $74,000 a year.
Amazon - $103,000 a year.

As for the salaries offered by these companies in India, they are, naturally, much lower than those for the US employees, but usually, they are slightly higher than the national average for the same jobs.

Original article : https://skillcombo.com/career/game-developer/

7 soft skills without which you will never become a senior

skillcombo — Fri, 10 Jun 2022 11:22:56 +0000

In addition to technical knowledge and English, so-called soft skills - personal skills - play an important role in IT. The main ones are communication and teamwork skills. They do not play an important role in positions up to the senior level, but starting from this position and upwards, these skills are just as important as the technical ones. To boost your tech or soft skills you can use our online education platform skillcombo.com

Let's look at what soft skills are necessary for career advancement.

1.Communication skills

Developing this skill is easy: socialise, socialise, attend conversation clubs if necessary. Just be careful: don't bring up sensitive topics. Some people can be very conservative.

Why waste effort on relationship-building when you can read about a new framework in the meantime, you ask:

firstly, good relationships with colleagues build a level of trust in you as a technical professional;
second, it helps you do your job better.

Quality and constructive communication earns you a "plus in karma" as a person and a professional. And this allows you, in a critical situation on a project, when you need to do something quickly, to simply come to the developers and say: "Do this", and not explain why, as they already trust you.

Without the ability to communicate, you can't achieve many personal and work goals. Consider this case: a new API architecture is being developed for a product. There's a message queue, and the Senor assumes that it will be important for other products to receive these messages too, so he needs a friendly and secure language for communication.

When he talks to developers in other departments, it turns out that the problem is just as pressing for them. In the end, the problem is solved with a completely different set of tools than originally planned. If he had not communicated with the other departments, the system would have ended up not being user-friendly.

2.The ability to communicate your thoughts

The key to a successful project is being able to communicate clearly and concisely to your team, colleagues and clients. Unfortunately, everyone is different and sometimes they perceive the same things completely differently than you have imagined. When you assign tasks to other professionals, it is important to be able to articulate and structure the information and make sure that the person understands you in the way you want them to.

A senior-level or higher position implies that part of the workload will be shared with colleagues with less experience or from other departments. In order to instruct a person who has just joined the project or to give him or her new functionality to develop, you need to understand the nature of the task yourself and assess the possible risks associated with the human factor.

3.Public speaking

Public speaking skills are important for the señor professional. It is necessary both for internal rallies and for product presentations to customers.

Oratory skills are needed not only for attending conferences as a speaker, but also for presenting the results of work to the client. A trivial example is a presentation to report to the customer on the work done over a period of time.

Look for opportunities to speak in front of an audience and practise. You can do this by holding internal Tech Talks with your team and colleagues on relevant topics. This is a great chance to learn how to speak: a relaxed atmosphere and a familiar audience - consequently less anxiety.

It is important to feel your weaknesses, recognize the problem, work on mistakes, get rid of parasitic words ("well", "as if", "uh" and the like).

Rhetoric is a skill you can develop to a certain extent, even if you are not a born orator. But to make a speech, it is not enough to learn the theory alone - practice is necessary. Various communication trainings can be useful.

4. Constructiveness

The higher your position, the more people you will have to communicate with. Negotiating competently with the team and the customer is an additional level of responsibility and a necessary skill for a senior-level engineer and above.

When you go beyond the middle-level engineer, the requirements for communication skills become higher.

You now have to meet with more influential stakeholders, such as C-level management (CEO, CTO, CIO, CSO, CFO, etc.). During these negotiations, the stakes are high and there is no room for error.

Prepare in advance for such important meetings, constantly improve your business English and be politically correct.

Starting from a senior position you will be responsible not only for the outcome, but also for the people and resources available to you. In order to learn how to negotiate, give up the desire to appear professional and to hear praise from customers, bosses, colleagues. This is often used to get agreement on deadlines. Learn to persuade the person you are talking to, rather than impose your opinion on them. Ask him questions, try to make him understand your position by his own reasoning.

Defend your point of view, but at the same time be able to hear the other person and be prepared to accept criticism. In my practice there have been situations where the customer has fluffed up only those features that are important to the business and forgotten about the tasks that are important to the users of the product. But the product must remain usable for people, so I have taken it upon myself to defend the priority of certain features for users. In such a case, it is important to convey your point of view in a correct and reasoned way, to provide facts as to why it should work this way and not that way.

It is also important to keep in mind the cultural differences between people from different countries and with different mentalities.

5.Team play

The senior or lead professional should be able to focus not only on the personal result, but also on the effectiveness of the team. This can manifest itself in the proper allocation of tasks among the team, helping colleagues in a timely manner.

It is important to be able to maintain a balance when it comes to interfering with the work of colleagues.

While it is easy to make all the decisions on a project and dictate the rules, it is much harder to create an atmosphere where each team member is confident in his or her abilities.

To achieve this, have confidence in your colleagues but, of course, keep your hand in the pulse of the project so that you can intervene.

Once when I was a developer I was lucky enough to work with an experienced professional who taught me how to give and receive feedback. Every two or three months we made conclusions about our work and approaches to tasks. He listened to my feedback and I listened to his comments on my work. I have been actively practising this approach ever since. Be sure to listen, hear and take into account the feedback you receive.

It is a useful practice that allows you to improve your skills: once you have received such feedback, you can understand in which direction you should work and develop, what you should pay attention to.

6.Mentorship

You will have less experienced professionals on your team who will need to explain, delegate, and transfer knowledge. For that, it is important to be able to approach different people and learn to express your thoughts in as simple words as possible.

As I see it, a seniorman should not take all the power in the team into his own hands, but help, inspire and teach the team.

The easiest way to learn this is to answer questions on forums like Quora, Reddit, Stack Overflow. This trains the ability to explain, and in the process you understand your own answer even better.

Programmers generally avoid mentoring in favour of engineering. Consequently, there are very few developers who combine the qualities of engineer and mentor at the same time. There is a demand for them - especially in small firms where the shortage of such people is particularly acute.

If you want to develop the mentoring skill, get a job teaching some courses, there are many of them now. Try to get your thoughts across to people who understand nothing about IT.

7. Empathy and emotional intelligence

Empathy helps us predict situations involving other people without personally engaging in similar experiences. For example, if you know that your colleague causes stupor and stress in situations where you need to make a quick decision, it is worth taking this into account beforehand.

Empathy is about accepting the diversity of our world. It is better to develop this skill from childhood, the process is much slower in adults.

The most elementary exercise to develop empathy: simply communicate with all kinds of people on everyday topics and do not make value judgements about the person you are talking to.

In order to understand what the other person is feeling and how they see the world, it is enough to accept the very possibility of multiple perspectives on the same things - you don't have to share these perspectives.

Developed empathy is one of the skills of conflict management and the ability to resolve disputes that arise in a team. When a specialist becomes responsible for the team as well, the skill of handling disputes intelligently and sensitively comes to the fore.

A code does not have an opinion, it will not argue and spoil the nerves, but people sometimes can. Therefore, in such situations, the main thing is not to forget that we are all human beings and that emotions are inherent in us. This is where EQ - emotional intelligence - comes in handy. Study how different factors influence the emotions of other people, learn how to evoke and maintain the right mood in yourself and how to influence the emotional background of your interlocutors.

The Swift programming language - features, advantages, disadvantages

skillcombo — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 16:31:29 +0000

In our new article, you will know what Swift is, what it is used for, what applications it is used in, and what associated technologies it has. We will also tell you about the history, features, advantages and disadvantages of the language, how hard it is to learn and how best to do it. If you want to study Swift , you can start from Swift online courses here.

What is Swift? History of its creation and development

Swift is an open source compiled programming language for developing programs and applications for iOS/MacOS and other platforms. It can be used to create software for different types of devices and hardware, including smartphones and tablets, desktops and more.

Swift is the primary development language in Apple's ecosystem, and is the replacement for Objective-C, the language Apple used previously (and still uses today). The process of creating the new language began in 2010, and in June 2014 it was presented to the public at the WWDC conference, along with a 500-page guide.

In June 2015, the Swift language was updated to version 2.0, improving its performance, syntax, adding a new bug-fixing API and the ability to check the compatibility of language functions with target platforms. In December of the same year, Apple released a beta version of Swift 3.0, which supported iOS, OS X and Linux operating systems and was also licensed under the Apache Oversource License. It was also incompatible with earlier versions of the language.

Swift features and capabilities

Swift has been influenced by a number of language variants, including Objective-C, Python, Ruby, C#, Haskell, Rust, and many others.
An important difference between Swift and Objective-C is that it is not defined by pointers, but by variable types handled by the compiler.
Swift provides operator overloading functions, generalizations, definable names, and other options previously only available in Java and C++.
Also worth noting are patterns such as pre-initializing variables, checking array indexes for out-of-bounds errors, automatic memory management, checking integers for overflow, supervised error recovery, etc.
Swift supports the Cocoa and Cocoa Touch frameworks. These are official Apple frameworks, the former is used in software development for MacOS and the latter in creating applications for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.
Swift code is divided into several open source repositories, including the compiler and standard library, kernel libraries, package manager and cloned repositories.

Advantages and disadvantages of Swift

Apple claims that the Swift programming language is based on three principles: security, performance and simplicity. It has a number of important advantages that have made it so popular and dynamic. These include:

High performance. Swift exhibits very decent code and program execution speed. Apple claims it is 8 times faster than Python or Javascript and 2.5 times faster than Objective-C.
Simple syntax. Swift is a very minimalist, logical and structured language that doesn't require you to write a large amount of code. Also its code has good readability and is
understandable not only to experienced but also to beginners. Swift's syntax has been significantly simplified compared to Objective-C, and the amount of code has also been reduced.
Security. The language provides important security features, such as protection against unauthorized data access and memory leaks, control of critical scripts and automatic fixing of routine errors (you do not have to specify them manually, unlike C++).
Free license. Swift is an open-source programming language, completely free and open source. This was an additional factor in its popularity and rapid development, contributing to the creation of a large community of developers to share experiences and joint refinements.
User-friendly workspace. Apple provides an integrated Xcode development environment for iOS and macOS software development. This includes a suite of LLVM compilers, Interface Builder GUI development functionality, and Apple-supported developer documentation.
Backwards compatible with Objective-C. Because of this, developers can easily rewrite their projects from Objective-C to Swift, as well as use O-C functionality inside Swift projects.
Dynamic libraries. Dynamic libraries, rather than static ones, are used here. This allows for quicker changes and improvements to Swift code (without waiting for a new version of iOS to be released), and allows programmers to develop separate libraries for their applications.

Is it difficult to learn Swift? How promising is the language?

Learning Swift will be relatively easy for experienced developers and beginners alike. Complete beginners in coding are recommended to start with a simpler language (e.g. Python), and then move on to Swift.

At the same time, this language is fairly friendly to novice programmers, because it avoids a number of common mistakes, due to the use of the latest programming patterns. And the sandboxing will help you avoid wasting time writing large amounts of code, and have the flexibility to experiment with small "chunks" and immediately test the result without the need to compile and execute the code.

On the other hand, Swift is strictly typified, which makes it somewhat difficult to learn. It is also a language that requires time to learn Objective-C before mastering it, so it is unlikely to be taken off the shelf.

Swift is a very promising language, it is rapidly developing and steadily gaining popularity. There are over 60,000 opensource projects written in Swift on the renowned developer resource GitHub, and StackOverFlow users have asked each other over 150,000 questions about it. Swift developers are becoming more and more in-demand and well-paid specialists every year, needed by many employers, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc.

To summarise

The Swift programming language was introduced by Apple in 2014 and is used for software development for iOS and MacOS platforms. Today, it is the primary language of Apple's ecosystem, replacing Objective-C, which it had previously used. The advantages of Swift include high performance, simple and logical syntax, decent security scores, an open license, and the availability of a sandbox and other useful features.

Swift is among the youngest, fastest-growing and most promising programming languages. At the same time, it is relatively easy to learn, making it a very good option for beginners and experienced developers alike.

Why start learning programming with C

skillcombo — Thu, 26 May 2022 20:29:55 +0000

There are more and more programming languages. There are now around 700 of them. However, developers mostly use 20 of them. Here, as in many other areas, there are ratings, trends and even fashions.

Let's name some popular languages at a glance. For Enterprise development, Java (Kotlin will soon gain a foothold there as well), C#, for Web development - JavaScript, Go, Python and PHP, for mobile development - Swift, Java/Kotlin, and I dare say JavaScript (because it can, because React Native). Game developers often use C# and C++. All of them are in demand for several reasons:

simplified syntax (for the most part) and clear semantics - against the background of C;
full-featured set of standard APIs;
active community support;
A growing ecosystem of frameworks and libraries.

The C language is used in the development of hardware and software solutions. C can also be used to partially implement the functionality of performance-demanding software products. Although not every programmer is willing and able to work on such projects. But let's return to the learning stage.

Usually future developers begin programming at school, university or on courses for changing jobs. The latter option, by the way, is now very popular.

Sooner or later they ask themselves a question: what programming language is better to learn first? At school and university this question can be answered for you: most often they start with C/C++ (that's right, with a "/"). But at alternative training sites too, hardly anyone will offer you just to learn C to broaden your horizons or pump your brains. Everyone wants to get into IT quickly, so to speak. So as you can see, here and there you'll need to be at your own pace if you decide to start learning C. This platform will help to find online courses , if you want to study online.

C allows you to touch "low-level" programming

Modern high-level languages (Python, C#, Java or whatever you like) are comfortable to write in. However, these languages are very limited in their interaction with the hardware. In other words, you won't get the full experience of interacting with the hardware until you start programming in C. Modern programming languages hide hardware-dependent implementation details and instead emulate an abstraction. In most cases it is created using a virtual machine.

Unfortunately, beginners have no idea at all about memory management, file handling and code optimization because they have never seen even examples of "low-level" C programming. From this point of view modern programming languages automate and hide too much. The C language forces you to do a lot by hand and write highly optimised code.

To my mind, this is something every professional developer should try. Well, a backender at least.

C teaches freedom and responsibility

When a programming language offers a set of human-friendly abstractions, it becomes less flexible. Each built-in or library method acts as a rigidly programmed black box. In other words, modern programming languages hide implementation details and invite the developer to simply refer to a set of interfaces. Manual management of dynamic memory allocation in modern programming languages is not possible in most cases. Meanwhile, C gives you real freedom, allowing you to choose how to implement it at a lower level.

C compilers, when optimized properly, produce incredibly fast assembler code. True, in addition to checking the right optimization boxes for compilation, you have to write high-performance source code yourself. In C, we must carefully declare variables, allocate and timely clear memory, access resources and remember to release them. If C was your first language, you will get used to rational use of memory and resources, and you will get used to choosing the best possible data structures. It's a habit that will stick with you as you begin to write other languages.

C motivates you to write clean code

Unlike modern programming languages, you will have to write several times as much code to accomplish the same thing in C. This is because in C you have to implement many things at a lower level, rather than using built-in wrappers and abstractions from standard libraries which hide implementation details. When the number of lines in the code increases, the complexity of the code also increases. To compensate for this effect and keep your project in order, you should try to write clean and clear code.

Writing clean code is a skill that is particularly desirable in large commercial projects. If you learn how to write clean code in C, you will find it easier to do so in another, simpler language.

Not convinced yet?

With the rapid development of C++, C is no longer perceived by many as a language in its own right. It's as if it has become a subset of C++. Clearly, in fact, this is not the case. Indeed, C++ is a modern programming language with a full-featured set of standard libraries. In my opinion, C++ should not be the first language to learn. There is one caveat though: if you want to specialise in it in the future, go for it. In this case, the two languages can be learned in parallel, but they will "cross over" at some point - and the transition from C to C++ will be organic and almost instantaneous.

Almost all modern programming languages compete with each other, introducing new syntax, semantics and extending standard libraries and frameworks. As the saying goes, everything is for the people. That's the payoff. But if future developers start learning these languages from scratch, they will miss out on the valuable opportunities that C provides. At some point, they simply won't be able to take a new step in their development without knowing how code works at a lower level, without even knowing how their favourite frameworks and libraries are implemented internally.

So choose C as your first programming language. It will take longer to learn, but it will help you quickly become an expert in more modern languages.