DEV Community: TheEdpressoCommunity

Edpresso Spotlight: Mohammad Quanit

TheEdpressoCommunity — Wed, 11 Nov 2020 22:50:07 +0000

Mohammad Quanit is the author of, How to write better automated tests with Cypress in Angular, the shot that received the most views of any community-contributed shot in November 2020. Quanit has been a part of the Edpresso community for three months.

Mohammad has been a developer for the last three years. He first got involved with development when his cousin, who is a software engineer, encouraged him to try it. At first, Mohammad struggled with English content, as English is not his first language, but he was able to work on and get used to it. Now, Mohammad is “in love with coding" and the way it has forced him to be a problem solver.

Mohammad is a self-taught developer, which he considers to be an asset. “I found that I learned the important skill of how to adapt/learn something in a specific time frame. This is a key skill that has really helped in my career.”

To anyone who is new to coding he says, “It’s a skill that really works for you in terms of problem-solving (no matter if it’s your career or in other aspects of your life), it teaches you how to think like an engineer, and gives you a good scope of the industry.” That being said, he warns that if you don't feel passionate about coding, it may not be for you as it does require a lot of time and dedication.

Mohammad loves being a part of the online dev community and teaching others what he's learned. However, his busy schedule often limits his availability.

Connect with Mohammad on Twitter or visit his website.

Edpresso is a free database of short, concise articles on dev topics written by Educative Inc. community members.

Edpresso Writing Competition: an interview with our winners

TheEdpressoCommunity — Sat, 26 Sep 2020 01:16:37 +0000

“Ignoring women is ignoring money, potential, and advancements.” Our Story, YaaW

Last month, Edpresso and the YaaW (Our girls, Our future) program joined together in an effort to develop the core skills of the Women in the Technology track. The YaaW Summer Program is a talent accelerator that is used to harness economic opportunities for women. Edpresso and YaaW worked together on a competition to encourage technical writing skills. Read on as we explore our competition, the history of YaaW, and an interview with the winners.

What is YaaW?

The program has a technical and financial track, both of which work towards their mission to “empower women with world class professional development".

The technical track “allows students to develop a skill set that will help them get a running start as soon as they begin their career”. They focus on HTML, C++, Python, Django, and JavaScript.

YaaW was started by Diana Wilson when “her research led her to conclude that there is one main factor depriving the world of $28 trillion dollars in the economy” – women.

Wilson began YaaW to ensure the economic development of African women. “According to the McKinsey Global Institute, if women had the opportunity to participate in the economy equally to men, this could happen in just 7 years.”

As per the YaaW program’s mission: “The YaaW program provides comprehensive certification courses, extensive online training software, and experiences with hands-on social impact projects constructed to ensure that every participant masters the fundamental skills requisite for employment at top financial and technology corporations.”

"There is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women.”
– Kofi Annan, Noble Peace Prize winner

Edpresso's mission

Edpresso publishes short, free articles and is the daughter-site of Educative, an online learning platform committed to making learning and teaching more accessible.

Educative’s mission is to cultivate a community where developers can learn and share to maximize their economic opportunity. This includes writing. At Edpresso, we know that technical knowledge isn’t the most important thing when it comes to good technical writing. What’s really important is the clarity and simplicity of the writing itself. But this can take time.

What is Technical Writing?

Technical writing involves the documentation of complex technical processes. It is highly coveted, specific, and valuable skill. Many students who are working to become software developers see it as tertiary. However, writing serves a large purpose in tech.

Everyday, developers are writing, whether that is discussions on Slack, writing bug reports, creating technical documents, or writing clear documents for project planning.

If you are a skilled writer, you will be able to avoid situations that come from poor communication, like a business with an unclear product suggestion because they don’t understand how it works. Or maybe you need to communicate with a less experienced team member on a complex project.

Strong writing skills will help you to find a better job.

According to software engineer Ben McCormick: “When I’ve interviewed software engineers, I see a variety of problems. Most of these mistakes come down to a lack of preparation, not tailoring their message to their audience, and not knowing how to structure the information they know about themselves in a compelling way. These are the skills that you’ll learn from a good class on writing, and develop through practice writing.”

However, the majority of software developers do not necessarily pursue training in writing. Rather, they choose to learn as they go, which can be difficult and time-consuming.

The blame for this falls on no one other than the world we live in. It should be easy to practice your writing. They have these programs in place for coding, so why not for writing? Especially when we know it is a skill that makes you more marketable?

Edpresso Competition: Winner Announcement

YaaW and Edpresso came together for an Edpresso competition to focus on these skills specifically. YaaW students could compete against their peers in a technical writing competition.

The YaaW technical track consists of four groups:

Beginner Software Engineer
Beginner Web Development
Intermediate Software Engineering
Intermediate Web development

One winner was chosen from each group, each of which consisted of three students for the beginner groups and two students for the intermediate groups. Each group was given one topic to write on. We are proud to announce the winners below:

View their winning shot and Educative profiles

An interview with the winners

EdPresso was lucky enough to be able to talk with each of these inspiring women about their experiences with tech, how they were introduced to it, and advice that they have for before just beginning to code and/or starting to get into technical writing.

While speaking with them, we were blown away by the commitment and hard-working mentality held by each woman. Princess and Abena, for example, became interested in programming while bored during COVID. Abena told us the setting of summer in the middle of the pandemic gave her the time and opportunity to code, something that she usually would not have had time for.

Marilyn, a member of Team FemCode, started coding exactly a year ago, but she had only worked in C++. However, when she joined the YAAW program, she had to do Python.

She told us, “I had been meaning to study Python because I’d hear from a lot of people that it is really easy. So, I decided to register for the Python intermediate class even though I didn’t have any of the basics yet."

She continued: "A week before the beginning of the program, I began to learn all the beginner topics. I watched videos, read articles, and by the end of the week, I was ready to start with YaaW.”

Every member of Team REA (Anointing, Emmanuela, and Rufia) told us that they had never coded before they joined YaaW. Anointing majored in mathematics and decided to get into coding.

She told us, “I had a project that I wanted to get done, and it involved some knowledge and software development. The project was about coding and students in Africa, helping them to learn information through assessment module apps. I wanted to do it on my own, but I didn’t have any knowledge of how to start. So I began coding."

Emmanula knew that, as a mechanical engineering major, she would need to code eventually. Rufia, as a community developer in-training, “saw the opportunity and wanted to try it out because I had a course that worked with young ones who were trying to develop. I needed to get some more knowledge so that I can pass it to my young Africans. I have a passion for experiences that young people need. It’s like an opportunity to help them.”

Still, this competition was not focused on the technical ability – it was focused on the writing. I was interested in how the winners view the role of writing in software and web development. Each of the young women we talked to expressed that writing fills an important role and is an important skill.

Anointing told us, “I remember my chemistry teacher said something I will never forget. He said, ‘You can see how well someone understands a topic by how simply they teach it.”

Emmanuela brought out the importance of sharing your ideas with others, she said, “if you have the knowledge in your head, but you don’t know how to tell other people about it or give other people that knowledge, then they won’t be able to use all the tools you have in your head.”

Rufia expressed a similar sentiment: “sharing is caring – when you share, you learn more. Not everything is correct, but when you share with other people, and it’s not correct, they will help you to know the right thing.”

Through writing, we are able to encourage the passing of accurate knowledge, but in a way that everyone can understand because, as Linda said, “when people write articles, it gives you a lot of opportunity to learn differently. If you do not understand one way, you may be able to understand another.”

Writing advice from our winners

No matter what you’re writing about, there’s always the dreaded start that can make the whole process feel impossible. Regardless, according to our YaaW winners, there are a few hacks you can follow to jumpstart you into your article.

First, like Adwoa, “get your topic. Once you have your topic, ask yourself questions about the topic. Then, based on these questions, you will be able to figure out what sort of content is required.”

Or, like Temidayo, you can think of writing as similar to painting a picture: “Writing is basically painting a picture that you have in your mind in such a way that someone looking at your picture will be able to see exactly what is in your mind.”

If that sounds too abstract, do like Abena who looks at other templates to get an idea of where you are going.

She said, “I would say to look at other templates because then, at least, you will have an idea of what it should look like. If you are someone who doesn’t like looking at an article, if you look at the code and code it, you can explain it to yourself and write it down. Then, you can revise what you wrote and make it sound better.”

No matter what, it is always important to remember that, as Marilyn said, “You do have to start from somewhere – nothing is too small, just try and put down words how you understand them, read other articles, and improve your diction to be able to put what you are saying in better words that people will understand.”

Still, you cannot forget to plan because, as Milicent told us, “You need to plan where you are going to go. When you plan, you will be able to know the structure of where you are going to go, what you are starting with, and what you are going to end with. ”

Bottom line, writing is a process. It is something that takes a lot of practice, planning, revision, and time. But, it is necessary and can be a lot of valuable fun.

Wrapping up

Thank you to YaaW for opening up their organization to the Edpresso competition and giving their technical track an opportunity to develop a soft-skill that is not focused on nearly enough. The only way our world will improve is through communication, which leads to understanding in all sorts of ways.

So, congratulations again to the winners and all the participants of our first Edpresso competition. Now, go out and teach!

Sign-up for the next iteration of the Edpresso competition here.

Edpresso Spotlight: Harsh Jain

TheEdpressoCommunity — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 17:23:49 +0000

"Coding is nothing more than formulating your ideas and solutions into the form of a code."

Harsh Jain is the author of, Data science career guide, the shot that received the most views of any community-contributed shot in August 2020. He has been a part of the Edpresso community for 5 months.

Harsh has been coding since the age of 15 when he created a static website for a school project. He was given positive feedback on this project, which pushed him to major in computer science with a specialization in Artificial Intelligence.

For Harsh, "The day is not over if I have not done any coding. I usually try to solve Competitive Programming problems, which help me to improve my problem-solving skills. Every day I try to learn something new."

Although Harsh has always been a coder, he has not always been a writer.

"To be honest, I never thought that I could even write technical blogs. One day, the idea just came up and I searched what are the places where I can write these kinds of blogs. I found Medium, Educative's Edpresso, and some other places. I tried Edpresso because after writing an article, the Edpresso's team reviews it and provides feedback (which is not present on other platforms)."

Harsh believes in the "ability to express your knowledge to a large portion of the community. You can share your views on any technology domain and reach a large portion of the dev community."

Even though Harsh was initially hesitant to write, due to the "human tendency to avoid those things which look to be tough (although we want to do them)", he eventually did it. He recommends people who are also hesitant to, "give it a shot and don't be scared."

For anyone interested in coding who is unsure of how to start, Harsh recommends tutorials.

"There are many great tutorials where you can learn how to code and improve your confidence. Make sure that you are coding and not just following the tutorial -- try some code on your own problems, and spend time writing and practicing how to solve problems with code. I hope that my suggestions and journey will motivate you."

Connect with Harsh on LinkedIn or visit his webpage.

Edpresso is a free database of short, concise articles on dev topics written by Educative community members.

Edpresso spotlight: Abel LIFAEFI MBULA

TheEdpressoCommunity — Fri, 07 Aug 2020 18:53:10 +0000

"I consume from the web, but I also contribute to it."

Abel LIFAEFI MBULA is the author of Learn Git and GitHub in 5 minutes, the shot that received the most views of any community-contributed shot in July 2020. He has been a part of the Edpresso community for 2 months.

Abel started coding in 2016 because he wanted to learn more about computers. When he was in grade 10, he could already use a computer in a professional way but was interested in being able to do more advanced configurations.

"But that was not enough for me, I started to look for new challenges like how to use my mathematical knowledge in computing and how to create useful things that people can also use int their computers."

Now, Abel does freelance and contract work to help people ship quality software.

Abel loves being a part of the online tech community and is always honored when the content he writes is able to add value; but, he does acknowledge that blogging is not as easy as it may seem, especially when it comes to writing good content on a regular basis. However, he finds great joy in making technical jargon and ideas easy to understand.

Stay tuned for more content on Node.js and web security!

Connect with Abel on LinkedIn, follow him on Twitter, or visit his personal website.

Edpresso is a free database of short, concise articles on dev topics written by Educative community members.

Edpresso spotlight: Chisom Nwokwu

TheEdpressoCommunity — Mon, 06 Jul 2020 23:27:26 +0000

"My first article on Edpresso had the highest traffic of the month; this is something that I almost abandoned because of fear! Keep pushing; Keep winning."

Chisom Nwokwu is the author of, "Object-oriented concepts as explained to a 6-year-old", the shot that received the most views of any community-contributed shot in June 2020. She has been a part of the Edpresso community for one month.

Chisom's interest in coding began in college when she took a programming course on Java. Before then, she had been exposed to computers but had no programming knowledge whatsoever.

"The major thing that amazed me about coding was the ability to talk and communicate with the computer and make it do whatever I want."

Chisom has been coding since September 2019 and, during that time, has become quite active within the online developer community. She loves how blogging and having visibility online gives her the power to help someone out there either with debugging a program, getting inspiration, or just entertainment.

"I can't count how many people's blog posts, articles, and online presence has helped me in my journey as a developer. This is something that everyone should encourage and strive to venture into. You could be the light for someone in a dark tunnel."

For Chisom, blogging is about leaving her comfort zone. She knows that "we can access the best versions of ourselves when we move out of our comfort zone and step over that huge line of fear.” Because of this, Chisom pushes herself to do something that scares her every single day.

Connect with Chisom on LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter.

Edpresso is a free database of short, concise articles on dev topics written by Educative community members.

Edpresso spotlight: Mohan Pawar

TheEdpressoCommunity — Fri, 05 Jun 2020 15:00:00 +0000

“It’s been a learning and then doing experience for me.” -- Mohan Pawar

Mohan Pawar is the creator of, “The Kubernetes architecture simplified”, the shot that received the most views of any externally authored shot in May 2020. He has been a part of the Edpresso community for four months.

Mohan has always been keen on solving challenging programming problems. He has put a lot of effort into learning so that he can solve increasingly more complex problems. Pawar is a competitive programmer, which he says has given him “an additional advantage” as he is able to write robust code that is not sloppy.

Mohan has been a competitive programmer for five years. He started programming while pursuing a master’s degree, but he didn’t start actual development until his first internship as a Java developer.

Mohan began blogging because he figured that instead of following someone’s blog, he could just do the work and create his own. He has found that blogging helps to increase his productivity and has allowed him to continue to enjoy learning.

Mohan’s final message to his readers is, “Be the master in whatever field you work, invest your time and pay attention to what fascinates you -- I hope that you will follow your passion, whatever you do.”

Check out his other shots: Create a Kubernetes cluster using kubdeadm and How to create pods in Kubernetes. Or follow him on Twitter.

Top Edpresso shots-May 2020

TheEdpressoCommunity — Mon, 01 Jun 2020 22:01:56 +0000

Happy June 1st!

Many great shots were written by our contributor community last month, but the ones below received the most attention from our viewers.

Give the shots below a read and see what you think ☕️

1.What is Prettier?
"Prettier is an opinionated code formatter that supports a lot of different programming languages." This shot brings readers through how to set up the code formatter, how to create a configuration file in your project, and how to use Prettier in tandem with ESLint to take "their productivity to the next level." Check out Nathan Sebhastian's Educative profile for more shots written by him.

2.A brief intro to the product manager role by Victor Ogundola briefly goes into what a product manager is and the types of product managers that exist. If you think you may be interested in product management, then you will definitely be interested in this shot. Check out Victor Ogundola's Educative profile to learn more about him.

3.How to print the nodes of a binary tree in sorted order looks at in-order traversal, which is one of the three most popular ways to traverse a binary tree data structure. In his shot, Javin Paul goes over the basic steps you need to follow to start traversing and explains the algorithm used to implement in-order traversals. Check out Javin Paul's Educative profile to learn more about him.

4.What is transfer learning and why is it needed?
“Transfer learning is the idea of overcoming the isolated learning paradigm and utilizing knowledge acquired for one task to solve related ones.” Harsh Jain’s shot covers what transfer learning is and why Andrew Ng (a renowned professor and data scientist) called it “the next driver of ML commercial success.” Take a read to understand more about this “technique for building complex deep learning models using pre-trained models” or check out Harh Jain's Educative profile for more shots written by him.

5.The Kubernetes architecture simplified is our top shot for the month of May. Mohan Pawar gives a high-level overview of the Kubernetes architecture and lists its key design principles in this very easy-to-digest article. Check out Mohan Pawar's Educative profile to learn more about him.

Edpresso creator spotlight: Benjamin Chibuzor-Orie

TheEdpressoCommunity — Mon, 04 May 2020 17:39:49 +0000

Benjamin Chibuzor-Orie is the creator of "Find the integer that appears once in an array", the shot that received the most views of any externally authored shot in April 2020. Chibuzor-Orie has been playing with code for seven years but has only been doing it professionally for four (this includes 2020).

"Just like every other growing child, I was very interested in games, but the twist to it was that I really wanted to make my own games." Chibuzor-Orie ventured into game development using XNA and C# from Microsoft in 2013 when he was 13. He marks this as the start of his dev career.

"I didn't really take a career as a programmer/software developer seriously due to the stigma my mom placed on the field at the time. It wasn't until I was awaiting admission into the University in 2016 that I finally took it up as a career. I didn't gain admission that year, which was ample time for me to sharpen my programming skills. Two months from the day I decided to take my career seriously, I got my first gig. I was really excited the day I got it."

For Benjamin, blogging is a way to stay relevant in the tech community as helping the community and being recognized for it has always been a big deal for him. He says, "As a backend developer, there's no better way to show off my knowledge to the community and help with problems they might have except by directly connecting with them. Sadly, there is NO API that does that; so, writing is a big deal for me."

Benjamin basically writes about everything he does, no matter how small it is, because "even if no one reads it, sooner or later I'll need it."

Check out his shot "Find the integer that appears once in an array" on Edpresso or connect with him on Twitter.

Top Edpresso shots-April 2020

TheEdpressoCommunity — Fri, 01 May 2020 21:16:15 +0000

Happy May 1st!

Edpresso is a database of byte-sized dev knowledge that just keeps on growing!

Today, we've taken a moment to reflect on our most trafficked shots from April. Give them a read, see what you think, and show them some love! 😃

What is complex event processing?
“Complex event processing (CEP) is an approach to searching patterns in a real-time stream of events.” This shot by Siddarth Singh uses the example of building a fraud detection system for a bank that can detect fraudulent transactions in real-time to show how CEP systems use event streams and pattern queries.
How to create a shopping car app using BLoC pattern in Flutter
Two of this month’s top shots were written by Chukwujama Osinachi Victor. His first, “How to create a shopping cart app using BLoC pattern in Flutter” shows users how to build a simple shopping cart app that uses the BLoC pattern as a way to explain the BloC pattern, which is a mature way to manage state in a Flutter app.
Strategies for solving bugs
His second, “Strategies for solving bugs” goes through a checklist of the effects that frustration at not being able to find a bug can have such as, “loss of motivation to go further,” “many hours lost trying to track the given bug,” etc. His shot goes over these effects and explains ways that he has found to be beneficial when solving bugs like, keeping an anti-bug checklist in your brain or writing about your bug to avoid repeating the mistake.
Learn dynamic programming in 10 minutes!
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This shot by Harsh Jain goes over why we need dynamic programming (the act of “remembering answers to the sub-problem you’ve already solved, and not solving them again.”), dynamic programming and recursion, and how to identify a dynamic programming problem.
Find the integer that appears once in an array
Last but not least is our top shot this month, according to our users. In this shot, Benjamin Chibuzor-Orie deals with how to find the integer that appears once in an array. He starts with the problem and then moves on to several approaches that could be used as well as the optimal solution (i.e., The XOR operator).

Top Edpresso shots-March 2020

TheEdpressoCommunity — Wed, 01 Apr 2020 19:53:26 +0000

Happy April 1st!

We've taken a moment to reflect on our most trafficked shots from March. Give them a read, and see what you think 😃

Rest in Peace, grep! This shot goes over the reasons why ripgrep is faster (and better) than grep. Creator Abhinav Kumar goes over ripgrep’s benefits, “gotchas,” installation process, and basic benchmarks. Check this shot out if you are interested in finding a great alternative to grep in Rust.
How to find max and min from a list. According to creator Manzar Iqbal Malik, “Finding the maximum and minimum values in a list is pretty easy because of the built-in max and min functions provided by Python. However, you may be wondering what the logic behind these functions is. Let me explain with a couple of code snippets.” Click here to find out what the logic is behind these functions!
React Native Deep Linking Simplified. Join Shad Mirza as he explains deep linking in React Native, goes over “why” we want it, “how” we can add it, the steps involved to start a project, and how to open your project with URL.
Understanding widgets in Flutter (burger analogy 🍔). Our most trafficked shot for March is this explanation of how you can easily understand widgets in Flutter. We won’t give away too much, but creator Cynthia Peter does a fantastic job of comparing widgets to the layers of a burger.

Edpresso creator spotlight: Cynthia Peters

TheEdpressoCommunity — Fri, 27 Mar 2020 20:41:19 +0000

Cynthia Peters is an information technology intern at Relevant Systems who has been in the tech field for six years. Peters initially began coding in 2013 out of boredom and because she needed to pass her first-year exams. Although Peters never really liked computers in high school, she grew fond of them through her classes. At the time, she was only working with Q-basic, but the feeling of being able to create something blew her mind. Ever since then, Peters and her computer have been inseparable.

Peters is currently exploring different career paths in tech. She says, "I've dabbled in random career paths in tech, from social media manager to digital marketer, to blogger, to web development, and now to mobile app development. I just enjoy the tech space, there's a lot to explore."

When asked why she enjoys being active in the online dev community, Peters said, "I love that I can write and people to get read and understand or learn from my experiences. It's so heartwarming to get reviews. The online dev community is so beautiful, it makes me cry!"

Check out Cynthia's shots on Edpresso (1,2,3,4) or find her on Twitter or LinkedIn.

DEV Community: TheEdpressoCommunity

Edpresso Spotlight: Mohammad Quanit

Edpresso Writing Competition: an interview with our winners

What is YaaW?

Edpresso's mission

What is Technical Writing?

Edpresso Competition: Winner Announcement

An interview with the winners

Writing advice from our winners

Wrapping up

Edpresso Spotlight: Harsh Jain

Edpresso spotlight: Abel LIFAEFI MBULA

Edpresso spotlight: Chisom Nwokwu

Connect with Chisom on LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter.

Top Edpresso Articles - June 2020

1. How to set up a Spark environment

2. What are mutable and immutable objects in Python3?

3. How to set up ChromeOS for web development

4. Minimum coin change in C++ - a dynamic programming question

5. Object-oriented concepts as explained to a 6-year-old

Edpresso spotlight: Mohan Pawar

Top Edpresso shots-May 2020

Edpresso creator spotlight: Benjamin Chibuzor-Orie

Top Edpresso shots-April 2020

Top Edpresso shots-March 2020

Edpresso creator spotlight: Cynthia Peters

DEV Community: TheEdpressoCommunity

Edpresso Spotlight: Mohammad Quanit

Edpresso Writing Competition: an interview with our winners

What is YaaW?

Edpresso's mission

What is Technical Writing?

Edpresso Competition: Winner Announcement

An interview with the winners

Writing advice from our winners

Wrapping up

Edpresso Spotlight: Harsh Jain

Edpresso spotlight: Abel LIFAEFI MBULA

Edpresso spotlight: Chisom Nwokwu

Connect with Chisom on LinkedIn​ or follow her on Twitter.

Top Edpresso Articles - June 2020

1. How to set up a Spark environment

2. What are mutable and immutable objects in Python3?

3. How to set up ChromeOS for web development

4. Minimum coin change in C++ - a dynamic programming question

5. Object-oriented concepts as explained to a 6-year-old

Edpresso spotlight: Mohan Pawar

Top Edpresso shots-May 2020

Edpresso creator spotlight: Benjamin Chibuzor-Orie

Top Edpresso shots-April 2020

Top Edpresso shots-March 2020

Edpresso creator spotlight: Cynthia Peters

Connect with Chisom on LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter.