DEV Community: Vaibhav Shah

Will WebAssembly replace JavaScript? Or Will WASM Make JavaScript More Valuable in Future?

Vaibhav Shah — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 10:22:08 +0000

Since the time WebAssembly started gaining traction, a question has arisen among the developers: Will it put an end to JavaScript? Whereas, some developers and enterprises think that WebAssembly will complement JavaScript and accelerate the web development.

What is WebAssembly?

WebAssembly (WASM) is a binary instruction format which has been built to compile high-level languages such as C, C++, Java, Python and Rust. It allows deployment on the web and server applications.

Users write the code in multiple languages to run it on the web. WebAssembly allows them to run the code on the web at a native speed.

Future of WASM and JavaScript

Mozilla developers, the ones who created WASM, define it as the code that users can run in web browsers. It provides new features and major improvements in performance.

Like JavaScript, it is also executed in a sandbox environment and exhibits the same security. But, to say that it will put an end to JS is very unrealistic. Even the creators of WASM deny such intent.

According to GitHub’s latest report, JavaScript is the most used programming language for the last several years. Also, it has the most number of contributors to public and private repositories.

JavaScript is showing no sign of slowing down and wouldn’t be replaced by anyone in the near future. Further, as the modern technologies like blockchain explode in popularity, JS will be a new age language among web developers and gain traction across industries.

Will WASM replace JavaScript?

Let’s assume that JavaScript gets replaced. Will WebAssembly be able to play all the roles of JS? Don’t forget that WASM is still a young player who debuted just a few years ago in 2015. Whereas, JavaScript is here for around a couple of decades now. It has become the ideal language for web development.

Business leaders say that it is an overstatement that WASM will replace JavaScript. What they think is that it wouldn’t remain a monopoly, and grow over time.

A limitation of JS is that it wasn’t built to be a compilation target. On the other hand, WebAssembly has been built as an efficient compilation target. It is ready to use, provides smaller payloads, rapid parsing, as well as consistency in performance.

As per the FAQ page of WebAssembly, it reduces costs by having a design that enables web browsers to use WASM inside its existing JavaScript engine. Hence, from the cost perspective, WASM should be comparable to a big new JS feature, rather than a fundamental extension of browser model.

Currently, JavaScript supports all the major browsers. To use WASM, a web development company will need to move away from the browsers that don’t support WebAssembly. Till the time WebAssembly brings support for new browsers, JavaScript ecosystem will further grow and more developers will use it for their projects.

The ecosystem of JavaScript development is very large, with most of the developers writing all their libraries and frameworks in it - Bootstrap, Angular and React to name a few. In order to overtake JS, WebAssembly will need replacement options for all these libraries and frameworks, which doesn’t seem easy.

Further, the replacement of an existing JS code to WebAssembly wouldn’t be feasible. Even if it happens, companies wouldn’t prefer it because it will be very slow while the code base in JS will be huge. JavaScript already has a lot of competitors in the market, but none of them has been able to replace it.

With time, WebAssembly will become more popular to power browser-based games, VR (virtual reality) applications and other compute-intensive tasks. It can only decrease the market share of JavaScript, but not replace the applications that are already written in JavaScript.

WebAssembly Complements JavaScript

A website development company can use WebAssembly and JavaScript together as both of these can complement each other. WebAssembly can be run alongside JS using WASM JavaScript APIs. It will load the WASM modules into a JS app and share the functionalities together.

When used together, developers get the benefit of expressiveness and flexibility of JavaScript and performance and power of WebAssembly. Therefore, WASM has the ability to move JavaScript to a scripted role. If enterprises and developers think of WebAssembly as a sidekick, it can result in an iconic pair.

Wrapping up

WebAssembly will bring a lot of improvements to the web with its core features and native speed. But it is very less likely to overtake JS. Whether you like it or not, JavaScript will continue to dominate the web development sphere.

Even the FAQ of WebAssembly states that WebAssembly will allow compilation of multiple languages on the web, but JavaScript has got an incredible amount of momentum. Thus, JS will remain the single, privileged language of the web.

Can Blockchain Technology Really Transform the Healthcare Industry?

Vaibhav Shah — Tue, 07 Aug 2018 17:29:17 +0000

Blockchain technology is likely to significantly impact the world in the next few years. The term ‘blockchain’ is mostly heard with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum because it is the underlying technology for the cryptocurrency transactions.

What is Blockchain Technology?

The blockchain is a distributed ledger technology where digital information is divided into blocks and chained together. It creates a secure, digitized and distributed public ledger where the information shared by participants is not centralized by an authority. Hence, the information shared can’t be interrupted or stolen by anyone. Also, nobody can delete the information executed and shared on a blockchain.

Many business leaders call blockchain technology as the most important invention since the Internet. It should be considered an invention as important as the steam engine that can not only change the world of finance, law and logistics but also other industries including healthcare.

Can blockchain technology really transform the healthcare industry? How can blockchain address the challenges of the healthcare industry? Such questions always emerge when talking about blockchain in healthcare.

There are vast opportunities for medical organizations using blockchain. This article covers the potential of this technology in healthcare.

Data Integrity

The blockchain is all set to become a critical part of the way hospitals work, considering the development of new healthcare record systems, medical examination systems, wearable devices and more.

With the rise in the number of patients every year, the medical organizations need to manage a huge amount of data regularly. This data includes patient health information (PHI), electronic health records, data collected from the internet of things (IoT) devices, medical insurance claims, monitoring systems and more.

It is becoming harder for the healthcare industry to securely process and store such amount of data on a daily basis. This is where blockchain can be very useful for them as the main benefit of this technology is data integrity. It can record the information and encrypt it in such a way that nobody can change or remove it.

Blockchain securely records the data and anchor it to a distributed public ledger. This approach generates a proof of data integrity so that users can verify the data timestamp with no need of relying on third-parties. It also enables the users to perform unchangeable medical audits, prove the integrity of clinical research results, verify PHI integrity, ensure data safety and regulatory compliance.

More Secure Standards

A blockchain development company can build such apps that can protect the data more securely than any ordinary encryption method. The technology is moving forward in terms of adoption and allowing implementation of more secure standards for managing PHI, insurance claims and medical records.

With blockchain, there is no mediatory in data sharing and hence it increases the awareness of cryptography benefits.

Interoperability

With its decentralized network of computers and internet beyond boundaries, blockchain can allow a healthcare organization to fetch data of a patient from another healthcare organization without waiting for the information to travel long roads.

Drug Traceability

Drug counterfeiting is one of the most critical issues in pharmacology. A research shows that around 10 to 30% of drugs in developing countries are not real. Businesses in the US alone lose nearly $200 billion every year due to drug counterfeiting. When the drugs are counterfeited, they don’t help the patients and may be dangerous to their health.

A web application development company can assign blockchain developer to build apps that can make all the transactions tamped and immutable. When blockchain is implemented, the companies will need to complete registration of all the drugs for authenticity and quality of drugs. Once the drug is shipped and moves from manufacturers to retailers, all the data will be recorded on the blockchain.
The entire path with which drug travels is visible to the entities and nobody could counterfeit it.

Medical Research

The researchers and scientists conduct clinical trials to determine the effectiveness of medicines for specific diseases. Sometimes these trials are found effective, while other times the hypothesis is disproved. A lot of information like statistics, test results, quality reports, is obtained and recorded during those trials.

Criminals can steal the information and modify or hide it to change the outcome of the whole research. Also, they can use the research for their own benefits to harm the world, even if the information doesn’t coincide with reality.

Blockchain adds the data in form of transaction and validates it by all modes. It offers proof-of-existence and records immutable data. This can enable researchers to store their research results securely in such a way that it becomes impossible to modify the data.

Cost-effective

As blockchain doesn’t involve any third-party to fetch patient data or to transfer patient information from one medical organization to another, it can significantly reduce the costs.

Final Words

Blockchain technology can actually transform the healthcare industry and it’s not hypothetical. All the transactions could be seamlessly done with more transparency and data integrity. Every transaction could be tracked, so nothing on the network can be modified or stolen.

All the patient information could be shared with multiple healthcare providers with no security risk or data breaches. This is one of the biggest advantages of blockchain in healthcare, which also reduces the costs. A web development company in India has a series of new opportunities to develop distributed ledger applications and bring the technology to the healthcare industry in the country.

Image Source: Shutterstock

Top 20 Websites Which Are Built Using AngularJS 2.0 To 5.0

Vaibhav Shah — Sun, 15 Jul 2018 11:35:25 +0000

The AngularJS websites are everywhere. Right from the time of its release in the year 2009 till date, it is a standout amongst the most prevalent frameworks around the web that you can enlist as a developer located in any part of the world.

AngularJS is a phenomenal front-end JavaScript structure for building single-page web based applications. Similarly, to the rich standard library, it offers a pack of customized expansions. In addition, it has a community of developers and contributors who are always there to support and help you in tough times.

Here are a few websites built using AngularJS.

1. DoubleClick by Google - While Google is the designer of AngularJS, it was simply a question of time when they decided to use a JavaScript structure for one of their own possessed products. There is no denying that how huge, intricate and substantial the DoubleClick by Google is. Moreover, it is the stage for multiple businesses that run millions and millions of advertisements every day. A few years back who knew it was built using the amazing AngularJS.

2. Netflix is an American service provider, which facilitates customers to watch online movies and daily soaps on different gadgets. Among the fundamental highlights, Netflix is the expansive database of serials and movies of whose legitimate contents available to view in ultra-high definition or 4K. The team at Netflix used AngularJS as the frontend tool and the backend needs were satisfied by technologies like Python and Flask.

3. Weather is another acclaimed AngularJS illustration. This online form of The Weather Channel offers the great degree of angular conjecture. As indicated by SimilarWeb, Weather.com is one of the best 5 most went by climate sites on the planet. In addition, it positioned among the best six news and data destinations. In 2016, developers were asked to build the Weather website all over again and this time around they used Drupal as CMS with Symfony2 components. Thus Angular came as a savior.

4. Lego is the producer of plastic development toys that was established in Denmark back in 1949. While Lego site propelled in 1996, it has undergone change quite a few times and now AngularJS developers have been handed over the task. Lego Company ensuring the publicity of Star Wars Rebels mini-series constructed manual poster creator device. It enables any client to make his or her own intuitive publication on Star Wars topic. While it's anything but a monstrous adaptable AngularJS web application, it is as yet a decent case of Angular undertaking.

5. PayPal is a standout amongst the most powerfully created electronic payment frameworks around the world. It works in more than 200 nations and within excess of 25 monetary forms. It is a well-known name in specialist groups and is thought to be an ideal method to pay and get cash in. The PayPal site is produced with AngularJS and it is one of the best went by destinations on the Internet planet.

6. The Guardian, a world-celebrated British news service, is one of the first class online daily papers in Great Britain. With more than 42M website visitors, it topped the top five list of most widely read across the globe in 2014. The site is executed as an AngularJS application.

7. ING is a multinational finance and budgetary service, looked for choices to make a typical interface for several pages and web applications. While they don't utilize clean AngularJs, they ended up using SpectINGular framework and hybrid libraries from Angular in the core.

These are the top seven from the list of websites that were built using the popular AngularJS. Below is a list of the few other, 13 to be precise, websites created via AngularJS.

Brilliant Earth (Angular JS 1.2 32)
Copa Airlines (AngularJS 1.4.14)
TAP Air Portugal (AngularJS 1.6.4)
Hello Design Thinking (AngularJS 1.5.3)
Skout (AngularJS 1.3. 15)
Travel.gov (AngularJS 1.1.5)
Fitbit community (AngularJS 1.4.8)
IEEE Xplore Digital Library (AngularJS 1.5.11)
TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICE (AngularJS 1.3.15)
*JPMorgan Chase and Co. Jobs and Internships (AngularJS 1.4.1)
ABC News (AngularJS 1.2.16)
SanDisk (AngularJS 1.4.3)
Trello Developers (AngularJS 1.3.20)

To wrap things up, AngularJS is really an exceptional platform, if utilized in the correct manner. As evident from the above listed websites, how efficient as well as effective AngularJS is when it comes to developing web apps. It is also beneficial for websites that only have a single page. It can serve the purpose of owning an amazing online platform to connect with your clients in an efficacious manner. So if you are looking to get your business website built, you must get associated with an experienced AngularJS development company or lookout for a freelance AngularJS developer to get the needful done. AngularJS is evolving and so should your business.

Top Reasons to Opt for Iterative Approach to Mobile App Development

Vaibhav Shah — Sat, 28 Apr 2018 13:01:22 +0000

It’s quite common among mobile app users that they wish for some additional features in the apps once they start using them. But, this is also a common fact that one keeps on using the same mobile app despite with that missing element. This is the reason mobile app rollouts are always welcomed. The iterative approach to mobile app development that is adopted by the enterprise in their mobile app strategies nowadays plays a pivotal role in such rollouts.

What Does Iterative Development Mean?

The mobile app development companies are keen towards using the latest technologies in building mobile applications for their users. But to their disliking requirements of the users keep on changing with time, there have to be regular advancements in the features and elements of the mobile applications as per the demand. That’s where the role of iterative approach to mobile app development comes in the picture.

Iterative development is the way of breaking down the development of a large application software into small chunks so that all the features are brought out to the users with a lot more efficiency.

After undergoing the long process of development, testing, and modifications, apps produced are more effective and serve the purpose brilliantly. Under this approach, the feature code is repeatedly designed, developed and tested in conjunction with the incremental development of additional features until a fully-fledged mobile app is deployed for the clients.

This way, the long mobile app development cycle is minimised to small chunks making every chunk more effective and operative while considering all latest technology.

Why should iterative approach to mobile app development be considered more often?

The enterprise mobile app strategy is a way different and unique from the traditional app development process because of a number of elements. Let’s check them out right here to understand the essence of iterative development of mobile apps.

1. Context Shifting Is Easy

The mobile applications redefine the way users work especially when they are using it for the first time. Using the same traditional apps with a common interface is quite easy, but when you switch to the mobile application, it may become quite cumbersome for you to get started. That’s where you experience a context shift and you are required to make various adjustments to the workflow the app provides.
The iteration approach helps the mobile app developers get their users adapted to their development easily. Under this, they keep on working to develop the full-fledged app by adding features in an incremental manner instead of loading the app with all features at once.

This helps the users understand the working well, and also the additional features get designed keeping the feedback from the clients in mind.

2. App Is Adapted to Updated Operating System or Devices

The mobile operating system gets regular updates from the manufacturers for the users to keep their mobile up-to-date. The system upgrade could invite challenges for app developers to adjust to the new notions and revised techniques. It’s possible that your app faces compatibility issues with the new and revised mobile operating system. And the situation could only get worse if you have an app that’s loaded with features. It may ask an extra bit of effort from the developers’ side to get things right and features to work as intended.

For that, it is always beneficial to develop your application in chunks or parts in conjunction with the latest technology using the iterative approach. This will let your application get adapted to the latest OS of the mobile easily and further the additional features shall be made available to the users as well.

3. Meeting Business and IT Priorities

In this global economy, the market scenarios, organisation’s business requirements, IT priorities, and stakeholders’ demand are always on the verge of changing and with every such change the enterprise mobile application gets affected. If an app is not able to meet the demand of the clients and is unable to fulfil the objective of the business model, then it is of no use.

Iterations help in overcoming such issues in the best way, as one can get the app developed in parts and with every second rollout, the updated business models or IT priorities can be addressed well without worrying about the budget.

In simple words, iteration is the process of climbing the ladder which leads towards a successful implementation of the mobile application. Every step is taken after analysing the scenarios and considering the demands while keeping a check on the latest mobile app development techniques. By following this approach, one can achieve the objective of providing a fully-fledged mobile app to the clients.

Conclusion

The mobile app development is made possible using different techniques and methodologies which add essence to the application. It’s a long-going process which cannot be achieved all at once. The iterative approach to mobile app development provides the ease of getting it done in small steps. By repeatedly focusing on the entire process of app development, it helps in completing the application development with more efficiency.

This further helps in reducing cost and other expenses which additionally benefit the enterprise in a substantial manner. So if you are planning to build your mobile app strategy, then the iterative approach is what you must consider.

For expert guidance, get in touch with us. We are experienced, innovative and well-versed with latest app development trends and techniques of the technology domain.

Top 7 Mistakes Committed by Node.JS Developers That You Should Avoid

Vaibhav Shah — Sat, 17 Feb 2018 12:23:57 +0000

When it comes to high performing web servers, the three most important characteristics are – scalability, latency and throughput. To maintain low latency and high throughput while scaling up or out is definitely not an easy task. But, for Node.js that is one of the key advantages – low latency and high throughput.

But, what is Node.js?

Node.Js is an open-source JavaScript runtime environment that provides a persistent connection from a browser, through “non-blocking” I/O API that easily optimizes any application’s scalability and throughput. This means it literally wastes no time on waiting for any I/O request to return.

Traditionally, web servers’ used to create new connection threads for every incoming request which was practical in a way but consumed a lot of resources and time. It resulted in high latency and poor performing web applications.

Node.js establishes two-way communication between the client and the web server taking a completely different approach. It executes a single-threaded event loop, which is registered with the system that can handle all connections. Each new connection runs a JavaScript callback function. This callback function can simply handle requests by non-blocking I/O calls.

Thus, Node.js improves web server performance by eliminating waiting and continuing the next request.

The following graphic shows the market position of Node.js in regards to traffic and popularity as compared to other web servers.

Node.js despite its various advantages needs to be properly implemented for maximum benefits. Developers need to know how to make the best out of their Node.js projects. For that, they need to first understand the major Node.js pitfalls.

Top 7 Node.js Mistakes to Avoid

1. Initiating Multiple Callbacks

At times, developers save a file and reload Node.js web application to see if it crashes fast. This results in multiple callback executions, as they forget to return after the first time. JavaScript relies on callbacks which helps it in connecting the various asynchronous elements to make them function properly.

2. Not Testing Properly

Testing is by default the most important yet ignored part of an application development process. Once an application is ready, you should not forget to perform repetitive testing and inspection of codes. As a Node.js developer, you should keep in mind this important step. You can take help of multiple tools to perform successful testing like Mocha, Jasmine etc.

3. Lack of Profiling and Zero Monitoring

Often confused for testing, profiling is a completely different process. Profiling information helps with program optimization by studying various aspects related to the program like its space or function return time.

In Node.js applications, profiling will help you understand things like delay in the event loop, system load, and CPU load or memory usage.

4. Not Using Right Development Tools

Static analytical tools help you to identify application bugs and issues in the development stage only. There are many Supervisor programs as well as pm2, forever, supervisor and nodemon. These tools help you to handle multiple applications on the same machine and even manage logs. They even allow you to restart application/program on the crash.

5. Blocking of the Event Loop

As we know, that in Node.js there is single thread environment as such no two application parts run parallel to each other. Also, anything that blocks any event loop will block the entire loop. This may happen when a CPU-bound request is connected to various clients that eventually block the event loop, making every client wait.

Here, tools like StrongOps and open-source modules can help you with detecting delays in event loop easily.

6. Creating Massive Applications

When creating Node.js applications try to keep things simple.

This can be done by breaking things in tiny modules and pasting to NPM. This will simplify testing and reading of the code. Node supports the building of tiny modules helping you achieve modularity in your Node applications.

7. Considering Number to be Integer Data

Developers can sometimes consider the grave mistake of considering the number to be an integer data. In JavaScript, these are called the floating point data. Any miscalculation of the float can make the entire system go wrong.

Conclusion

The creator of Node.js – Ryan Dahl, identifies non-blocking of I/O the major advantage of the platform. While some Node.js developers might worry about the single event loop getting blocked in case of larger number of CPU cycles, the ability to divide processes into tiny modules make Node.js the perfect platform for building web applications. This might be the reason why major companies like Netflix, Walmart, LinkedIn, PayPal and NASA used Node.js to build their primary applications.