DEV Community: Wulfi

A Step-By-Step Guide to OAuth 2.0: Implementing Sign In with Google, Facebook, and GitHub

Wulfi — Sun, 12 Feb 2023 07:02:49 +0000

Introduction: What is OAuth 2.0 and How Does it Work?

OAuth is simply an open standard for token-based authorization that makes it easier for users to sign into your web app without having to create a new account each time. For example, if you're building a blog app, a new user of the app would normally have to create an account manually by filling out a form with a username, email and password. However, if you use OAuth instead, the user can log in with their existing Facebook, Google or GitHub account. This not only saves the user time but also helps reduce the number of abandoned accounts on your app.

For example, when we log in with Google, we are making a GET request to Google asking for the user's details. Google then responds with a POST request that includes the user's information. When it comes to authentication and security, another great benefit is that we can trust companies like Facebook and Google to manage passwords securely. These companies are known for having great engineers and teams who can provide the highest level of security.

As a developer, we can implement hashing, and salting to further increase password security using complex mathematical functions; however, it would take a considerable amount of time and effort for an individual or a small team. So why not we just delegate these tasks to large companies like Facebook and Google? Then, every time users log in to our app, we simply ask them to log in on Facebook and Facebook will then authenticate them using their security methods. After that, Facebook sends us the message saying this user is authenticated, they're a real Facebook user, and they've got the correct username and password, so we can go ahead and authenticate them in our app too.

OAuth will make our life a lot easier when it comes to third-party login options such as logging in with Google or Facebook. With OAuth, we will have less liability and this is the way that many websites only allow this type of login. Although we need to learn about OAuth to implement these changes, it will be worth it in the end!

What exactly is special about OAuth? Why OAuth?

as there are a lot of other open standards that do something similar to these;

OAuth is quite special in three ways:

Granular Access Levels: Granular access means that when a user logs in with Facebook, you can request specific information from their account. So, for example, if you only need their profile and email address for your app, you can request that data accordingly. This allows apps to only request the data they need, which helps protect user privacy.
Read or Read + Write Access: it allows for either Read Only or Read and Write Access. So in the case of Facebook, this means that we can either ask them to just retrieve pieces of information about their Facebook account like their name, email, and friends list. Or we can ask for write access as well. Say for example in our previous case if our blog app wanted to be able to post to Facebook on this user's account then we would need to ask for read-and-write access.
Revoke Access: The third-party service we're using to authenticate our users must give them the ability to revoke access at any time. For example, if we're authenticating with Facebook, the user should be able to go into their Facebook account and de-authorize the access they granted to our website. This way, they don't have to go onto our site and potentially struggle to remove our access.

So now that we've looked at what's special about OAuth, the next thing to talk about is, well...

How does it work in reality?

Step 1: Set Up Our App

The first step is to tell Facebook, GitHub or Google about our Web application. We have to set up our app in their developer console and return, we get an App ID or Client ID. Our website is then the client who will make requests to Facebook to authenticate our users.

Step 2: Redirect to Authenticate

The next step in the process occurs when the user visits our blog app and attempts to log in using their Facebook credentials. By giving the user the option to log in with Facebook, we streamline the process and make it more convenient for them.

Step 3: User Logs In

We'll take users to the Facebook website when they click on the Facebook option, so they can log in using their Facebook credentials. This way, they'll be seeing a familiar and trustworthy interface.

If we didn't have OAuth, we would have to ask users for their login credentials for Facebook, which would seem sketchy and insecure. OAuth makes that process a lot easier by allowing users to log in to the website they trust (Facebook) using credentials they're already familiar with.

Step 4: User Grants Permissions

When a user logs into our website from a third-party site, they will be prompted to review the permissions that our website is requesting. For example, we might want their profile and email address. If they're OK with granting us that permission, they click "allow."

Step 5: Receive the Authorization code

So now that they've granted us permission and successfully logged in on Facebook, our website will receive an authorization code. This allows us to check if the user has signed in to Facebook with the correct credentials. If everything checks out, we're then able to authenticate the user and log them into our website.

Step 6: Exchange AuthCode for Access Token

If we wanted to go a step further, we can exchange our authentication code for an access token. And when we receive that access token from Facebook, we would save it into our database because this is the token that we can use if we want to request pieces of information subsequently.

The access token is valid for a lot longer than the authentication token, so we can think of the authentication code or OAuth code as being like a ticket. It's a ticket that we're only going to use once to get into the cinema.

An access token is a lot like a year-long pass to an amusement park. It allows you to request data from Facebook that the user has allowed you to access, such as their friend list, username, or password.

The OAuth code is what we use to authenticate a user who has successfully logged in through Facebook. The access token is what we'll use to access information that is stored on that user's account, such as their email or friend's list.

Now that we know all of this, let's go ahead and put it into practice. We're going to be implementing login with Google, Facebook, and Github using Passport.js and Google OAuth, Facebook Outh, and GitHub OAuth inside our Express app.

Complete Step By Step Implementation article here.

Why Project-Based Learning Is Important?

Wulfi — Fri, 30 Dec 2022 15:42:07 +0000

Introduction

Projects are an important part of the learning process. Not only do they help students develop key skills and critical thinking abilities, but they also encourage collaboration and teamwork while fostering creativity. And they're so much fun!

Promotes Creativity

Creativity is a skill that can be learned. Project-based learning encourages creativity and creative thinking, which are critical skills for the future. It allows students to think outside of the box and see things in new ways. Project-based learning helps students develop their creativity through problem-solving, as well as by presenting them with new ideas and concepts.

Develops Problem-Solving Skills

One of the most important skills that a student can develop is problem-solving. Project-based learning is an excellent way to help students learn how to solve problems because it requires them to not only think about the problem as a whole but also break down each step for them to find a solution.

As you can imagine, being able to solve problems well is very important in life! In addition to being able to use these skills at school or work, they are also useful outside of school. Students will have more confidence when trying new things because they know that they have the ability and knowledge necessary for them not only to complete tasks successfully but also enjoy doing so!

Projects Are More Engaging than Textbooks

Projects are more engaging than textbooks because they allow students to be actively involved in the learning process. They can learn from each other and from the teacher, who can guide them through their work in a way that's less structured than in a traditional classroom setting. In addition, students can apply what they've learned by doing something practical with it. This enables them to retain information longer and makes it easier for them to apply what they know when faced with new challenges.

Students Can Participate in Real-World Learning

In a project-based learning setting, students can apply what they learn to real-world situations. Imagine the excitement of completing a project that makes an impact on your community—or even the world! Students can also learn from each other while working together on projects: A group of students may have different strengths and weaknesses, but as they collaborate and work toward a common goal, their weaknesses are offset by each other’s strengths.

Project-based learning is a beneficial approach to learning that helps students develop critical skills.

Project-based learning is a beneficial approach to learning that helps students develop critical skills. Students learn how to work in teams and communicate with others, solve problems and think creatively, take responsibility for their learning, and more.

Project-based learning gets students to find the answers they need by working together

Project-based learning is a great way for students to learn how to work together. They need to be able to work together, communicate with each other, explain their ideas and listen carefully. These are all necessary skills that will help them in the future.

Conclusion

Project-based learning is an approach that is becoming increasingly popular with educators and learners. It’s a great way for students to have ownership over their learning, learn how to work with others, and develop critical skills that they can use in the future. There are many different styles of project-based learning and every student has different needs so it’s important to find what works best for each person individually!

How to Stay Motivated When Working on Tech Projects?

Wulfi — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 15:23:06 +0000

Introduction

As a programmer, you spend a lot of time working on tech projects. And no matter how much experience you have with your current project—or even if this is your first time—it's always good to keep yourself motivated! But how do you stay motivated when working on tech projects?🤔

If you're like me, you have a hard time staying motivated when working on tech projects. 😵‍💫 I've been programming for years, and the prospect of starting something new is often daunting. But if you take the right steps to stay motivated and keep yourself on track with your work, it can be easier than ever! Here are some ways that I've found help me stay motivated:

1. Break down your project into small parts

The first thing you need to do is break down your project into small parts. When it comes to tech projects, it's easy to get overwhelmed and overwhelmed by how big the task seems at first. So, take some time out of your day and focus on one small part of the project at a time. For example, if you're working on building an app for managing social media accounts, then start by creating a prototype of how users would use that app before moving onto implementing all its features into the actual codebase (which will come later).

2. Do you want to start something new?

You can start a project by finding something that interests you. It might be a new technology, or it could be an old one that has been re-purposed for the 21st century. If you are passionate about something and want to learn more about it, then this is your chance!

You can also choose projects based on your current skills and interests: if someone knows how to use Photoshop but doesn't know anything about coding, they may not feel comfortable working with code at first because there would be too much unknowns between them (and thus less motivation). However, if they knew how coding worked beforehand but lacked Photoshop knowledge—or vice versa—they'd have more confidence in their abilities when tackling any technical tasks related directly towards their proposed venture(s).

3. Work on something you are passionate about

Working on something you are passionate about is one of the best ways to stay motivated. When you enjoy the process and don't get burned out, you'll be more likely to stick with it until it's finished. This will make sure that your final product is going to be better than if someone else was doing it for you because they didn't have as much invested in finishing it (or at all).

It's also important for people who might not have any idea what they want their project to look like yet because then there can be a lot of trial and error before finding something that works well enough but isn't too complicated either - this way there won't be any wasted time trying out different ideas until finding something which seems like a good fit!

4. Be your own manager

There are many ways to manage your own time. You can manage it by setting goals and working towards them, or you can set a not-to-exceed limit on how many hours of work you’re willing to do in one day. You can also use tools such as Trello or Asana to help manage those things for you. Also if there are things that need to be done in the process of doing your project but you don't like doing it? then it's always a good approach to use tools as those tools can make your life easier and more fun on your journey.

Setting up good habits will make it easier for you to stay motivated and focused on your goals!

5. Connect with others who share similar interests

Connect with people who share your interests. If you're not a developer, but want to learn more about coding and software engineering, there are plenty of resources out there that can help guide you on the path.
Connect with other developers. The best way to get answers or ask questions is through online forums like Stack Overflow or Reddit's /r/programming (or others). There are also many other groups of people who share similar interests as yours—for example: if you're into simple games like Pokémon Go, check out the Game Dev Hangout group on Facebook! Join Tech Twitter community and join spaces, you will be able to meet all the amazing people, learn everything you need and get to hear what successful people have to say - yes all for free. It's the best community for developers!!!

6. Make your work environment more comfortable for you

Your work space is an important part of your productivity. It’s where you spend most of your time, and it can make or break how motivated you are to keep working on a project.

If you don't have a comfortable work area, try these tips:

Make sure that there's enough light in the room so that you can see everything clearly without having to strain yourself or squint.
Get rid of any distractions that are hanging around (including decorations). Don't bring anything into the room unless absolutely necessary!
Another way to make your surroundings more relaxing is by having plants around - they'll add color and life into any room!, source
Get rid of all clutter from other areas in order for people not only be able to concentrate but also feel like they have enough space around them without feeling constrained by restrictions.

🙆‍♂️Well these are only the opinions but it is a good practice to make your workspace more comfortable for yourself because some prefer to decorate more and keep it beautiful while some (and as for myself) might prefer to keep it clean and just plain. Try out what is best for you.

7. Build a routine for yourself and stick to it

Having a routine is important because it helps you to stay motivated while working on tech projects. It also helps you avoid procrastination, which can be very frustrating and demotivating. If your project is very important, then there should be some sort of schedule for how long each day should take and what tasks need to be done during each session of work. You can even use this as an opportunity for reflection by writing down what went well or didn't go well during the day so that next time, things will go smoother!

Staying motivated takes time but once you find out what works for you, it can make all the difference in the world.

It's not easy to stay motivated when you're working on a project. In fact, it can be quite challenging.

There are many reasons why developers lose motivation. These include:

The project that you're working on is not as exciting as others, and therefore it doesn't keep your attention.
You don't get enough feedback from your team members or clients regarding what they want from the product or service that you are building.

Conclusion

I hope this article has given you some ideas on how to stay motivated when working on tech projects. Remember, it’s a process that takes time and practice. Don’t give up if things feel difficult at first! Good luck! 🤩👍️

If you’re feeling uninspired, it can be a struggle to stay motivated. But there are ways to make sure your work is interesting and fulfilling even when the going gets tough.💪🦾💪

Why you must start Blogging as a Developer?

Wulfi — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 15:04:00 +0000

Introduction

As a developer, you are very passionate about your work. You spend hours working on new features and fixing bugs. A lot of the time, however, you don't get to share this experience with anyone else in your office. Instead, you keep it all to yourself and let it fester inside until you can talk with other developers about your work at lunch or after work. What if there was a better way to convey all that information without having to interrupt conversations at any given meal? This is where blogging comes into play!

Show your expertise in your niche

You can use your blog to show your expertise in the niche you are interested in. There are many benefits of blogging, and one of them is that it helps you to grow as a developer. You will be able to write articles that talk about your interests, as well as other topics related to programming or how developers work. This is a great way for people who are interested in this work field to learn more about what they can do once they finish their education or training program.

Build a personal brand

A strong personal brand will help you stand out in the developer community as an expert. You should be able to answer the question "Who am I?" with a few simple sentences that describe what makes you unique and why someone should care about your voice.

You don't need a New York Times bestselling book or an award-winning blog to build a personal brand; however, it's important that your content is consistent with who you are, both on and offline. Your blog should reflect your personality and style, as well as share insights into who you are and why people should follow along with your journey.

Boost your personal growth

Blogging will help you to learn new things. You can write about different topics and try to cover every aspect of it. Writing will improve your writing skills, communication skills, marketing skills, technical skills etc.

You can also refer to the other topics which are related with the topic that you are writing about because it helps you gather more information which can be helpful in writing better content for your blog post or article.

Get feedback from developers globally

The best thing about blogging is that you get to hear what people think of your work. You get feedback from developers globally and in the same niche, but even better is when you receive feedback from different niches or non-developers. Even if it's just one person who gives you some feedback, it can make all the difference for your blog and career as a developer!

As a developer, I can assure you that receiving constructive criticism is crucial to growing as an individual and will allow us to produce better content for our readers. There are many ways you can get feedback from developers. You can get feedback from developers globally, within the same niche and from other niches as well. It is important to note that the feedback you receive doesn't have to be related to your specific field or topic. You can also receive valuable advice by using social media and forums like Twitter, Reddit and Stack Overflow.

Get personal projects off the ground with blogging

Blogging is a great way to get your projects off the ground, and it's especially useful when you're looking for feedback on your ideas or funding.

If you want to start a business but don't know where to begin, blogging can help with that too.

Start by posting about what makes your product unique and why people should use it instead of other products in the same space. You can also write about how you got started with your idea and what steps are involved in its development (e.g., hiring designers, writing code).

Make money via blogging

Blogging can be a great way to make money online because you can monetize your blog in many ways. The most popular ways to monetize your blog are through display ads, affiliate marketing and selling your own products.

Display Ads are one of the best ways of making money from blogging as it doesn't require any initial investment on your part and you don't have to spend time creating content for it either. Display Ads are used by both bloggers and website owners alike because they're fast and easy to implement without having to write new content for each ad placement. Affiliate Marketing is another good option if you want more control over what ads appear on your site and how much revenue they generate for you since most affiliate programs let members choose their own products or services before they sign up with an affiliate network such as Amazon Associates or ShareASale.

How to get started?

Decide on a blogging platform.
Start with a niche that interests you and write about it in an interesting way.
Write content people care about, not just information they need or want to know but something that will make them think and feel something. This could be an emotion, thought or action you inspire in your readers as well as what you share when asked by someone else how to do something or why they should buy this product over another one.
Write down things that interest you or have recently learned (like a new fact) so they are at hand when needed for new posts.

Decide on a blogging platform

So, how do you choose a platform? There are several things to consider. First, make sure it's easy to use. Sure, WordPress may be the most popular blogging platform on the market right now but if you're not comfortable with coding then it's probably not for you. Next, make sure that the platform is easy to maintain. For example: Do they have an online tutorial system? Will they teach me how to manage my content and save time?

Thirdly: Is this platform easy to monetize? (In case it applies for you) You don't want your blog taking up all of your time only for it not making any money at all! Finally: Is this platform easy to share? Make sure there is an active community surrounding whatever type of content you post.

Here are a few of them:

Start with a niche that interests you.

It is important to start blogging with a niche that interests you and that you are passionate about. This will help keep you motivated and write consistently. If you are feeling overwhelmed by all the things going on in your life, or have no idea where to start, finding a topic that interests and excites you might feel impossible. But don't worry! There are plenty of niches out there for every type of person. For example:

If you love dogs (or cats), maybe it would make sense for your first blog post to be about how to choose the perfect dog breed for your lifestyle?
If cooking is something that comes naturally to you and makes life easier, write about tips on making healthy meals at home using only three ingredients!
If you love developing projects and building websites, share your experience and things you learn on your journey.

Write content people care about.

Now that you have the right platform and the right audience, it's time to start writing.

As a developer, you know that good content is king. In fact, there are many successful blogs out there written by developers that are attracting thousands of readers every day simply because they provide value to their readers.

There are many ways for you to write about topics related to your profession as a developer:

Write about what you know or want to learn in depth (e.g., code samples)
Write about the tools or services that automate tasks for you (e.g., scheduling emails)
Write about new features in programming languages/tools
Write about industry news relevant to your field

Write about things you've just learned.

As a developer, you are constantly learning. You may know the ins and outs of a particular programming language or framework, but there is always more to learn. Take advantage of this by writing blog posts about things you've just learned. You can write about how to use a new library in your technology stack, or how to implement an algorithm or data structure in your favorite language.

While some developers might think that blogging about their latest projects would be boring for their audience, this is not true at all! The best way to keep up with current trends in development is by keeping an eye on what other people are doing with them-and what better way than through reading blogs?

There are many reasons why developers must start blogging and these reasons will help you to get started with it.

So, what's the point?

As a developer, you have a lot of expertise in your niche. You are the best person to know about it and share with people what they need to know. Blogging is one of the most effective ways of sharing your knowledge with a global audience. So start blogging and show off your expertise as well as build a personal brand for yourself in this competitive world!

The benefits of blogging will boost up your personal growth whether it be technical or non-technical:

Get feedback from developers globally through comments on blog posts which helps them improve their skills further.
Build a community around their blogs where they can discuss various topics related to programming languages, frameworks etc., which helps them grow more than just being an individual developer by interacting with other developers who share similar interests in programming field too!

Conclusion

To conclude, I would say that if you are a developer and you want to be successful in this industry, then you must start blogging. Blogging is an effective way for developers to share their knowledge with the world and learn from others. It will not only make them more knowledgeable but also help them improve their skills as well as grow their business.

Let's connect.

Why Django Rest Framework is the Best Option for API Development

Wulfi — Fri, 22 Jul 2022 12:09:27 +0000

Introduction
The Django Rest Framework (DRF) is a powerful tool for creating web APIs and it has a lot of features that make it ideal for this type of work. In this blog post, we’ll cover why you should use DRF to build your next Django project and how it can help you create better APIs.

Serializers
Serializers in the Django REST framework are used to transform data into JSON, which is the common format for web services. It’s a good practice to use serializers instead of models when you’re working with APIs because they provide flexibility and optimization.

The advantage here is that it’s possible to convert multiple records at once with just one command, something which could not easily be done using models alone.

Responses
Django REST framework lets you create responses in a variety of ways. Using the built-in serializers, you can easily create a response from any data model. You can also use the built-in renderers to create a more customized response, including creating your own renderers and overriding default ones for your own use cases. Finally, there are some predefined status codes and messages that will help you quickly generate an appropriate response back to the client without having to write any code at all.

Filtering
When you want to retrieve data from the database, you can use queries. Filtering is a way of applying conditions to the data you’re querying so that you get only those results that satisfy these conditions.

You can use this to create an API endpoint that returns only the data you want, rather than all of it. This is useful when you have too much information and need to narrow down what’s returned or simply don’t want certain fields included in your output.

Filtering data in the Django REST framework is a great way to get just the data you need. It allows for easy filtering of results using query parameters, or by filtering both methods at once! Filtering in the Django REST framework has become a breeze since implementing it from scratch is a lot of work.

Easy To Use
DRF is easy to use. You will find it intuitive and simple for building your APIs with DRF. The framework provides a lot of functionality out of the box and you can easily modify it according to your needs.

DRF makes writing APIs very easy because it follows a convention over configuration approach, which means you don’t have to write much code just to make things work. Also, there are many built-in features like serializers, validation etc., available with DRF that saves a lot of time while developing an API application.

Admin Integration
Since it is a Django framework, we don’t have to worry about admin interfaces as they are built-in for a django project. When using Django Rest Framework, we can use the admin panel provided by Django framework for adding and removing items from the database as admin which includes creating, updating and deleting resources. In order to access this functionality, you need to register your model with the admin module and create a superuser for your project. The admin module provides an interface for managing models through the Django web framework’s user interface.

Browsable API

A browsable API is a feature of DRF, which allows you to view the endpoints and their parameters in an easy-to-use UI.
You can test your API by using this browsable API. For example, you can use it to see what data will be returned from different requests, so you don’t have to send real requests through your server. This is especially useful for testing error handling cases because sometimes it’s difficult to get responses exactly right when using cURL or another tool like Postman or Insomnia

Authentication and Permissions
Authentication is the process of verifying the identity of a user. Permissions are the ability to perform certain actions. Authentication and permissions are both important for security. Authentication is used to ensure that a person or service is allowed to access your site, while permissions determine what they can do once they’re there.

Django Rest Framework has support for both authentication and permissions built in, which makes it easier for you to implement these features in your API application.
Django Rest Framework is an excellent tool for creating APIs in Django.

Django REST Framework is an excellent tool for creating APIs in Django.
It’s a library for Django, written in Python and designed to be used with the Django Web Framework. It is free and open source. Many companies use it to create their APIs because it’s easy to use and fast enough to build an API.

Conclusion
Django Rest Framework is the best choice for building APIs. It’s the most popular choice for Python developers and has a lot of features that make it easy to use. The Django Rest Framework is a powerful tool that can be used to develop robust APIs which is designed with the goal of making it easy to build APIs with Django.

Why You Should Join The Tech Twitter Community

Wulfi — Sun, 10 Jul 2022 17:04:44 +0000

Introduction

I’ve been following the tech Twitter community for several years now, and it’s certainly evolved over time. But, in my opinion, it has gotten better with each passing year, as more and more people are joining the community and contributing to it. There are some very smart people out there who contribute their time on Twitter to help others learn new things about software engineering (and many other topics). I’d like to share with you why I think Tech Twitter is a great place for someone interested in software engineering — or even if you’re not — to participate in this community:

Twitter is a great place to learn.

Twitter is a great place to learn about new technologies, tools, techniques, processes, and ideas. It’s also a great place to interact with people who do these things for a living. They can give you advice on how best to apply what you’re learning. Some of them may even offer jobs!

Twitter is a great place to contribute.

Twitter is a great place to contribute. The platform is open and accessible to everyone, so there’s a lot of room for you to share your thoughts, code, work and ideas. Why not join the discussion?

The tech Twitter community is inclusive-you can get involved with it today. Just by following some accounts that post about topics that interest you and sharing interesting links with your followers, you can start building relationships with people who share similar interests. After all, Twitter makes it easy for users from all over the world to connect in real time!

Twitter is a great place to network.

Twitter is a great place to network, especially if you’re looking for new opportunities or connections. You can connect with people in your industry, different industries, different countries and even people who live in other time zones.

Twitter is an international platform that allows you to connect with like-minded individuals all over the world. It’s also a great way to receive real-time information about what’s happening in other parts of the world as well as an excellent resource when trying to find out what people are talking about on any given day/week/month/year!

Twitter is a great place to follow industry leaders and media outlets.

For example, if you’re interested in tech, following the right people can help you learn more about your field. You might want to follow a few journalists whose work you like or follow investors who are active in your field. This way, when they tweet about an interesting article or company that’s relevant to what you’re interested in, it’ll be easier for you to find out about it!

Twitter is a great way to stay current on the news.

If you’re a tech enthusiast, then Twitter is a great way to stay on top of the latest news. Just about anything that you could want to hear about is covered on Twitter-the latest trends in technology, news from your industry, and even breaking stories.
Tech Twitter can be a very positive and helpful community for any software engineer.

Tech Twitter can be a very positive and helpful community for any software engineer.

It’s a great place to learn. There are so many people on Twitter who are willing to share their knowledge with others, whether it be in the form of blog posts or code samples. Even if you don’t have time to read every article or watch every video, there are plenty of people on Tech Twitter who will point out great content when they find it (using tools such as GitHub Pages). This can help you keep track of the latest topics in your field so that you always stay current with what is going on in tech news and what other developers are talking about online!
It’s a great place to contribute. If you have an idea for something that could improve someone else’s project, then tweet about it! Or if there is something that bothers you about another person’s codebase then tell them how they could fix it! This type of feedback is extremely valuable because we all know how hard it can be sometimes just getting started learning something new — especially when everyone else seems way ahead ;) So don’t hesitate; ask questions if need be but also give back whenever possible :)

Conclusion

In conclusion, if you have a passion for technology, then joining the tech Twitter community is a great way to share your knowledge with others and learn more about the industry. It’s also a great place to get inspired by other people’s ideas and innovations. With so many ways of interacting with this group (such as live tweeting events), there are plenty of opportunities for everyone to contribute their own unique perspective on any given topic!

The Best Ways to Improve Your Skills to become a Developer

Wulfi — Mon, 04 Jul 2022 13:57:38 +0000

Introduction

You want to be a good developer, but you're not sure how to go about learning the skills you need. It's easy to feel overwhelmed, especially when there are so many developers out there who already know everything. Well, don't worry! There are plenty of ways that you can quickly improve your coding abilities without spending years in school or pouring money into expensive courses. Here's everything you need to know:

Learn the basics.

It's easy for us to forget the basics, especially when we're trying to learn more advanced things. That's why it's so important that you dedicate a part of your day just learning the basics.

Programming languages: There are lots of programming languages out there that you can learn, but I'd recommend starting with something simple like Python. If you want something more complex (and dare I say fun), go for JavaScript!
Computer Science: Computer science is a field of study in itself, but if you're interested in becoming good at programming then definitely make sure to take time and learn some computer science fundamentals like algorithms and data structures before jumping into web development or mobile app development. You'll thank yourself later!

Join a community.

Joining a community is one of the best ways to learn how to become a good developer. Communities are important because they allow you to find people with similar interests and share ideas with them. A strong community can be an excellent source of learning opportunities, as well as professional development and support. Joining a community can also help you find a job or mentor, so it’s worth your time!

Practice, practice and practice.

The most important aspect of being a good developer is practice. Practice makes perfect, and if you want to be a great programmer, you need to put in some serious hours of practice.

Practicing is the only way that you can improve your skills as a developer (and programmer). You might think that reading books will help out with this - they do, but not nearly as much as practicing actually programming on real projects will help you improve.

If you want to become an expert coder then there's no alternative but for lots of hard work!

Create a personal project.

The best way to learn is by doing. You need to create something for yourself, for others, and for your own enjoyment. Create a personal project that you are interested in and that could be useful to others (e.g., an app or website). This will help ensure that you’re motivated enough to complete it! As long as there is something interesting about the project, it doesn't matter how big or small it is or how long it takes.

Personal projects are the best way to learn how to code and get better at it! The key factor that makes a personal project work is that it should be something that you are interested in and want to build. For example, if you love cooking, maybe your project could be an app for finding recipes or a web page where people can upload their own recipes.

Get some feedback from others.

Another way to improve your skills is by getting feedback from others. Asking for someone else’s opinion can help you learn more about what you can do better, and it will also let you know if a problem really exists or not.

There are several types of people you should ask for feedback: people who are better than you, people who are worse than you, and people that are on the same level as yourself (or some other kind of peer).

When asking other developers for feedback on your code, try to get as detailed an explanation as possible about what they don’t like about it. More often than not developers won't be able to tell exactly how to fix a problem because they don't know your specific situation or coding style. If someone gives vague comments like "make sure everything is closed properly" then they probably don't understand enough details about how the code works in order to provide helpful advice on fixing problems with it!

All of these things could help you to become a good programmer

There are many different ways to improve your skills as a programmer. You can take classes, read books, watch videos, and join communities. The trick is to find the combination that works best for you.

Here are some ideas:

Know the basics. Before you can really get started improving your programming skills, it's important that you have a strong foundation in the fundamentals of coding languages and technologies like HTML5 and CSS3. If you're just starting out with programming (or if you haven't done much since college), then this could mean brushing up on some basic concepts or even taking a class at your local community college or university!

Conclusion

I hope that this post has given you some ideas and inspiration for improving your programming skills. The main thing to remember is that there are many different ways to become a great developer, and no one path is better than another—as long as it works for you!

Use an AI to write your articles

Wulfi — Sun, 03 Jul 2022 09:51:32 +0000

Introduction

If you're like me, you've been hearing a lot about artificial intelligence (AI) recently. It's everywhere-on the news, in movies, and even in our homes. But what is AI? How does it work? And why should small business owners care about it? In this article, we'll look at what an AI copywriter is and how it can help your company grow.

What is an AI copywriter?

An artificial intelligence (AI) copywriter is a computer program that writes content. You can use it to write blog posts, articles and sales copy for your website or social media pages. It also allows you to target specific audiences with targeted content, which can help you increase conversions and sales.

Understanding the benefits of AI-generated content

Save time
Create more content
Create better content
Create more relevant content to your audience
Create engaging, personalized copy

How to create your own AI-generated content

Create an outline of what you want to say.
Set up your AI copywriter.
Give the AI copywriter a topic and keywords, then review its work when it's done. If you like what you see, use it!

AI has a lot to offer small business owners.

If you're a small business owner, you know how tough it can be to get started with content marketing. It can be hard to find the time and resources to create even the most basic blog posts or social media content for your business. That's where AI can help!

AI has its limitations as well-it can't write an entire blog post on its own-but it does offer some pretty substantial benefits:

AI saves time. Instead of spending hours researching and writing a blog post, an AI copywriter will do all of that work for you in just a few minutes! This means that once the system is set up, there will be very little effort required on your part to keep your blog updated regularly with new articles or social media updates.
AI saves money. Instead of paying someone else (or yourself!) hundreds or thousands dollars per month just so they/you don't have to spend hours researching and writing every single article every single day, why not let an algorithm do most of this work instead? It'll save everyone involved some serious cash over time!

Conclusion

With AI, you can automate the process of writing blog posts. With the help of AI-generated content, your company can save time and money on writing content for your website or social media platforms.

Why You Should Use REST API and How it Does Influences Web Application Development

Wulfi — Sat, 02 Jul 2022 18:00:05 +0000

Introduction: What is a REST API and Why You Should Use It?

If you're a developer, chances are good that you've heard of the REST API. It's a standard for creating web services and is used by many modern applications. However, there might be a few things that you don't know about the REST API because it can be difficult to understand at first glance. In this article, we'll cover some basics about the REST API so that you can get started using it in your own projects!

REST API is a software protocol for building web services. It is one of the most popular and widely used protocols for the internet.

REST API provides a way for two applications to communicate with each other over the internet, regardless of programming language. REST API is an interface that allows developers to use HTTP requests to update data and retrieve information from a server.

What Makes Up the World of an API?

There are many definitions of what an API is. The most common one is that it stands for Application Programming Interface. An API is a set of programming instructions and standards for accessing data or functions from one application to use in another application.

An API can be used to connect two different applications together, or it can be used to connect an application with a third-party service, such as social media or analytics tools. APIs are used to access data from a remote server.

The world of APIs consists of many things: REST APIs, SOAP APIs, JSON APIs, and more. This section will explore the basics of what each type is and how they differ from one another.

REST API vs. GraphQL vs. SOAP vs. XML-RPC - What's The Difference?

GraphQL, REST API, SOAP, and XML-RPC are four different approaches that developers can take when designing Web Services APIs.

REST API is a software architectural style that defines a set of constraints to be followed in designing web services. REST API is an approach to provide an interface for the data and services offered by a website. The REST API is a simple and lightweight protocol that uses HTTP requests to transfer data. REST API is the most popular choice for mobile and web applications, as it's easy to build and implement.

GraphQL was developed by Facebook in 2012 and it's a query language that runs on top of a REST API. It's an alternative to REST APIs, which are limited by their query constraints. GraphQL has a lot of similarities with REST API, but it also has some differences. It is a more robust solution that provides a clear separation of data storage and data access.

SOAP is an acronym that stands for Simple Object Access Protocol which is used in the development of web services. It was created by Microsoft and IBM in 1998 as an XML-based protocol. SOAP is also another protocol for transferring data over HTTP, and it's more complicated than XML-RPC or JSON-RPC due to its heavy use of XML tags. SOAP is an old protocol that was designed for use with HTTP but it doesn't provide any improvements over REST API or GraphQL in terms of performance or functionality.

XML-RPC is a remote procedure call protocol designed for use with XML, developed as an alternative to SOAP. XML-RPC is an older protocol that uses XML to transfer data between client and server.

The main advantage of the REST API is that it's simple and fast.

It doesn't require any special software to be installed
It doesn't use a lot of resources
It doesn't require a lot of bandwidth

The flexibility offered by the REST API makes it easy to use.

REST APIs are easy to use because they are language-independent, which means that they can be used by any programming language. This also means that the REST API can be used in any operating system or platform without any compatibility issues.

REST APIs are easy to use because they are easy to understand and use. REST APIs use a simple mapping between resources, verbs, and data models that makes it easier for users with no experience in web development or design to understand how they should interact with the API.

API Testing Techniques That Will Make Your Life Easier

If you are a tester, you are always looking for ways to make your life easier. Testing APIs is different from testing webpages or mobile apps. There are many things to consider when testing an API and it can take time to get the hang of it.

Testing APIs is a complicated task, especially when you have to test a large number of them.

1. Use an Automated Testing Tool

Automating tasks can help you save a lot of time and effort when testing APIs. A REST API testing tool is an application that you can use to interact with your RESTful API. It provides a set of tools for testing your API and validating that it is working as expected.

Automated testing tools are available for both web and mobile apps. You can use them to automate the tests on your app and save time by running them repeatedly. These tools also offer an option to generate a comprehensive report on the tests performed, which saves time spent on manual testing.

Some of the best automated testing tools:

Postman
RapidAPI Testing
Selenium
Katalon Studio
LambdaTest
TestProject
TestArchitect
APIFortress

Explore details here

2. Test Your APIs from Different Devices and Browsers

Most of us test our applications from one or two devices and browsers, but we should be testing our applications from all possible devices and browsers so that we can identify any bugs or issues with our application before deploying it in production environment.

The most common use cases for API Testing are:

Testing that an API works as expected.
Creating tests for an API before it's built (i.e., unit testing).
Testing changes to an existing API.

Some of the most common reasons why companies need to test APIs are:

Ensuring that they are compatible with different browsers, operating systems and devices
Ensuring that they follow security standards and guidelines
Ensuring that they can be used by different developers on different platforms

Conclusion

REST API is a great way to build web applications and provide access to services. It has many advantages over traditional methods, such as being simple and fast. The flexibility offered by the REST API makes it easy to use and allows developers to have more control over data formats and data schema. With REST APIs, applications can communicate with each other in a language-independent way.

A Step-By-Step Guide to Building an API in Django

Wulfi — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 12:18:56 +0000

This tutorial will teach you how to set up a Django project and create an API that will return the anime list.

API is a middle man between two apps. It allows one app to use the features of another app. For example, an API can be used to allow a social media platform to access a user’s location data from their phone.

APIs are used to connect different pieces of software and allow them to communicate with one another. They can also be used to make a piece of software interact with something else, like a database or web page. In general, project A and project B can be connected through an API .

An API can be used to create projects in different domains. For example, an API can be used by an online retailer to give them access to customer data from their website.

The definition of An application programming interface ( API) by Wikipedia is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software.

When interacting with the API, we send requests and get responses. The request are of different types:

C — create (POST)
R — Read (GET)
U — Update (PUT)
D — Delete(DELETE)

In this tutorial, we will create an API that will return a simple JSON response and I will write a separate article on creating each of the above methods.

1. Setup Django Project

Django is a Python web framework that is designed for rapid development of high-quality web applications. It is free and open source software under the BSD license.

Django’s primary distinguishing features are its “batteries included” approach to web development, which includes many things that are typically hard or time consuming to build from scratch such as user authentication, database access, caching support and more; its emphasis on readability; and its use of Python as an implementation language. You may learn Django from its documentation here

For now we only need Django and a code editor (I’m using Vscode) to work on this project.

i. Create a folder to work on this project.

ii. Inside the folder you just created, create a virtual environment. To create a virtual environment, open the terminal inside this folder and enter:


$ python -m venv env

iii. Activate the virtual environment and install Django

$ env\Scripts\activate$ pip install Django

iv. Create the project :

Since we are creating an anime list API, we will create a project called animelist:

$ django-admin startproject animelist $ cd animelist

ii. Create app inside our project

Generally if we need to add any feature or if we need to do anything in Django, we need to create apps. So complete projects are divided into multiple apps. Let us create our first app using following command:

$ python manage.py startapp animelist_app

Add the app inside the INSTALLED_APPS list in settings.py


INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    'animelist_app',
]

We will test our project to see if we can see the default page of Django project:

$ python manage.py runserver

2. Create Django Models

Creating models in Django is an important step for any developer. It’s the first step of creating a database in Django and it’s also the first step for creating a web application.

Django models are classes that represent database tables. They are used to create, read, update and delete data from the tables.

In this tutorial, we will create one API model for an anime list.

i. When the Django project is first created, several migrations need to be performed. We can do this by running following command:

$ python manage.py migrate

ii. Create superuser by providing the details when running the following command:

$ python manage.py createsuperuser

Now, try accessing the Django admin interface by running the server:

$ python manage.py runserver

Visit: 127.0.0.1:8000/admin

iii. Create urls.py file inside the animelist_app folder:

Django follows something called MVT architecture which are model (database), view, templates and the urls in Django will tell us which endpoints to hit to get the information or it specifies the paths inside the project.

urls.py

iv. Create a model inside the models.py file. In the following code, we want to create a database table called Anime:

class Anime(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
    description = models.CharField(max_length=200)
    active = models.BooleanField(default=True)


    def __str__(self):
        return self.name

v. Since we have added to our model we need to make migrations:

$ python manage.py makemigrations

One of the amazing features in Django is that it supports ORM (Object-Relational Mapper) which enables us to interact with our databases like we would with SQL queries. The fact that it is just a pythonical way of creating SQL queries, manipulating databases and getting results, it is easier that the developer need not write any SQL since ORM automates this work. Run the following command to create the database.

$ python manage.py migrate

vi. Register the model in admin.py

from animelist_app.models import Anime

admin.site.register(Anime)

Run the server and try to add some animes to the database from the admin interface at

127.0.0.1:8000/admin

3. Creating JSON response

i. Here we convert the query set (objects) of Django models into python dictionary and then into JSON

from animelist_app.models import Anime
from django.http import JsonResponse

def anime_list(request):
    animes= Anime.objects.all()

    # print(list(animes.values()))

    data = {
        'animes': list(animes.values())    
    }

    return JsonResponse(data)

This will return the JsonResponse … we can check if it is in JSON by checking if the data is in double quotes (single quotes are changed to double in JSON), capital T for True in the dictionary is changed to small t in JSON.

2/ Create a link for the view above in urls.py

urls.py inside animelist:

from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path, include

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    path('anime/', include('animelist_app.urls')),
]

urls.py inside animelist_app:

from django.urls import path
from animelist_app.views import anime_list

urlpatterns = [
    path('list/', anime_list, name = 'anime-list'),
]

Check the results at 127.0.0.1:8000/anime/list

4. Create view for single data

i. Create a view to return single element or details of single anime

# return individual elements
def anime_details(request, pk):
    anime= Anime.objects.get(pk=pk)

    data = {
        'name': anime.name,
        'description': anime.description,
        'active': anime.active
    }

    # print(anime.name)

    return JsonResponse(data) # convert to json

ii. Add url inside the urls.py file of animelist_app :

from animelist_app.views import anime_list, anime_details

urlpatterns = [
    path('list/', anime_list, name = 'anime-list'),
    path('<int:pk>', anime_details, name='anime-detail'),
]

Test the API by visiting: 127.0.0.1:8000/anime/1

Until now we have created a JSON response by converting the python dictionary data from our model JSON. This is going to be a lot of work when we have a large number of objects to be converted, during that time we might choose to use the Django rest framework where we can convert to JSON with something called serializations.

5. Testing API Endpoints Using Postman

API testing is essential to the development process. Postman is a great tool for API testing. It can be used to generate and test API endpoints. You can also use it to test your API by generating and sending different requests, as well as checking the responses for errors and other potential problems.

If you don’t have Postman, you may download it from here

Since we have only two endpoints to test our API, select the GET method from the left and paste the endpoint as follows. Click on send to check the response

First endpoint: Get animelist response

Second endpoint: Get single anime detail

Conclusion:

In this tutorial, we went over the process of building an anime list API with Django.

Create a Clock using Python

Wulfi — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 12:21:18 +0000

You can create a simple Clock using Python and in this post we use tkinter to create the GUI for our clock. Firstly download the fonts from the link here and install it in your system if you want to have the same font like in this post.

Now that you've installed the fonts, copy the following code and save it in your system. Try to run the code and your Clock will be displayed.

from tkinter import * 
from tkinter.ttk import *

from time import strftime 

root = Tk()
root.title("Clock")

def time():
    string = strftime("%H:%M:%S %p")
    label.config(text=string)
    label.after(1000, time)

label = Label(root, font=("ds-digital", 50), background="black", foreground="cyan")
label.pack(anchor="center")
time()

mainloop()

The clock is shown below:

Extracting data from a website using BeautifulSoup

Wulfi — Fri, 11 Mar 2022 06:40:38 +0000

There are mainly two ways to extract data from a website:

Use APIs(if available) to retrieve data.
Access the HTML of the webpage and extract useful information/data from it.

In this article, we will extract Billboard magazine's Top Hot 100 songs of the year 1970 from Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1970.

Task:

Perform Web scraping and extract all 100 songs with their artists.
Create python dictionary which contains key as title of the single and value as lists of artists.

Installation
We need to install requests and bs4.The requests module allows you to send HTTP requests using Python. Beautiful Soup (bs4) is a Python library for pulling data out of HTML and XML files.

pip install requests
pip install bs4

Import the libraries

import requests
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

Sending request

url = "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Year-End_Hot_100_singles_of_1970"
response = requests.get(url)
print(response.url) # print url
response # response status

songSoup = BeautifulSoup(response.text) # Object of BeautifulSoup

data_dictionary = {}

for song in songSoup.findAll('tr')[1:101]: # loop over index 1 to 101 because the findAll('tr') contains table headers
  # Priting 100 table rows.............
  # print(song)   

  title = song.findAll('a')[0].string

  artist = song.findAll('a')[1].string
  # Printing Titles and Artists.............
  print(title, ',', artist)

  # Printing Dictionary.............
  data_dictionary[title] = [artist]
print(data_dictionary)