DEV Community: Yashraj Nayak

Getting Started with OutSystems

Yashraj Nayak — Sat, 29 May 2021 09:40:55 +0000

With OutSystems, anyone can rapidly develop and deploy rich web and mobile applications that integrate with existing systems and scale effortlessly - all from a single codebase ✨

You can start your OutSystems journey by following these simple steps:

Step 1) Click here to signup for free and install OutSystems Service Studio.

Step 2) Complete these short introductory courses:

OutSystems Overview (15 mins)
Service Studio Overview (15 mins)
Intro to OutSystems Development (15 mins)
Reactive UI Development 101 (45 mins)

How Community Builders Can Bring Existing Offline Communities Online

Yashraj Nayak — Sat, 01 Aug 2020 15:50:25 +0000

Venues are closed but minds are wide open 💡

I am Yashraj, I have been building and growing developer communities and programs for over four years now.

Recently, I was invited to speak at CMX Connect Mumbai Chapter. Looking at the current scenario, the first topic we discussed was how community builders can bring their existing offline communities online.

Few days before this talk, someone had asked me "In this increasingly virtual world, are local tech communities still relevant?"

I think here we have two options:

A. Wait for things to get back to normal.
B. Take this as a challenge and try to reach as near as possible to the offline experience, in an online environment.

In my opinion, option B is worth a try. It is important to realize that our community already existed before COVID-19 happened. People with shared mindset and shared struggles were already connected and this is what built that community. They can still be brought together online as they won't change their preferences over night.

More than the location, there must be reasons why they were part of your local community and absence of offline meetups shouldn't stop them from coming together online.

In this 6-minutes video, I have shared some actionable insights on how offline communities can be brought online:

This is a part of full session I hosted on "How to Engage Communities During Changing Times"

If you're a community builder and found this talk helpful, please let me know your views in the comments and if possible, please share with other community professionals in your network :)

https://www.linkedin.com/in/yashrajnayak

Whatever you learn, it's important to put that into practice

Yashraj Nayak — Fri, 06 Dec 2019 12:53:32 +0000

Chris Pine (author of 'Learn to Program') said, "Programming isn't about what you know; it's about what you can figure out."

I realized this when I was a 1st year engineering student in Bhopal (India) and wanted to attend a hackathon that was being hosted in another university.

On the day of the event, I was the only one from my university there. I wouldn't say I was very skilled but I couldn't miss it, because I knew I might not win the prize but surely I'd meet new people and learn something new, no matter how big or small.

I created a simple app and managed to clear the 1st level screening, in the second round I had to explain my solution to one of the judges. While he was checking my app, I kept explaining to him every step I had taken while building that app.

He clicked a button and then there were three dots moving from left to right in a loop. I said, "because it takes some time to fetch the data, I included this progress indicator to let the user know that something is happening.."

He looked up.. he seemed a little surprised. I had learned about progress indicators and many other UI controls just a few days before the hackathon.

As it turned out, he was happy to see me learning new things and using them in my projects. He didn't tell me this but I could understand because I had won the 3rd prize!

Whatever you learn, it's important to put that into practice because each small win will inspire you to learn more. Its always good to have a positive mindset and energy while you are learning.

And most importantly, don't give up! Errors will occur, and small typos could trip you up for hours, but this is all part of the learning process.

You don't have to learn everything at once, just a little progress every day and you will be good to go 👍