Hand-picked Programming Articles From Medium — April 2022
The best stories we discovered in the month gone by
Hey everyone,
As we march forward into May, I hope your April was full of meaningful work. In this monthly edition, we’ve compiled some memorable tutorials, comprehensive guides, thought-provoking posts, and bite-sized pieces of advice that we’ve discovered across the platform.
Without further ado, let’s get started.
Programming
Python 3.11 is expected to come out in October 2022. Though you needn’t upgrade your apps to the latest version just yet, however, if you’re into learning new things, Yong Cui teaches us some of the new Type Annotation Features introduced in Python 3.11’s latest alpha version. In case, you’d want to learn more new additions, Giorgos Myrianthous’s What to Expect in Python 3.11 guide is a good place to start.
Python developers are unarguably having the time of their lives — more so with the launch of PyScript by the Anaconda team at PyCon US 2022. Want to write Python from your HTML? Look no further as Sophia Yang, a Senior Data Scientist at Anancoda has the perfect reference guide for you.
Building a Chrome extension can sound intimidating. Bartosz Salwiczek’s end-to-end tutorial — How to Develop React Chrome Extension for Medium — shows it needn’t be the case. It’s one of my favorite tutorials from the month gone by — and it isn’t because I’m a stats nerd. I feel the best way to learn to program is by building things.
Talking of building things, Herbert Wolverson outlines a few tools to get started with Rust for game development. Speaking of Rust, David Delassus short post helps C/C++ developers understand the Rust toolchain while Herme García shares some Rust techniques for compiler engineers. Rust is awesome and if you need more inspiration to hop on the train, the Qiskit team has already started using it in addition to Python for performance improvements.
As we’ve already touched upon C++, Joseph Robinson, PhD’s visual guide is worth a look if the concept of pointers is still fuzzy for you.
Does writing programs that can write code feel too meta? Well, that’s meta-programming. Read Mehdi Yari’s Meta-Programming with Kotlin guide to learn more about the concepts.
By the way, if your external hard drive ever decides to croak up, bookmark Angela Kochoska story: Corrupted hard drive? Python to the rescue!
Web Development
Kicking things off with JavaScript is Jennifer Fu. Her back-to-back guides explore the newly introduced features in React 18 and Node.js 18.
To dig deeper into the React 18 features, read Jose Granja’s piece reveals the enhancements in the Suspense feature.
For Three.js lovers, Ilolo Izu’s article revolves around creating and importing 3D models in React apps. You can also take things up a notch and build metaverse avatars. Check out the 3-part series by Zach Doster:
- How to Create Ready Player Me In React
- How to Render Ready Player Me In Three.js
- How to Animate Your Ready Player Me Using Your Webcam In a React App
Forging ahead, if writing documents feels like a tedious job, Sebastiano Vierk suggests using JSDocs for generating code documentation in JavaScript. In addition to it, you could patiently use Tommaso De Ponti’s PatienceDiff Method in JavaScript guide to compare documents and text inputs.
Progressing towards Roguelikes — learn how to build 2D adventure games using JavaScript through Nevin Katz’s hands-on JavaScript tutorials (that’s just one out of the five-part series) with the game live here.
Bridging the worlds of JavaScript and Golang is Rob Thorne. His latest piece digs into the Integration of JavaScript Frameworks with Golang Projects.
Better Programming has been receiving amazing Go submissions lately, and Dilara Görüm’s first tutorial with us was no different — Build a Movie API With Separated Layered Architecture Using Go.
Circling back to Python for web apps, read Eugenia Anello’s handy guide for converting videos into gifs. On the other hand, if you’re a Rustacean, harness the power of the Rocket framework.
Ok, let’s talk about Docker. Check out the following guides to containerize before you containerize your next app:
Mobile App Development
Should you use Jetpack Compose or stick with the classic Android view system? Well, the Android community is quickly migrating towards the former with the likes of Swiggy Engineering Team and Twitter going all-in on Jetpack Compose. If you still need the force to make the transition, Aiman Nabeel’s guide might just lend the much-needed impetus to you — To Compose, or Not to Compose, That is the Question is also her first-ever technical article. Use this companion piece by Alex Styl as your cheat sheet for composing UIs.
Moving on, Stephen Vinouze presents a way to bridge the universes between Composable and View lifecycles:
Zooming into Jetpack Compose, we’ve compiled the latest releases and announcements that happened last month:
ActivityEmbeddingAPI was recently introduced in Jetpack WindowManager. Husayn Hakeem provides a first look at it.- Tomáš Mlynarič offers a way to measure and improve your app performance with Macrobenchmark.
There are plenty more Jetpack Compose and Android development resources— linking three of them:
- Jetpack Compose: Introduction to Modifiers by Lucca Beurmann
- All You Need for MVI is Kotlin. How to Reduce Without a Reducer? by Maciej Sady
- Creating an animated selector in Jetpack Compose by Francesc Vilarino Guell
“Build once, run everywhere” has been the promise of every cross-platform framework. Kotlin Multiplatform has been rapidly gaining steam and is now adopted by so many mobile teams. But, how do you start creating an app for multiple platforms with a single codebase? Florian Curinga in his first Medium story guides us through the Kotlin Multiplatform app structure through an implementation. In case you’re looking to use ViewModel as a common code across Android and iOS, Aleksey Mikhailov and the IceRock Development team have an implementation guide for you — Learn how to use Kotlin Multiplatform ViewModel in SwiftUI and Jetpack Compose.
Steering towards SwiftUI — handling navigation and NavigationView has been a headache for iOS developers. Things are getting better and Nick McConnell puts forward a flowing solution with SwiftUI to implement navigation effectively in your codebases. At the same time, Rob Sturgeon’s latest showcases how to move SwiftUI views and models into separate Swift packages.
If UIKit is still your preferred framework for building UIs, check Jonathan Gamburg’s open-source project — NotSwiftUI — an attempt to bridge the gap between UIKit and SwiftUI worlds by building UI elements in a slightly declarative fashion. Also, to “Dribbblise” your UI elements in iOS, head over to Margels three-part series — which starts here.
The following two iOS development stories are gonna stay on my reading list for a long time:
Two iOS developers and new Medium writers, Oreste Leone and Luigi Minniti collaborate to build an arcade mobile game using the SpriteKit and GameplayKit framework. They’ve explained how they created the game in the following two tutorials:
- Part-1 — How to Use SpriteKit in Your Arcade iOS Game
- Part-2 — How to Use GameplayKit in an Arcade iOS Game
Apple’s Metal framework is unarguably the trickiest to master — in my opinion. In case, you’re looking to get started with GPU programming, I’d highly recommend adding Warren Moore’s Third Days of Metal series to your reading list.
To close off this section, we’ve got some Flutterly code bytes for you:
AWS
AWS recently released Lambda Function URLs. We’ve lined up a few guides to help you conceptualize the new feature:
- AWS Lambda Function URLs — Another way to create HTTP endpoint for a Lambda function by Jaewoo Ahn
- Using the New Lambda Function URLs Instead of API Gateway by Zaire Ali
- Why AWS Lambda Function URLs will not be part of my projects by Marin Radjenovic
- How to Use AWS Lambda Function URL To Send SMS in AWS by Salvatore Cozzubo
- AWS Lambda Function URLs with Serverless Framework by Serverless
- Fine Details of AWS Lambda Function URL Feature by Elif Apaydın
Here are a few more AWS goodies that you’d surely love:
Web3 Development
To kick things off in Web3, Alec Chen presents an excellent primer for Solana development — with Rust, without Anchor. Now, go further and mint NFTs on Solana Using Rust and Metaplex as Anoushk Kharangate showcases.
To move from Web2 to Web3 on Solana (without feeling daunting), Rui presents a guide that draws similarities between the two ecosystems through database examples.
If you haven’t dipped your toes into the Solana ecosystem just yet but are familiar with Ethereum and Solidity, Nazar Ilamanov has a gentle getting started with Solana for Solidity developers. Nazar’s been rolling out smart contract breakdowns on a consistent basis. His second feature in this edition breaks down the smart contract of Art Blocks.
Wanting to break into Ethereum development, but don’t know where to start? Jennifer Fu’s beginner tutorials for Web3.js and Ethers.js might inspire you to play with EVMs immediately.
Ethereum is a dark forest —so let Rodrigo Herrera Itie lend a helping hand to prevent front-running bots from hunting you.
Next up, Abhishek Chauhan introduces us to Blockchain with Node.js — by creating a P2P network.
Here are a few more goodies for Web3 developers:
Software Engineering
Finally, we’re highlighting several standout posts that focus on software architectural aspects and engineering practices:
- Five Koans of Software Architecture by Marianne Bellotti
- Practicing Clean Architecture in C# by Genny Allcroft
- Spring Native: The Wings That Make Spring Boot Fly by Wenqi Glantz
- An Alternative to Outbox Pattern for Microservices Architecture by dongfu ye
- Functional Programming vs Object Oriented Programming — Why You Don’t Need to Choose Anymore? by Ivelina Yordanova
- Overcoming the microservice dichotomy by Jeremie Zazoun
- Architect your Flutter app the clean way with BLoC by Ahmad Al-Ghamdi
- Why You Should Not Pass Input Parameters Using DGS Custom Context by Matan Gilad at Fiverr Engineering
That wraps up this edition! Thanks for reading.
Until your next coffee,
Anupam and the Better Programming team.
