How do JavaScript frameworks like Node.js, Backbone, Meteor make money?

“One of the oldest languages, i.e., JavaScript is vastly popular for its magnificent speed and efficiency. No matter in which language a website is being developed, JavaScript is always there to make the web application not only to run faster but also look stunning and attractive. The biggest advantage of JavaScript is its event driven application development. Events make the web application not only look promising, but also impart better user experience. Again the optimized core of JavaScript makes the event run flawlessly on the browser leaving the user astonished. Hence JavaScript has been considered as a front-end technology to impart accurate and most prominent user experience on the browser; but recently industry has revealed its true potential as a full-fledged programming language that can control both client side as well as server side programming. With the introduction of JavaScript frameworks a web developer can craft outstanding web application without any need of backend programming languages like C#, PHP or Java etc.”

MVC can make the development process much systematic that means Quick process: MVC stands for the model view controller and this is on the highest buzz in the current market state of affairs. Almost all leading web frameworks are framed with this Architecture because of its best in industry performance, efficiency and potential. In fact, MVC is the most trusted and tested Architecture of the industry that enables web developers in creating highly scalable and coherent web solutions. JavaScript frameworks like BackboneJS, AngularJS, NodeJS and others also follow this Architecture to impact the most accurate solution to the application requirements. With MVC, the front-end section, i.e., the view remains isolated from the backend database, i.e., model through a controller. Any change made by the controller can be reflected on the entire application without any need for modification at every place. As a result, this helps in creating the application in an object oriented approach. With frameworks like BackboneJS, Angular JS and NodeJS etc., highly scalable web solutions can be developed in a systematic manner to avoid every possible conflict while handling resources.

Well maintained and well testable application can be achieved with JS frameworks: Industry has realized the importance of functionality along with performance, look and feel and post production support for any project. As a result all new era web frameworks are built to provide utmost importance to the performance and user experience for any web solution and so the case for JavaScript frameworks. Backbones, AngularJS and NodeJS etc. give maximum priority to the performance of any application being developed by the JavaScript developer. These frameworks encourage skilled JavaScript developers to create highly maintainable codes for any application. On the other hand, they also ensure that the quality of the application is of enterprise standard. Again the documentation of these frameworks helps in achieving the best in class user experience for any web application. Proper indentation, use of proper key words and functions are helping an application program not only look professional, but also helps in creating well maintained and highly stable code through these JavaScript MVC frameworks and hence creating an economic situation for the project.

Cost of development will reduce drastically: With the above features, these JavaScript frameworks help in creating enterprise standard web solutions in a systematic approach that fortunately lessens the time and effort of the web developer. Consequently the productivity and effectiveness of the application increase tremendously and hence the cost of production decreases. In fact, experts strongly believe that any project development done in a pre-approved approach makes an application not only work smoothly but also helps in making it stable enough to accommodate with different circumstances of the industry. Again, these frameworks avoid any necessity of backend programmers from the application development process and that eliminates the cost incurred by backend programmers and hence making the cost of development so economic.

Future ready cross platform and responsive app development can be possible: It has been revealed that maximum traffic for any website is now-a-days coming from devices like smart phones and tablets. Due to the portability features of smart phones and tablets, it is gaining popularity as a computer device among the user. Moreover, mobile networks that offer anywhere-internet help the user in browsing internet from these small devices. As a result the demands of smart apps and web apps have increased unexpectedly in the recent period. Fortunately, all JavaScript frameworks like BackboneJS, Meteor and NodeJS are highly efficient in creating enterprise standard smart apps for different platforms like Android, iOS and windows, etc. With these frameworks we can easily develop highly touch sensitive and efficient smart phone apps that too with the tremendous speed of JavaScript. So we can say these frameworks are highly focused upon the ever changing demands of the industry and helps in creating outstanding apps for the industry and this makes them to run on the success path of the future.

With NodeJS, server side communication can be handled in an efficient manner: There was a time, when JavaScript was adopted only in frontend programming, but with NodeJS industry witnessed the true potential of JavaScript not only as a backend programming language but also as a server side scripting technology. Industry used to implement Apache Tomcat server for the communication with the database with threading technology; but with NodeJS there is no need of implementation of an inefficient threading mechanism to handle multiple concurrent requests to the server. Instead of that they are using highly modern and efficient asynchronous request handling technology to avoid deadlocks and resource block issues. Most importantly, all these happen with the tremendous potential of JavaScript alone. As a result the cost of development for any large scale, highly event driven enterprise standard web application can be decreased spontaneously.

Finally, open source modules and plug-ins can make the development process even more economic: Along with the benefit of these JavaScript frameworks, we can’t ignore the importance of the open source JavaScript modules and plug-ins that are available over the web to help the developers in creating reliable yet quick web solutions over and above the framework. Especially availability of free and open source jQuery plug-ins can make a significant change in the final budget of your web project without compromising on the quality of your application. In fact, they improve the user experience and usability of any web application to a large extent without creating any considerable financial burden over the client.

Mindfire’s JavaScript development team has rich experience in core JavaScript programming as well as various JavaScript Frameworks and Libraries e.g. Node.JS, Backbone.JS, KnockOut.JS, Angular.JS, EXT.JS and creation of rapid web application development solutions. Mindfire Solutions provides a range of services in Responsive Websites and Web Application Development with the support of our deep web application development expertise and multiple years of RIA application development experience.

Can we do everything with Scala that we can do with Java?

Java as an object-oriented, class-based programming language enables application developers to efficiently ‘write once, run everywhere’ (compiled Java code) for client-server web apps. Scala, on the other hand, gets full support for functional programming and is often considered competitive for building general software applications. While both are meticulously designed as multi-paradigm, general purpose programming languages, developers often speculate if Scala can practically do everything that Java does, or if Scala functions as greatly as Java?

Java is easy to learn but Scala is easy to code: This is the most important consideration that we must think for. Java is undoubtedly the simplest language of the industry. Any programmer having slightest idea on C or C++ can easily write Java code without much research; but what makes it terrific in some scenarios? That is the code length! Though Java Syntax is simple; but it demands more codes from the Java developer to write a block or task. This is the biggest drawback of Java and now, if we are going to compare it with Scala then the primary concern is this (besides other features of course). On the contrary, Scala is never so easy to start with; but, once you learn it, you can do whatever you need in less time and most importantly with very less lines of code. Scala is little difficult to learn especially its Syntax is not that much familiar as of Java; but they are highly optimized and compressed so that the Scala developer can get benefited from them. So, the initial investment of time for learning Scala is worth every penny when we consider its future aspects. Again, there is no doubt that Scala comes integrated with an extremely strong static type system, but they both embed different syntaxes (although you may see almost identical bytecodes (when compiled) generated by these two languages). However, let’s have a deeper insight into what makes them similar or dissimilar, if at all.

1. Transporting to Scala from Java has its benefits in several ways; most importantly the former’s embedded compiler magic. The feature basically allows web developers to keep their code simple and neat. As a programming language, Scala makes it really easy for developers to model their things in OO (Object Oriented), even if they are not relying on its functional programming structure. In Scala, everything is method and that eliminates unnecessary mess from an application making it not only clean but also well maintainable.

2. An edge that Scala developers often have over Java developers is its integrated high order functionality – which basically empowers Scala as a programming language, and provides users with powerful tools to extricate their issues in the language. Scala never demand more coding from the developer; in fact, it desperately encourages Scala developers to write less code for any task. On the contrary, Java has a not so good reputation in the industry as a language that demands more codes, more efforts and more time from experienced Java developers. The programming language Scala also provides its users with a strong type inference, anonymous function literals, variance annotation, and implicit definition and conversion.

3. Without two thoughts, users can gain as many functional programming benefits from Scala as from Java. However, Scala renders high immutability – which actually helps with trimming down the bugs and the complexities of concurrency. It is also considered as a powerful language to boost your productivity. Its inbuilt mechanism plays an important role in code optimization, code refactoring and performance boost for the application which is extremely helpful for everyone. There are collection methods that largely diminish boilerplate, powerful collections framework, and an annotation that can easily write meaningful equals.

4. Both Scala and Java use same package and feature the same compilation models. However, it is Scala’s type system that makes it more useful as a programming language than Java. Using Scala, developers can seamlessly abstract over type constructors, and even enable a range of class solutions that generally look not feasible in Java. The object-oriented language even helps lessen the incidences of duplication, undoubtedly one of the most useful features of Scala.

5. Scala acts more like a blueprint language, for it takes care of almost everything about an app development. It’s more like, you simply design your application, and the embedded magic compiler will take care of all other responsibilities and get the job done for you. At the same time, it is almost as powerful as Clojure. But, it is definitely more comfortable to read for users who have a background more into Java, C, and C++.

6. Although Java 8 incorporates a number of approaches that are analogous to the approaches incorporated by Scala, the latter sticks strong due to its ‘write less, do more’ approach. The fact that Scala is a functional programming language makes it any day more of a favorable choice for the developers to write all steps they need in order to accomplish their objectives. It also lends support to monads – often referred as programmable semicolons, enabling developers to construct pipelines that help process data in steps (in which each action is adorned by additional processing rules rendered by the monad).

7. And of course, the most important feature ‘pattern matching’ makes Scala a supreme choice amongst programmers. The language also offers interoperability with NoSQL, the REPL, components that solve a lot of limitations of Java’s object model, infix syntax -> English-looking DSLs, and operator overloading.

Our Final Verdict:

There are many reasons as to why you should consider switching to Scala if you are a Java developer. Scala provides a lot of advantages over Java, and has undoubtedly been gaining more popularity. But we cannot overlook the flaws that come with Scala at the same time, with the state of which; SBT and super slow compilation are the main issues.

However, if you ask us ‘can we do everything with Scala that we can do with Java’, our answer would be ‘yes, you can & probably a lot more.’

And if you only want to build a project that combines the best of both Java and Scala, you can do by developing a project in Eclipse – where some Scala methods use Java methods, and some Java methods use Scala methods. And yes, don’t forget to use Maven to take care of your project in Eclipse.

If you are looking forward to build applications using Java or Scala, it will be in your best interests to hire offshore software development services of Mindfire Solutions that has been in the business for the last 16 years. Apart from that, it has a formidable reputation in building user-friendly applications in both Java as well as Scala.

Node.js: What’s so great about npm?

The very intrinsic fact that Node.js helps saves space, and embeds ease of use is making it quite a popular choice as package manager these days. Amidst a plethora of other package managers that provide complicated installation, npm stands distinct for its unique local package installation. The tool has simplifies a lot of things for developers by providing them with a choice to make between global and local installation.

However, listed below are some remarkable attributes of Node.js that have surfaced of late, both for developers who are pushing their package managers to npm, and experienced JavaScript developers who are using package managers off Node.js.

 It is a default package manager, but it is an open source project with Artistic License. The package basically allows users to seamlessly install and manage the tools that come with Node. Developers, with node.js, can efficiently manage dependencies and install packages – locally or globally.

 Web developers may benefit largely from node.js’s prowess to build scripts, and to extricate most complexity that comes with RubyGems. The powerful tool provides command line utility for developers to install Node.js packages, and even offers dependency management and version management of Node.js packages.

 Node Package Manager, concurrently, is integrated with the functionality of online repositories. By default, the package manager installs any dependency in the local mode. The tool eliminates fragmentation and strong network effect at the same time. Node.js simplifies publishing, and is greatly known for enhancing the experience of standard package managers.

 Apart from its seamless capability to get installed automatically, the package manager for JavaScript also enables web developers to install Node.js apps (more importantly, the apps that are available on the Node Package Manager registry). It provides a non-blocking I/O API – which further helps optimize an app’s productivity and scalability.

 It is a pre-installed manager for Node.js that depends on Google V8 JavaScript engine for code implementation, and enables apps to function as a web server devoid of any software like IIS or Apache HTTP Server. The tool is specifically designed to handle asynchronous I/O, and can capably handle a horde of web development or network development issues.

 The Event Loop further lets users manage a thread pool and carry out their tasks effortlessly (once node.js applications have passed asynchronous tasks to the event loop). And since npm has JavaScript as part of its foundation, the tool helps trim down the limitations as well as the boundaries between both front- and back-end development.

 Another great attribute of Node Package Manager is its flourishing open source community, which has been helping developers through several feature-rich modules intended for Node.js applications. One of the most prominent modules is considered to be Socket.io – which helps users direct and supervise constant connections between a client and a server. This basically allows the server to seamlessly drive real-time updates to clients.

 In terms of its business benefits, Node.js makes it easier for web developers to explore their web possibilities, ensuring the speed of delivery and of course the ability to iterate. The package manager makes everything extremely speedy in common tasks in web applications. Whether it is writing to a particular file system or reading or writing to the database, the tool simply refuses to slow down.

 Node.js unveils extreme simplicity and ease for real time web applications. Node.js enables web developers to facilely develop comet-driven real time web apps. It can perform tremendously amazing for multi-user real time apps – such as chat apps and games. It even helps shun the overhead of HTTP for web development.

 Besides being impressively convenient and consistent, Node.js provides users with the possibility of effective tooling. It lets developers manage dependency in a smooth manner, and has a strong community – which is simply growing stronger and more organized day by day. Over 60,000 modules are available out there for the web developers to rely on, and the number is simply increasing at a rapid pace.

 Node.js comes with corporate support. The package manager paves the way with support of a number of strong corporate houses, such as Microsoft, Yahoo, PayPal and Walmart. This not just helps build more authenticity in Node.js as software, but also reveals a flow of the steady growth of the Node projects in future. And it is sponsored by Joyent.

 One of the most obvious benefits of Node.js is its embedded support for the JavaScript language. The manager provides developers with a JavaScript enabled web platform, which basically allows one to get hands on the wide functions or capabilities of Node.js. Since a huge number of developers rely on JavaScript to write code these days, Node.js simply acts as a great choice.

 Unlike most package managers that integrate complexities, Node.js comes handy as a proxy server. Users may now rely on node.js should they want to proxy different services with different-different response times. It even makes things easy with database queries.

 There is another great reason to employ node.js – which is enhanced organizational functionality. Organizations that use node.js can now easily trim down their page load times by 50 percent and trim down the number of servers required to host the app. Moreover, companies that rely on the node.js find it much simpler to retain their employees for longer, and of course make their users’ content. The tool is perfect for building fast, performance oriented and scalable network applications.

 It provides support for ubiquity and features a single codebase. In a nutshell, node.js renders an end-to-end JavaScript experience for smooth web development, reminding us of Bill Scott, Dir UX PayPal, “Why go to Facebook and do PHP when you can go to PayPal and do Node.js.”

Let’s not forget the thriving Node.js is hosting here. The tool has a huge deployment figure. Whether it’s Heroku or Platform-as-a-Service, major providers are largely supporting Node.js for its single command deployment capabilities.

There’s no doubt that npm has become a massive reliable choice for web developers these days. It’s one codebase, the ability to read and write streams to web sockets, the ability to read and write streams to HTTP, and ease for real-time web applications undoubtedly make Node.js a great package manager to use.

Mindfire has top notch JavaScript development team in India which has executed hundreds of projects in the domain. We build applications which best suit our customer’s budget and business interests.

PHP or ASP .NET – Which is Preferable?

“Every technology comes with some motive or vision that either creates or demolishes the future of the technology depending upon its real time execution! PHP and ASP .NET are two major web domain specific technologies of the industry, having some common and little uniqueness within them, which have made them to sustain in the industry till date. They have different objectives and visions from their inception and they stick to that to provide their customer base the best in the industry web solutions. When you are asked to choose one which is better for you; you need to be cautious enough because both have their advantages with respect to the requirements of the users; and they both fail to meet the expectations of the client in some specific cases; because they are not developed keeping those scenarios as a priority. So, let’s check out when and where PHP is preferable and when ASP .NET.”

PHP for low cost web development projects: The most important distinguishing feature about PHP and ASP .NET is the cost effectiveness. PHP is an open source technology where as ASP .NET is a proprietary product from Microsoft. Hence the software cost of PHP is too less than that of ASP .NET. In fact, due to its open source nature, PHP developers can get adequate rooms to modify the source code of the language as per their requirements and project demand. Again, the initial cost of PHP installation is negligible as compared to ASP.NET. Hence it is often preferred by small website development projects having limited budget for the development process. Again, the wages of PHP developers are much less as compared to ASP .NET developers due to its easy to learn approach that triggers fresher to kick start their career with PHP at very economic wages. Moreover, due to the open source nature of PHP, the industry is flooded with large numbers of open source PHP modules and plug-ins that help in decreasing the development time significantly. Considering all above situations it is clear that the development cost of any PHP application is less as compared to ASP .NET.

ASP .NET for large scale web applications: Though, ASP .NET is not preferred for low budget or static web projects, but it is having a tremendous demand for large scale web applications that need high performance, speed and better user experience. ASP .NET can handle any size of data driven web application in a hassle free manner without compromising on the quality of the application. The highly expert teams of Microsoft who have built this framework are extremely cautious for the optimization and high efficiency of this framework. The inbuilt libraries, methods and controls are extremely reliable and stable enough to deal with any type of complex situation. On the contrary, PHP as a language can’t afford such amenities for its developers.

Highly customizable and scalable application can be well handled with ASP .NET MVC: Due to the core MVC Architecture i.e., model view controller scheme, ASP .NET enables the ASP .NET developers to approach their programming style in an efficient and systematic manner. It keeps the view part of the application isolated from the model section by an intermediate controller. As a result, different components of the application are loosely coupled with each other and don’t interrupt any other’s functionality at all. This makes the application more scalable and customizable in order to provide enhanced user experience. Moreover, this encourages experienced ASP .NET developers to follow an Agile approach of web development process for utmost productivity from the application which is seriously restricted with PHP.

Programming effort can be decreased drastically with the integration of third party open source PHP modules and plug-ins: Undoubtedly programming becomes efficient within the ASP .NET IDE, but the coding effort of a PHP developer can be decreased tremendously due to availability of readymade modules and plug-ins to be integrated with any PHP web application. There are millions of open source PHP modules and plug-ins available in the industry that can be well integrated into PHP application with a little tweak by the developer. On the other hand, Microsoft strictly prohibits the integration of any unreliable third party modules or plug-ins into an ASP .NET application.

Quick web development can be achieved with the ASP .NET framework: Though, Microsoft never encourages relying on any third party modules and plug-ins but it offers more than that with its inbuilt mesmerizing features. ASP .NET is commonly known as “drag and drop” technology. That means it provides many web contents like form components that can be easily implemented into the application without any hassle. In fact, it enables the developer to take the advantage of its inbuilt validation methods to make the process much easier. As a framework, it also provides enough inbuilt packages, libraries and controls to craft highly optimized and efficient web applications on the fly.

High performance and reliable end product is must with ASP .NET: Since ASP .NET has inbuilt libraries containing large number of commonly used methods and classes, it makes the web development process much faster than that of PHP. To add this, those methods and libraries are developed by the expert team of Microsoft who are highly motivated in writing extremely optimized and stable codes for those components. During the development process when the ASP .NET developer calls those methods or classes, they needn’t to bother about the reliability and efficiency of those inbuilt stuffs. As a result, the end product developed with those components is dam reliable and is highly optimized.

Both support all modern amenities but in a different manner: Modern amenities like integration of JQuery, HTML5, CSS3 and other interactive plug-ins can be integrated with both PHP and ASP .NET applications but in different approaches. PHP enables PHP developers to integrate these amenities manually into their application where as ASP .NET provides many tools, supports and inbuilt packages to take the advantages of these amenities. Moreover ASP .NET also provides scope for crafting highly advanced and contemporary web applications with the support from its inbuilt emulators for different platforms like Android, Windows and iOS. As a result, an ASP .NET web developer can create smart apps for multiple platforms from within the ASP.NET environment.

Finally, it’s not fair to compare a language with a framework! As discussed above, we clearly visualize that ASP .NET outperforms PHP in most of the circumstances and it is obvious as well; because we were trying to compare an industry leading web framework with a web domain specific language. If you are looking for expert PHP development services and are interested to outsource your software development part, then look no further. Mindfire Solutions has been consistently developing industry specific applications for more than a decade now.

What are the pros and cons of using Yii Framework?

A framework can be massively productive for any developer who intends to build compliant, structured and efficient web apps in minimal time. In today’s time, as developers, we have a plethora of diverse frameworks regardless of the language we are programming in. The YII framework, however, is by far one of the most result-oriented, secure web frameworks to depend upon. It is designed for and by PHP to provide better developer experience through its features and better user experience through its end product.

Agreed, it may not be the one of the popular PHP frameworks for web development, it is surely one of the most promising open-source web app development frameworks. Below are some prominent advantages and disadvantages that come with YII, they are worth having a glance at.

Pros:

 The open source YII is undoubtedly the fastest framework for building Web2.0 applications (large scale). It renders a highly optimized performance, and can seamlessly be employed by developers for designing any kind of web applications. The generic web programming framework makes web development an enriched, intuitive experience (using PHP), and is perfectly suitable for large scale web applications – including e-commerce projects, forums, web portals, content management systems, RESTful services, and more.

 The MVC architecture of Yii helps the PHP web developers in crafting technically a smart web application. It helps in keeping the database server isolated from the view state of the application making it cleaner and effective. The Controller of the frameworks helps in managing different packages and libraries of the frameworks efficiently so that, the code pressure will decrease from the developer. It makes the whole system work as an object where a little tweak on the codebase will modify the entire system simultaneously. Any modification, addition, alters or deletion will be performed in a single line code and it will be visible throughout the application. At the same time, it provides a systematic approach to handle any application building process.

 Integrated with a Model-View-Controller structure, YII provides a horde of security features to ensure the highest degree of security to your application. Security plays the most important role in today’s world; because, more number of websites are dealing with sensitive informations like user data, their transaction history and also their personal credentials etc. So it must be given maximum priority in any web application. Fortunately, Yii comes with security features such as Cross-site Request Forgery Prevention, Cross-site Scripting Prevention and Cookie Attack Prevention. Since it is very significant for web developers to ensure thorough security for their app development, the framework comes embedded with authentication support, and authorization through hierarchical role-based access control. There is client side and server side validation as well, which developers can enable or disable as per their project requirements.

 The framework stands distinguished for its ability to function smoothly with third party codes. Users can seamlessly use code from their Zend or Pear framework in their Yes It Is (YII’s extended form) framework. This is like an ice on the cake; because this helps in increasing the potential of any web solution in an efficient yet professional manner. Imagine, a web application having the power of both Zend and Yii or of both Laravel and Yii!! They can definitely stand ahead among their peers and can contribute more to the PHP developer.

 Web developers also admire its clean, elegant caching support, and component-based architecture. For a developer, YII’s philosophy that code should be simple, and be written in the sophisticated manner works great. With caching, a smart web developer can build highly optimized web applications on the fly. In fact, considering a recent scenario where most of the web traffic are coming from smart devices; it becomes essential for every web developer to consider their website as a cross platform compatible one. Again, since their web app will render over smart phones, so they must be optimized enough so as to render similar user experience in all these memory intensive devices and platforms and fortunately Yii takes care of this wisely.

 It also offers ActiveRecord for relational as well as NoSQL databases, not to forget the query builders feature that YII provides. The tool further highlights its some of the most efficient caching features – letting users store cached data in different media. YII paves the way with an extremely solid yet seamless caching system, and lends support to XCache, memcache, ABC, and DB based page.

 YII framework is supremely easy to customize or check over, owing to its simple code structure. This enables developers to use varied widgets and extensions depending upon their web project requirements. At the same time, it is thoroughly object oriented – making it an ideal choice for anyone who is versed in object oriented web programming.

 The framework provides web developers with neat Ajax helpers, particularly with Grid view, and CRUD generator using Gii. Its Bootstrap extension support simplifies the whole process of creating responsive applications while integrated support for I18N allows users to have localized versions of their applications.

 Another significant advantage that YII has over most other programming frameworks is its large community support. The framework is supported and looked after by an extremely efficient team of professionals that consistently contribute to YII’s growth and development. The community pegs away at constantly integrating new features and advanced practices into the core framework – helping it evolve into a more sophisticated, performance oriented web application framework.

Cons:

 As a framework, YII does not come flooded with too many minuses. However, there is a portion of developers that steer clear of using YII as a framework for their web programming needs. To begin with, YII reveals kind of an over-reliance on static methods (a part of web developers community may not be comfortable with it).

 It is believed that YII demands extreme attention while one works with their application, for their code can quickly become bloated if proper care is not taken.

 The framework further has a somewhat steep learning curve, making it operose for new web developers to use or get started with.

Our word

Yes, YII framework does come with a few disadvantages, however, it is extremely powerful as a tool for developing a layered, structured web design. Some amazing attributes such as security, extensibility, theme organization, error handling, and integration with other frameworks make YII a great choice for web app development. We would highly recommend it!

Mindfire Solutions provides expert offshore PHP development services from India, gaining its expertise from years of experience in PHP web development and PHP application development. We have been working in PHP for the last 8+ years and have gained expertise on various PHP application development frameworks and PHP services.

What’s the best MVC framework for PHP?

“The 21st century has received a magical touch from the web industry. Every sector and every enterprise are now taking the assistance from web applications to enhance their business possibilities and productivity. As a result, many web domain specific technologies were born in this era starting from JSP, ASP, PHP, ROR and Python, etc. To make the web development process quicker and accurate in order to meet the expectations and high demands of the industry, many web frameworks have been developed for different web domain specific languages. These frameworks are equipped with highly optimized and well-organized libraries, modules, and packages to help the web developers in designing enterprise standard high performance web solutions. Most of the 21^st century frameworks follow MVC architecture, i.e. Model-View-Controller scheme. With MVC, the View component (user interface) remains isolated from the core logic section of the application making the development process much professional and well-organized than before. Fortunately, MVC architecture received overnight popularity from the industry and has been well accepted by both the developers and the tech experts. As a result, the industry is now flooded with many MVC web frameworks. Among those, PHP web frameworks have been a boon for the industry. This is mainly because; they are usually open source and hence enable web developers to create low cost web applications on the fly. Let’s check ‘what are the top PHP MVC web frameworks of the industry’ and then we will try to find out which one is the best?”

CakePHP- the power of OOP and ORM: It has been a continuous concern for PHP developers to implement Object Oriented approach to their application; now it is utterly possible with CakePHP. Besides other features that are common with many web frameworks, CakePHP comes with inbuilt support for ORM i.e. Object Relational Mapper. Here, the PHP developer is given adequate room to play around the database. In fact, the database tables are transformed into Objects; and different operations over the table are performed by different functions. This is very easy to digest for any web developer. Moreover, it is well equipped with CRUD scaffolding i.e. database operations like Create, Read, Update and Delete are performed in such a hassle free manner that the PHP developers need not think much about the background database queries for any modification of the database. Everything is done in a smoother manner by the framework without giving any pain to the developer. As a result, the web developer can focus more over the core logic and innovative ideas instead of running behind the database stuffs. As the database is under the control of CakePHP, any change in the application will automate the overall changes of the application without having to modify the code at every place. This establishes the power of the Object Oriented approach of CakePHP.

Zend for high performance web app development: Zend is one of the oldest frameworks of PHP and still it has remained as the first choice for many PHP developers. Zend was one of the first PHP 5 compliant frameworks for web developers, enabling them to develop contemporary web applications at a faster rate. Now, the latest Zend framework has made it PHP 7 compliant and that means more power and more efficiency than before. It has inbuilt debugging tools, i.e. xDebug and ZendDebugger to debug your source code. It makes the code not only error proof but also well maintainable. It has Zend server and when it combines with the core framework, the performance becomes outstanding, the efficiency touches every limit and the user experience improves a lot. Capability to integrate Emulators has made it future ready and to design modern web apps for different smart operating systems like Android, iOS or Windows and of course in a responsive manner. It enables the developer to have some inbuilt testing methods to be carried out over the application in a magical manner like unit testing with PHPUnit and Integrated PHPDocumentor 2.

Laravel for large scale development: It is yet another renowned PHP MVC framework having a tremendous market share gained in a very less span of time! It is best suited for large scale web solutions. Though it got launched in 2011 but by 2015, it surged out as the best PHP framework of the industry. Being a MVC framework, it enables the web developers in creating awesome web apps in a flawless manner. It is also known as FullStack because of its unmatched quality of resource handling. It has many unique features like HTML generation, optimized web serving, user authentication, etc. The list does not end! Features like automatic pagination, blade template engine, eloquent ORM, expressive syntax and reverse routing are there to boost the confidence of any PHP web developer. Modularity, flexibility and highly customizable offerings of this framework have made it possible to rule the web industry with dignity.

Symfony 2- better for speed carving websites: Symfony 2 is yet another PHP MVC framework that was gifted to the PHP developer in 2005. When it was introduced to the industry it had a clear vision to provide utmost benefit to the PHP developers in creating highly optimized and scalable web applications. Over time, it got reinvented and refined to make the framework even more useful than before. Now in 2015 it has come up as the most popular PHP framework for high speed web application development. It has a unique approach to handle multiple resources at once without compromising on the efficiency of the application. Like any other MVC framework, it also enables the PHP developer to keep logic section of the application isolated from the View section. But here, the database is handled in an optimized manner so that the end user will get the best user experience for any type of interactive communication between the user and the server. It is highly popular in creating event driven web applications that need excess power and speed for the process and Symfony 2 framework provides the same in a tranquil manner.

Yii – small yet powerful: Yii is considered as one of the smallest PHP frameworks of the industry; but it enables the web developer in creating attractive and beautiful web applications in a short span of time. It has many templates that help in creating quick web solutions without compromising on the look and feel and user experience of the application. Though, it is micro in size, but it is highly efficient and useful in crafting quick web applications preferably for small scale web solutions.

From above discussion, we find that every framework has a specific use and if they can be efficiently used by any PHP developer, the end product will be simply outstanding! So, all are best in their fields and specific circumstances and it would be biased to declare any one as the best. After all, it depends upon the project requirements and personal choice. If you want to harness the benefits of PHP then Mindfire Solutions provides expert offshore PHP development services from India, gaining its expertise from years of experience in PHP web development and PHP application development. We have been working in PHP for the last 8+ years and have gained expertise on various PHP application development frameworks and PHP services. 

Can Python Replace Perl In Most Cases?

Perl and Python are both scripting languages with object oriented programming capabilities and are available in most platforms and as such they target similar if not the same pool of developers world-wide which brings up the comparison and the competition. Now the question is, can Python upstage Perl and take its place in most cases? To answer this question, it would be necessary to look at the strengths and weaknesses of both Perl and Python, evolution of the two languages and the emerging indicators of preference in the developer community.

Perl

Perl was originally developed by in 1987 by Larry Wall as a Unix scripting language and has since evolved, developing capabilities for graphics programming, system administration and network programming among others. Perl was initially used for its powerful text processing capability but in the late 90s it gained popularity as a CGI (Common Gateway Interface) scripting language as the Internet began to grow exponentially. According to Wikipedia¹, “in 1998, it was also referred to as the duct tape that holds the Internet together, in reference to both its ubiquitous use as a glue language and its perceived inelegance”. The “perceived inelegance” here refers to the fact that Perl is bit too flexible when it comes to syntax and code structuring which in turn arises from the Perl dictum (articulated by Larry Wall ) “ There is more than one way to do it” , abbreviated to TMTOWTDI. However, Perl’s popularity was so immense that it spawned a culture and a community, members of which contribute code, participated in discussions and development and worked as Perl evangelists. CPAN or Comprehensive Perl Archive Network is one of the largest repository of code and one of the major advantages in using Perl. But, the fact remains that Perl is no longer as popular after it started facing competition from new languages such as Ruby and of course Python.

Python

Python was first implemented by in 1989 by Guido Van Rossum but became more popular after the release of the second version Python 2.0 in 2000. Van Rossum named the language Python as homage to Monty Python’s Flying Circus², of which he was a great fan but it also implied that the language was meant to bring fun to programming, something which echoes Perl’s philosophy too. However, the aphorisms listed in the Zen of Python encapsulating core Python philosophy are clearly opposed to Perl’s motto and philosophy. For instance, while Perl motto says “There is more than one way to do it”, Python philosophy emphatically rejects it, stating “There should be one– and preferably only one –obvious way to do it.” Nearly all aphorisms in PEP 20 document are in stark opposition to Perl paradigm and conventions. After all, Python is known for being highly readable language with clearer syntax and coding convention and requiring lot fewer lines of code to create applications as compared to other popular programming languages. For instance, use of whitespace indentation instead of syntactic symbols like curly braces or semi-colon to indicate scope reads more like human language rather than programming language. This is especially important in contrast to Perl which is known for syntax that makes its code difficult to read. With a host of good libraries Python is now equipped with, it can perform nearly every task that Perl has been used to accomplish. Python application development also supports a number of GUI cross-platform frameworks, something which Perl is not really known for.

However, it is not really the difference in languages but adoption by developers that would decide if Python is gaining popularity at the cost of Perl. Currently, Python ranks on the 5^th position in TIOBE Index⁴ while Perl ranks at 11^th position clearly indicating a consistent decline in popularity over the decade. Also web search by users in context to programming languages in case of Perl has dwindled from 10% in 2005 to 2% from 2011 onward. A number of reasons could be attributed to decline of Perl starting with the fact that the way companies do business has changed significantly since the days, Perl was considered the duct tape that holds Internet together. But more importantly there are strong indications that developers, mostly new but also older ones are choosing Python over Perl both for the former’s neater structure and powerful capabilities. Python syntax and language structure makes it easier for new developers to pick it up faster than they would when learning Perl. Further, when working with existing codebase it becomes difficult to understand because of Perl code’s notorious “line noise” complicated by the fact that since there are more than one ways to do it, the person reading the code may face difficulty understanding why a certain block has been coded in a certain way. This can be quite taxing in maintenance and upgrading projects.

Python doesn’t have a huge centralized repository like CPAN but it has spawned communities of users who are more or less contributing in a similar manner to provide support to users taking up Python as their language of choice. Already a number of GUI libraries and frameworks are being used extensively for rapidly prototyping and developing applications, an area where Perl seems to be lagging behind. Ironically, Python’s popularity may be one of the factors drawing more developers towards it, especially young, enthusiastic programmers who can in the long run enrich the Python ecosystem. Further, Python being included in Linux distributions and supported by nearly all operating systems exposes the language to students at a very early stage. However, Perl does have a core userbase that is loyal to the language almost religiously and some continue to evangelize on community website such as PerlMonks, while others simply find Perl superior to other languages and are unlikely to switch over. So, while it is unlikely that Perl would entirely be replaced by Python, the latter is most likely to become the dominant language in most cases where traditionally Perl occupied the top position.

Mindfire Solutions has rich experience in developing dynamic websites, custom web applications and Desktop Applications in Python and Django. With an 8 year track record of consistently wowing customers hailing from various industries and geographies, Mindfire Solutions is the Python development company, you were searching for.

7 Node.js tips and Tricks for JavaScript developers

“JavaScript is on its way to a grand success. No other programming language is evolving as JavaScript has in recent period. Almost every angle of a software application especially web application is touched by JavaScript. You want visually impressive app, JavaScript is there. You want interactive, Event driven app, can be possible with JavaScript. Now, with NodeJS, JavaScript has proved its unmatched potential in the industry. Now, web developers can build efficient server side communication with NodeJS. Just forget about that Apache Tomcat stuffs; it’s time for NodeJS. Using Node.js isn’t as complex as it gives the impression of. Although it requires a bit of understanding, developers can largely enhance the code readability of their programs and build scalable network applications at the same time. The software platform is immensely popular amongst developers and rests on Google’s V8 JavaScript engine – and yes, even on the Chrome browser runtime. Before going to Tips for NodeJS, I will like to put some effort on understanding the tricks of NodeJS that enables JavaScript to be used as a server side programming or networking”.

Tricks of NodeJS: Is it fine to take a chance on NodeJS? Should you avoid the all time industry leader i.e. Apache Tomcat for a newborn NodeJS? Will it be able to handle your process efficiently? These are few questions that may arise in your mind or your clients mind when asked to implement NodeJS into the application. Let’s understand what enables NodeJS to handle multiple requests at once. In traditional Tomcat server, multiple requests are handled by multiple instances of the server. Instances mean threads. Though the threads are highly scalable but it is an inefficient way of handling multiple requests. Many times, due to heavy load over the server, the application may crash or may lead to dead lock of the application. On the other hand, NodeJS absolutely avoids the threading concept; it rely over a newly emerge technology i.e. Asynchronous I/O concurrent allocation. In the process, the NodeJS server takes request from the event and gives them a token to wait and send the request for data retrieval from the database. In between, the server engaged in handling other requests as simple as it is. When the data reaches at NodeJS server, it stops the current event handling and serves the request that was asked to wait and then closes the event. After that, it resumes the event handling process again. So, there will be No deadlock, no locking of resource and nothing; things will work smoothly and hence improving the productivity of the application.

Now let’s see the top tips for those into JavaScript development services:

Strict Mode in Coding: Very helpful in finding out badly written JavaScript syntax! Developers can use strict mode in Node.js and significantly improve their code syntax. The tool lets developers recognize inadequately written syntax under JavaScript and inscribe quality code syntax. The code runs simple ‘use strict’; it makes the code not only well readable but also well maintainable. As a result, the efficiency and performance of Code will increase in a magical way also the cost of development decreases significantly and the cost of maintenance gets neglected almost.

Node Shell: Developers can benefit on their projects from the node shell – running ‘node’ and writing code just how they would write in a text editor. To make a way out though, the code does not support ‘exit’/’quit’ or analogous commands! Hence, developers can write a valid Node.js statement that states the way to exit the process. The command goes like – $process.exit (0).

Do Not Use ‘*’ in Production Phase: Agreed, having updated packages usually help with bug fixes and integrate new functions or improvements. However, keeping ‘*” to have the latest version often emerges as productive only when a developer has his product in a developmental stage. But, it is very dicey to have ‘*’ in production dependencies since the developer may not know which package would rapture or induce his application to crash. In fact, the developer must know which package is needed for his application instead of putting a star. It is an inefficient way of programming and hampers the performance and effectiveness of the application severely. Thus, steer clear of using such notation in a major deployment phase.

Go Asynchronous: JavaScript developers are recommended to use asynchronous APIs in their code, particularly in performance critical parts. Since synchronous methods tend to feature a possibility of locking up the entire application, it is sensible to avoid synchronous components and ensure that external libraries do not regress to synchronous calls. NodeJS is meant for Asynchronous I/O to handle concurrent processes. So, it’s recommended to use asynchronous calls for the process; though no direct impact but has significant importance in terms of creating highly scalable application.

No Node.js for Static Assets: Another critical tip would be to avoid using Node.js for rendering static assets. Developers should rather render static assets (like CSS & images) on a standard web server. If something can be well handled in an efficient manner; why you take risk on NodeJS performance? So, avoid using NodeJS for static stuffs and use NodeJS for which it is intended for. This will basically help them trim down the pressure on their Node.js instance and help them boost their app performance.

Use Client Side Rendering: Developers who use Node.js for JavaScript should depend on client side rendering in their Node.js environment. This primarily enables one to eliminate the possibility of latency and helps save bandwidth at the same time. And, allowing Node.js to render server-side will do nothing but send back an HTML page each time it is requested. Hence, developers should try to employ client side rendering. By this process, the load on the NodeJS server will decrease and hence increase in the productivity.

Think Modular forget about Monolithic: Modularity is highly recommended while developing any web application. It enables the application to be scalable one without much hassle. Always adding bricks is better than developing a whole building at once. Was a period then, when Monolithic was in high demand in the industry; but, now industry has realized the importance of Modularity in any application may it be web application or software application! With modularity your application gets enough scope for rebuilding, retrofitting and enhancements. So, as a smart developer you should always try to develop modular web applications on the NodeJS platform. In fact, it makes the Agile development a lot easier than before which is in the trend of recent period.

Mindfire’s JavaScript development team has rich experience in core JavaScript programming as well as various JavaScript Frameworks and Libraries e.g. Node.JS, Backbone.JS, KnockOut.JS, Angular.JS, EXT.JS and creation of rapid web application development solutions. To make use of the best offshore software development services from Mindfire Solution, mail your requirements to sales at Mindfire Solutions dot com.

AngularJS features every JavaScript developer must know

“JavaScript is getting popular over time. With every passing day, industry is finding it more potential than before. The implementation of JavaScript has crossed all limits, domains and applications. JavaScript is no more a client side programming language; it is being used as a server side programming with nodeJS! Indeed, it is better than the traditional Apache Tomcat server. Here in AngularJS, the web development process gets reinvented and performs much better than others. Better user experience, easy to implement approach, quality code development and better expression of emotion are the few major qualities of AngularJS. Above all, it’s from Google family and hence no question about quality of service. As a JavaScript based web framework it enables web developers in creating extra ordinary web applications in less time and effort and most importantly the quality of web applications built on Angular is simply superb”.

MVC architecture for quality app development: The core of AngularJS is a MVC architecture i.e. Model View Controller. Model means the component that keeps the data. Here in AngularJS, MongoDB is used as the database. View means the front end section that is exposed to the end user. There are many in-built templates in Angular that may be implemented for rich looking internet web applications. Controller is the most important section of MVC architecture. It keeps the main logic of the architecture and maintains secrecy between the View and Model components. When there is something triggered in the view by the user, a request is passed to the Controller and then the controller does some analysis and takes necessary data from Model and renders it into the View. By this process, the View and the Model remain isolated from each other. In return, it not only improves the quality of the web app but also makes the application a scalable one.

Single page application is our motive: The concept of Single page web application was introduced by Google in an effective manner with its flagship framework i.e. AngularJS. Why single page web app? What is its necessity? With Single page web application, the user will get better experience while browsing the application. Sometimes, the user feels bizarre with those links, menus and all especially the breadcrumbs is just painful. While transiting from one page to another, the emotion gets lost, the feelings get hampered and the mind gets unfocused. Isn’t? But, if our application is fitted within a single page then? Definitely the user will feel better. He will feel much free while browsing the contents. He feels as if everything is there around him and he can well access them in no time. Though many contents are hidden; but with a single click they come alive to the page in a superfast mode due to the power of JavaScript. At the end of day, the user experience improves tremendously and the user can easily relate his emotions with our application that is our aim from the very beginning.

Custom tag Attributes: One of the eye catchy feature of AngularJS is its custom tag attribute. In AngularJS, this is called as Directives and they are the most favourite components of developers who work on AngularJS. Directives enables web developers in creating customized web application that are highly flexible and dynamic with data binding technique. Directives like ng-bind, ng-model, ng-app etc are of extreme use while crafting useful web app in AngularJS platform.

Dual mode data binding: It is directly associated with the above Custom tag attributes i.e. Directives. Here the data get binded to the custom tags in a dynamic manner or as per the instruction from the Controller. Since, everything in AngularJS runs and interacts over the templates; so the data binding is a must for the application. The template in AngularJS is not treated as a string or object. In fact, it is an absolute DOM and the elements of the template are accessed by the Controller so as to provide dynamic data to the end user in a systematic approach. The in-built custom tags and ng-* makes it possible through binding process; the best part that the binding can be from both end i.e. From Server to client and vice versa. This is the beauty of AngularJS and loved by every dedicated AngularJS developer.

Well maintainable codes: Google’s AngularJS always encourages developers to create well maintainable code by proper formatting and systematic approach to handle the logic of the application. Everything is there to support the odd things that may be our requirement for the application development. But the thing is how it is handled? Google does not leave any pseudo code while building enterprise standard web applications from its platform. If the code is maintainable, that means the cost of maintenance will be negligible and it will make the web application quite scalable as well.

Responsive is yet another feature: We can’t ignore responsive web design in this stage where the industry is flooded with smart devices and they are mostly used for browsing purpose. Google understands it and had made the AngularJS quite smarter to adopt with different circumstances like platforms, devices and browsers etc. Moreover, the contents from the Controller will get rendered differently as per the screen size and resolution of the browser making the whole application responsive enough. At the end of day, it’s all about user experience and this is the most important concern for every web developer and Google as well.

Internationalization is there: Are you trying to create a multi lingual web application? Can be done with AngularJS! AngularJS supports Internationalization i.e. I18N. It provides enough support to create cross geographic location and cross culture web applications and makes the processes a lot hassle free than expected. It modifies the web content as per the location of the browser through GPS API, date and time and accordingly the languages are plant over the template making application multi lingual. Moreover, an AngularJS developer can render different types of images and look and feel as per the climate or season of the location from where it is being browsed. It can also make the content dynamic and user focused with this feature. Imagine, you are designing a tourist web application, and you want to suggest best tourist places for your user. It will be a good idea if you can suggest him according to the season. I mean suggest for Hill stations in summer and landscape in winter. Isn’t amazing?? Last but not the least; you will get Google standard service which is an obvious bonus for you!

Mindfire is a top notch JavaScript development company from India which has executed hundreds of projects in the domain. We build applications which best suit our customer’s budget and business interests. If you are interested to hire expert AngularJS services from us then send in your requirements to sales at Mindfire Solutions dot com.

Expected features and enhancements of Rails 5

“Rails right from its inception, has received overnight popularity and love from the industry and the developers as well. With the in-built integration with Ruby, the framework is simply awesome; in fact, we can say it’s a duo i.e. language-framework concept and first in its kind on the earth. Ruby on Rails, as a web application framework, is widely appreciated for the components that it highlights. The model view controller structure not just persuades the use of web standards, but also focuses on the use of other popular software engineering patterns and paradigms – be it the Active Record Pattern or Convention over Configuration. And now, Rails Core Team has taken a further step in fortifying the cross-platform web application framework by giving a preview into the Rails 5. Here, we’re listing out some expected features and enhancements of Rails 5 (although, the new version will entail Ruby 2.2.). Industry is anxiously waiting for the next version of Rails i.e. Rails 5 because there are lots of hopes and expectations associated with the rails 5. Let’s see few of our assumptions and expectations from Rail”.

Integration of Rails API: The new version is expected to amalgamate rails API into its core configuration, hence enabling the use of Rails as an easy-to-use JSON API. This will also simplify the process of creating an API for any JavaScript application. This will simply eliminate the use of Heavy JS APIs for their application instead railAPI will serve the purpose in an optimized manner. Web projects that take help from emberJS, BackboneJS etc for RESTFUL design can get a relief by the introduction of rail API and it will take all the necessary processes into consideration for a successful API call. However, users would be required to have Ruby 2.2.1 or above before they move to Rails 5.

Turbolinks 3: In the world of smart web browsers; it is really difficult to deal with multiple constraints that arise due to excessive use and production of wide variety of devices that are having no proper hardware specification or potential. Along with that, these devices used to take the help of mobile networks for the browsing purpose i.e. 2G, 3G or even GPRS. So, it is really a challenge to make each and every web app page load faster by reducing its size and making it dynamic and asynchronous. For this purpose, the framework rolls in Turbolinks 3 to resolve the trepidation of sluggish web applications. The addition is anticipated to help users hold onto most of their web pages and selectively update certain sections through partials. While this shares similarity with SPA in a way, the feature aims at eliminating the hassle of slow web page reloads. In return it will not only improve the overall user experience but also the look and feel of the web app will move to a next level.

Action Cable: The highly anticipated Action Cable should be making its way to Rails 5 – hence, developers who felt a dearth of WebSocket support can definitely look forward to this one! Action Cable is a part of Rails 5 (as publicly announced by Rails), hence now there is no more worry for multiple instance applications especially while dealing with live web communication. Suppose you are going to add a live chat application to your Rails app; then this can be well handled by Action Cable which is simply can be integrated to client side JS and back-end Ruby program. Ruby on Rails development, for certain, provides all the tools that a developer would require in order to design a great application. However, this new feature will bring forth an incredible performance boost among the community. It will make the application much more effective without any need to integrate websocket!

Rake Tasks: Several things are likely to go simpler, including the Rake Tasks. The upgrade will enable users to perform all Rake tasks using just Rails. Although the new facility is analogous to the previous versions of Rails, it is expected to ease the process of task optimization for many developers out there. It is highly effective when we need a cron to run in a periodic manner for our web application. In this process, your application will be loaded with up-to-date database data to se5rve the users in a more effective way. rake db:reset and rake db:seed are the core of this concept. These two components makes the cron proces much hasslefree than before. With reset; the db will reset and with seed the db will be modified with the latest data.In previous versions of Rake, terming was restricted to only alphanumeric characters – beginning with an underscore and so on. The new version, however, aims at roping in the prospect of entitling partials using any character. Rails 5 will let users use any character post the underscore. The Rails team has also taken off its helper methods like div_for & content_tag_for and has transferred them to a separate part ‘record_tag_helper.’

Action Pack: Just like MVC architecture, Rails has some inbuilt similar concept through its Action Pack. Action Pack consists of two major parts i.e. Action View and Action Controller. It is quite similar to that of View and Controller of MVC. Now, every request of Rails will be handled by Action pack. The Action Pack then divides it into part segments i.e. Action Controller and Action View. Action Controller instructs the Action View which data to display and which to hide. By this process, the core logic or analysis is performed by the Action Pack and the entire event is handled smoothly with Action Controller and Action View. Developers may look forward to the new Action Pack, which will basically focus on generating accurate routing information. And, this will come straight from the Rails backend. It includes the working concept of Action View and Action Controller.

Render from Anywhere: The route of render_anywhere also gets a tweak. Earlier, users would have to use render_anywhere in order to deliver any views outside of controller. The new Rails 5 takes that away and lets users render their views from anywhere. Moreover, users will be able to benefit from the newly added ‘assigns’ function as well. That will allow users to pass instance variables to templates.

Mindfire Solutions has one of the largest certified ROR developers team while have successfully executed more than 100 projects for its clients across the globe. Take a look at our RoR development projects and decide for yourself whether you want to hire Mindfire Solutions as your trusted software development partner.