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.

How safe it is to hire an App developer from an Offshore Software Development Company

Technology experts have highlighted the pros and cons of outsourcing development work and have also debated on its downside. There have been many eye opening instances which are worth mentioning. The topic has been of prime importance to folks in working worldwide.

Cost plays an important role in taking the decision. Labour expenditure is controlled when work is outsourced to markets not having a higher wage rate thus, taking advantage of affordable cost. Why should one pay in-house developer $150 per hour when you could get the same work done for a half of original cost. Ultimately, you could use the cost savings to make bigger, more advanced apps.

On the whole, comparing per hour costs isn’t as telling as one might assume. Firms also take into account while outsourcing software development and encouraging other businesses to follow the practice to deem the time related to evaluating an overseas venture. Highlighting extra costs points to missing forgone costs and often gives the contradicting standards. Research indicates that 62% of overseas IT ventures costs much more than what businesses predicts.

As far as Short Term projects are concerned, the most sought after benefit of outsourcing is to bring an expert from the foreign market without having to pay for long term thus making use of professional expertise in a big way with slight affiliation costs. Sometimes you really need someone with expert skill to be around the project as value of qualification supersedes the cost benefit. Another benefit of hiring off shore consultant is that you avoid any short term cost that would have been incurred, had there been the need to formally set the office. This may look imprudent but many developers don’t like to be around people while working. This hampers their ability to concentrate and have negative effect on their overall performance. They deem office environment to be major cause of distraction. With lunch, chatter, and continued distractions, there is little time left for developers to get actual work done at the office.

Consequently, this usually means developers must work way more hours than necessary, which hurts conscience and company’s values.Consultants who work for full time have also proved to be cost beneficial as they are missing opportunity costs for working with you and would have worked for someone else part time earning more money. Employer seems to be getting more benefit this way as compared to developer thus proving loyalty. They are giving time and energy into your business and would have a shared interest in the outcome and that’s huge. They are less likely to bail for a number of reasons and, if the fit is good, will be long term players.Consultantssitting around you know what’s happening and could be helpful in many ways than a part timer. More brainstorming sessions could happen instead of waiting for an allotted meeting time. This would encourage casual conversation which could help extract new ideas. They also professionals and know what difficulties other functional areas are facing and could offer potential solutions boosting confidence.

Outsiders inherently elaborate success in terms of securing clients, succeeding in projects and handling multiple tasks at the same time. While owners view the success differently and define it by building businesses that generate revenue and capturing markets. A freelancer (especially one who is outsourced) will be of help for not very long and would be more inclined to take care of personal interest.

Mindfire Solutions, 16 year old IT software solutions provider from India has been addressing the three points of worry in Offshore software development and satisfying clients across the globe. If you want to hire the services of this software services provider, send in your requirements to sales at Mindfire Solutions dot com.

7 weaknesses of Python as a programming language

“Python the most influential technology of the industry comes with many shortcomings! It’s absolutely true and obvious! Also this happens with every technology including Java, .Net or PHP. Let’s check out what are those weaknesses, especially from a developer’s point of view.”

Hard to learn and implement: Any programming language can never touch every one’s heart unless until found as a simple and practical language. Easy to learn, ease of use and ease of implementation are the three basic success pillars for any software language. Though industry respects the power and potential of any language, at the same time it also emphasizes on the acceptable level of the language. That is the reason why technologies like PHP, Ruby on Rails and many JS frameworks are gaining tremendous popularity in the industry within a very short span of time. When we look at Python, an old era language, it seems to be much more dominant than any other language. But at the same time it also reminds us about its difficulties that start with the learning of this technology. Due to an ancient technology, it has many glitches and loopholes within the language. It is not as easy as any other programming language, especially web domain specific languages. Things become worse, when we find it really difficult to implement Python syntax to our application. It could have simpler and well organized for a better implementation. Fresher usually hesitates to kick start their career with Python. So it needs to be improved in the future to gain more acceptances from the industry.

No proper scopes for Python variables: No matter how much you are inspired from your big brother, it is useless until we find you as helpful and as useful as your big brother! It is always told about Python that it is highly inspired from C++ and Java especially the object oriented approach of C++ and Java are heavily implemented within Python. But it is already discovered by experts and Python developers that there is a terrific issue with the approach of handling reusability in Python. Reusability concept makes the maximum use of resources in an iterative manner to improve the speed and performance of the application. There are basically three types of scope concepts to implement reusability and those are public, private and protected. These three scopes vary in their approach to handle the application resources like variables, methods and classes. Now the problem with Python is that it has a confused approach for handling the scopes of the application variables and functions. It is discovered that public class’s variables are not accessed by other functions within their scope. In fact, with nested loop, the scopes of the variables are highly demoralized by the language. It creates unnecessary complexity and confusion in the mind of the Python developer.

It takes lots of memory: Since Python has the industry leading volume of libraries and modules; it is obvious to allocate a good amount of memory to the language. Larger memory is considered as a fatal concern for the modern browsers like Smartphone and tablet browsers. So, it creates troubles for the Python developer in crafting industry standard light weight web applications with such huge volume of libraries on the shoulder.

It is Virtual Compiled language! Many believe that Python is a compiled language due to its higher tempo and performance that it has gained from its revival through Google’s Unladen Swallow project. But, the fact is that Python is an Interpreted language; it never gets compiled to machine level byte codes directly rather the source codes gets converted to an INTERMEDIATE byte code and then get converted to Machine Level code through an Interpreter! As a result, it can only be treated as a Virtual Compiled language and it hampers the performance level of the language. We are not saying that, Python has any performance issues; we just want to make it clear that it could have even better if it would have a Compiled language like Java or C++.

White space is discouraged in Python: This is yet another issue with the Python programming language. Indentation is always given priority in every language; but what about if there is NO punctuation like a curly braces as we find with other programming languages. Just imagine a case like:

If 1+1 == 2

Print “true”;

Print “false”;

You see, there are NO braces at all; this makes the code look ugly, at least to them who used to put “{“, and “}” into the codes. But, Python never allows any such possessions; it has a pioneering notion that, with these unnecessary stuffs or whitespaces the code length gets augmented and hence it makes the application weighty which is not at all a good observation.

Without a support from Framework, Python is like a mesh of everything: Python comes to your system with a tagline “Batteries included!” That means you need not to worry about anything; because everything is preloaded! But, are you qualified enough to take the benefit of those preloaded stuffs? I am sure majority falls behind the line. It is really difficult to memorize each and every library, module and methods of Python for any skilled Python developer. It can only be resolved with an IDE, i.e. integrated into the framework itself. The IDE will help as a personal guide for the developer with features like “Suggestions” and “AutoComplete” to make the best use of internal methods and libraries. So, you MUST take the help of a Python framework like Django, PyPy etc. for the benefit of your application.

Lack of proper Documentation: This seems to be highly unprofessional for any software developer; but this is absolutely true about Python. Though, the language is full of libraries, classes and methods; but the documentation is pathetic. Anyone, who has genuine intentions to learn Python from its core, will get frustrated within no time when he checks out for its documentation. The documentation severely lacks the comprehensive information about the language and this is highly sceptical for any enterprise standard language like Python. So, it needs to be enhanced enough in order to afford accurate and thorough information about the language.

So, all in all there are many loopholes in Python; at least from the developer’s point of view. Though, Python manages the loopholes with its unmatched potential and speed that it has gained from Google, it is left to you to decide whether it is really a good idea. In case you would like to go ahead with Python and are looking for an offshore software development partner, look no further than Mindfire Solutions which would be your best choice for any Python app development project.

What is near-shore software development?

Organizations today are trying their best to reduce average cost of production and increase their profit margin or in some case give price relief to their customers. With the increase in competition levels around the world firms are looking left and right to increase their productivity levels and generate more revenues. However this may sound easy but in truth it takes a lot of thinking and managerial input. One method adopted by organizations to reduce their budding cost levels is the concept of outsourcing software development. Outsourcing software development has three different layers; Onshore, Offshore and Near-shore.

The term near-shore was first introduced back in 1998 when an American software development company decided to set up business in the Caribbean island of Barbados. Near-shore software outsourcing is an easier alternative to offshoring since it enables the organization to take advantage of lower costs (but potentially not as low as offshore) but with a close physical location, easy communication and the same time zone. The use of near-shore software development method can help negate certain drawbacks of outsourcing. One of the potential drawbacks of outsourcing was the lack of communication between the firm and the hired client. To eradicate or minimize this risk, the methodology of near-shoring was adopted. This would allow the firm to employee a contractor that is in a relatively close proximity to the parent firm and operates in similar time zones. Therefore, by adopting the method of near-shoring the firm can build a better communication network and incorporate relevant and appropriate feedbacks.

However the issue with using the method of offshore outsourcing is that the firm can face language barrier problems, and due to the long distance the quality of communication gets hampered. With the increase in geographical distance, the time zone varies further handicapping the quality of communication between the firm and their outsourcing partner. In this regard, most of the companies adopting near-shore outsourcing methods try and work around the possible communication barrier by making changes to their organizational culture are adopting a more flexible organizational hierarchy where the outsourcing partner is incorporated. Hence, they try and look for new market segments or development source that is in closer proximity and allows for ease of access.

Near-shoring allows an organization to operate in an environment which they are completely familiar with. It is essential that an organization is aware of the macro and micro environment workings of the country where the organization is planning to near-shore. With similar time zones, language, work ethics and labor laws, the organization can ensure a smooth working environment.

Countries and companies that view themselves as near-shore position themselves as offering some of the benefits of offshoring (namely cost reduction), while mitigating other difficulties—especially those imposed by distance. Most firms today are using the concept of near-shoring to promote cultural integrity and to position themselves as a global firm operating in more than one country.

With the threat of intellectual theft becoming ever present as technology advances, organizations are trying to bring operational activities closer and making a more compact organizational culture. Therefore, near-shore software development and activities have gained wide, spread acclaim. Not only are organizations trying to reduce the threat of cybercrime, but by adopting near-shore outsourcing practices the parent organization is in close proximity to the clients and their customers. Therefore this increases the applicability of the customer responsiveness and decreasing the turnaround time. Thus this allows the firm to make necessary changes to the product based on the relevant feedback given by the consumer.

Mindfire Solutions has been providing expert offshore software development services since the last 16 years. Our clients have praised our software development services and customer centric behavior through their testimonials that can be found at Mindfire Solutions dot com. If that convinces you enough to test our strengths in software development please drop in your requirements to sales at Mindfire Solutions dot com.

Should developers be encouraged to participate in Seminars and conferences?

“Everything comes with some advantages and few disadvantages! Nothing is perfect in the world neither our concern about Seminars and Conferences. Should a developer attend them? It is really a complicated debate. There are lots of benefits and few demerits of Seminars or Conference. The thing is what is our priority? Is the seminar relevant for the developer or not? So, it all depends upon the situation and the topic and if it is really related to a developer then, the 2-3 days period will change the life of developer else the same will happen but in a negative manner!”

Let’s come straight to the point, we often need expertly guidance or suggestions for steady progress no matter what industry our business is in. And likewise, developers who constantly search for improvements in their products or intend to incorporate creative blends into their projects would feel a dearth of an industry conference or seminar (at times, if not every day). Here, we are listing out some of the main reasons why developers should actually take some time off their schedule and attend seminars and conferences –

Learn Something New: It’s of paramount significance for any developer to expand their horizon of knowledge. Seminars and conferences play a huge role in helping people learn something new about their specific area of interest. They are empowered with an opportunity to learn a whole lot more from interacting and grasping the ideas of professionals. Seminars where experts are sharing their experiences and growth modules will help developers hone their skills. The new knowledge on their domain will definitely keep them ahead of others. In fact, it builds a confidence within them and this is really vital for any professional especially if he belongs to technical field. In the competitive and ever changing environment it becomes essential to remain up to date and confident enough so that you can advocate with your client for their benefit which in turn give prosperity to you and your company.

Get Inspired: A break-point from the one above! Yet, conferences go a long way in instilling new ideologies and concepts into the minds of creative developers. They not just help add something valuable to one’s business, but also help change the way one works. The concepts when get executed by the developer, he gets awesome output that will definitely bring reputation of your company in the industry. In fact, up to date concepts and futuristic methodologies are way better than that of traditional system. So it is always welcomed by the industry and attending seminars and conferences can inspire developers to get better and design more creative concepts, helping them achieve greater success in their respective fields.

Stay Connected With Industry Trends: One of the most important reasons why any developer should attend a conference is to know the latest news and trends that hit the market. A field that is highly competitive demands constant knows– hence, seminars help developers stay updated with trends in their industry and stay cutthroat. Industry throws out those outdated stuffs in no time; you can guess it by considering how fast a technology gets depreciated. Every passing day, the industry is gifted with numerous outstanding and brilliant ideas that makes the older concepts outdated. So in order to sustain in the ever changing industry it is necessary to remain updated with new and latest trends and technologies.

Add Value to the Product: Seminars are more like an investment – where a developer could go, learn the tricks, expand his possibilities as a developer, hatch onto some new ideas, and build a better product. Conferences render the skills and knowledge one would need to make his product or venture valuable. Knowledge never get exhausted rather gets transferred to different versions and in different forms. So, from the knowledge that you gained from Seminars and Conferences you can build more productive products for the industry. In fact, the process of development becomes more efficient and the quality of the end products stands out from others. Hence it really helps in adding values to the products or services directly or indirectly.

Networking Opportunities: Usually developers are encouraged to be connected with likeminded professionals through social media networks like LinkedIn. There they discuss with others, shares their thoughts, points and gains knowledge. There are many web platforms like forums that also help in networking with others and gaining knowledge from each other. But, they all are virtual and can never be compared to that of practical like Seminars and Conferences. Nothing better than being introduced to industry professionals in practical! Seminars provide developers with an ideal opportunity to connect and interact with like-minded people. Networking with right people could turn resourceful for developers – where they could meet another professional with the same or better vision, have someone interview their product, or get insights into their developmental plan.

Change the Strategies: A lot of times, seminars or conferences are a way to review the progress or retreat in life. If there is anything that looks off-the-track, seminars could help provide an insight into it and help change the strategies to get back on the right track. They also enable one to be reflective, tweak the turns (if needed), and evaluate their progress. Many times, some mediocre minds came to seminar with their outrageous products or concepts and ask the participants for their opinion. In the process, the participant will not only gains knowledge on a new concept but also gets an opportunity to interact with a concept that may be way ahead of their scope. But, it will definitely bring some excellent knowledge on the new concept; even they can give better opinion to the person to make the concept more effective and efficient.

Have Fun: Last but not the least; developers should attend seminars because they are seriously fun. Being in business should never be a dull chore and hence, industry seminars can bring excitement and enjoyment to dealing with a career choice. It’s more like an ideal amalgamation of educational learning, professional creativity, and fun! So it will rejuvenate the developer and makes him enthusiast enough to focus on his work with more energy and confidence after the seminar is over.

Mindfire Solutions takes all the initiatives that are necessary to include a knowledge based culture at the work place. Employees across the three centers hold seminars on various software development topics. It also encourages employees to attend seminars outside the organization that help a great deal in enhancing the overall knowledge of its employees apart from giving them the required exposure. Are you then sufficiently interested in the culture of knowledge at Mindfire Solutions?

Significance of ASP.NET vNext

“Change is the only truth of nature and it holds good to every material may it be tangible or intangible! Microsoft’s ASP .NET vNext recently made its debut to the IT industry with lots of precarious debates; but turned out as a gem in the industry in a magical way. How? Let’s check it out!”

It’s now Open Source: Industry has an orthodox psychology about Microsoft that it never ships anything free of cost; with ASP .NET vNext, Microsoft proved that it can offer a fully loaded web framework for the industry without any premium. Previous versions of ASP .NET were proprietary where as ASP .NET vNext is absolutely Open Source and it runs under the .NET foundation for the development and enhancement of this Open Source technology. As a result, anyone can contribute to the platform and hence improving the productivity of the framework with the support of the Open Source ASP .NET vNext community.

NextGen ready smart sites with Cloud support: Cloud technology has been the most gossiped topics of the industry since its inception due to its supreme feature and usability. Though, the industry is not yet absolutely ready to adopt cloud technology in every web solution due to many feasibility constraints; still there is a way that simply runs towards the cloud and definitely it will be well achieved in future. Understanding the tremendous potential of cloud, Microsoft has not made any mistake by making its vNext an absolute cloud ready. It encourages ASP .NET developers to integrate cloud service to their web application to make it future ready and deploy the application for the smart browsers of smart devices in the industry. With cloud, the developer will get adequate scope to store his user’s data over a virtually unlimited storage device in terms of cloud service. On the contrary, this will boost the confidence of users to rely over cloud storage services like Google Drive, Amazon cloud and Apple cloud service along with Microsoft’s Azure cloud storage service.

Its core development process is Agile: Gone are the days, when any software application was being developed in an ample size and then the testers jump to test the application before it went to the live stage. Now, there are concurrent processes following the agile methodology to improve the productivity of any application development. There are always small or bit changes happen in an application and it immediately goes to the production stage, making the users benefited with the updated features of the application. With ASP .NET vNext Microsoft is unmistakably encouraging the agile methodology by releasing updates and bug fixes in a frequent manner so as to make it up-to-date with the industry. In fact, with agile methodology, it tries to live up to the expectations and demands of the industry by continuous effort from its Open Source community. The best part is that it makes the changes over the cloud and enables the community to adopt the changes without any lag.

NuGet Packages: Previously ASP .NET framework used to come as a full package to the developer without any consideration about the needs and requirements of the ASP .NET developer. Suppose you, a web developer needs only two packages or libraries of ASP .NET then you didn’t have the option to choose and keep only those two packages; instead you have to install all the libraries to your system. Microsoft realized that this is an inefficient way of resource handling and it directly contradicts with its newly developed ideology i.e., Agile development process. Now with ASP .NET vNext, it passes the control to the .NET developer to choose and assemble whatever permutation or combination of libraries or namespaces that may required by the application development process. It also ensures that the developer can add or remove any package in between the development process in a hassle free manner. For example, there is a system.Web node having a large number of namespaces like Microsoft.Runtime.Hosting, System.Configuration, System.Web.Caching, System.Web.Mail, System.Web.Routing and System.Web.Security etc. Now the developer can take any number of required namespaces from this assemble node. It makes the process to move away from monolithic approach and removing the unnecessary dependencies from the framework assemblies. In a nutshell, NuGet package manager helps in automatically updating the reference node in your vNext platform for efficient resource handling.

Cross platform development with vNext! This time ASP .NET vNext is not limited to windows environment. Rather, it can be run with non-Windows platforms like OS X and Linux so that you can deploy vNext projects without any Visual Studio or Windows environment. Again, it also provides support for mono, which is an unofficial cross platform CLR for ASP .NET vNext. Mono is a platform that allows developers in creating cross platform applications without much hassle. Again, Microsoft has included KRE in mono to make the application run under different platforms. KRE is a run-time environment that helps in the compilation and makes the application cross platform compatible. You can also host your application without any need of IIS by self hosting with vNext platform.

Roslyn Compiler is there: Now, there is a next generation compiler to compile your vNext ASP .NET application in a dynamic manner i.e., with Roslyn compiler platform that enables your ASP .NET application to be deployed and compiled in no time and makes you feel as if inside an interpreted platform like PHP. Here the developer can visualize the immediate changes over the browser with a refresh in no time. This eliminates the annoying experience of the developer to wait for the repetitive time consuming deployment process.

Reliable Pipelining solution: With ASP .NET vNext, Microsoft has not left any stone unturned to boost the performance of the application. Previously ASP .NET used to pass requests that are being handled by event handlers, i.e., HTTPHandler to perform the requested action. It was then needs to be passed through a series of components upon which the developer had no control. This time Microsoft realized that more optimal solution can be achieved with composible pipeline technology. Now the developer can explicitly specify the only components that are going to be used in the pipeline and hence making the process more efficient and optimized than before. UseService() can help for the customized request call to the pipeline as a result, it enables the developer to customize the pipeline for different hosts.

Support- simply Microsoft standard! Undoubtedly, when you are choosing ASP .NET vNext, you are going the get the support that is of Microsoft standard and it will never compromise on the quality of service for which it has been ruling the industry for more than two decades now.

Mindfire Solutions has a rich experience in developing ASP.NET based large-scale web applications and high-performance of ASP.NET websites. Our skilled ASP.NET Team is Microsoft MCTS certified or MVC Certifified and are abreast with the latest developments in this area. If you want to avail the expert ASP.NET services of our team, then do send in your queries to sales at Mindfire Solutions dot com.