Develpreneur: Become a Better Developer and Entrepreneur

This season is focusing on lessons learned from a consulting career.  A lot of the content can be found in the Develpreneur book.  However, we will go a little deeper into getting that side hustle going.  This episode kicks off the season by looking at some things to do in preparing for consulting or at least taking control of your career. Preparing for Consulting or Your Career It turns out that...

This is a perfect time for us to look ahead at season seven and beyond.  We will continue providing content for advancing your career starting with a deep dive into the book.  Each chapter will get a few episodes and will be expanded upon with those.  This season will be a cross between an audio version of the book (abridged of course) and an addendum to it. More To Come For Advancing Your Career...

We have run a weekly gathering for the last few years that is called our mentor and mastermind group.  This is a resource we rarely push.  However, it is an invaluable tool for anyone that wants a little help or a nudge to keep them moving forward in their career.  If nothing else, this is a great way to hear about the experiences of others in the industry. Changes to the Mentor Program The big no...

This episode covers the new book "The Source Code Of Happiness" that is our first Develpreneur published work.  It contains a lot of ideas that we have discussed in blog posts over the years.  On the other hand, it ties things together and has a few new stories and suggestions as well. The Source Code of Happiness Of course, the book implies that reading it will help you find happiness.  I will ad...

We wrap up the season with the observer pattern and a review of what we have learned.  This pattern is one that you probably have already encountered.  Instead of an observer, you probably have heard it called a listener. The Observer Pattern Defined As always, we will start with the " Gang of Four " intent to set the stage for our discussion. "Define a one-to-many dependency between objects so th...

The visitor pattern is the last of the behavioral ones for us to review.  This is going to feel similar to some others that allow us to abstract functionality such as a command.  This one provides us with a way to group functionality and avoids duplication or even sprawl of our code. The Visitor Pattern Defined As always, we will start with the " Gang of Four " intent to set the stage for our disc...

In the last episode, we looked at abstracting algorithms.  Now we examine the template method pattern and how it allows us to abstract steps of an algorithm.  Thus, providing a template for implementation while leaving the freedom for subclasses to handle the details. The Template Method Pattern Defined As always, we will start with the " Gang of Four " intent to set the stage for our discussion....

Our review of the behavioral design patterns moves on to look at the Strategy pattern.  This is one that you might not recognize from the name.  However, it is relatively common in use (or at least it should be). The Strategy Pattern Defined As always, we will start with the " Gang of Four " intent to set the stage for our discussion. "Define a family of algorithms, encapsulate each one, and make...

We tackle the memento pattern in this episode.  If you ever wanted to store the state of an object, then this is the one for you.  You can think of this pattern as a way to take note of your instance and store it for later. The Memento Pattern Defined As always, we will start with the " Gang of Four " intent to set the stage for our discussion. "Without violating encapsulating, capture and externa...

In this episode, we look at the state pattern.  It is a design that uses object-oriented tactics to provide a class with very different functionality based on its current state.  I think you will find this to be one that is not often going to be evident in your first pass of a design. The State Pattern Defined As always, we will start with the " Gang of Four " intent to set the stage for our discu...

The number of conference solutions available out there can be overwhelming.  A large number of them are free or close enough that it can make deciding on a solution a difficult task.  Thus, we want to look at the well-known and well-supported solutions that fit our price range as well as the features we should look for in an application.  Even if you only need to use conference solutions a time or...

We spend this episode looking at the mediator pattern.  This is a pattern that provides a great deal of flexibility.  However, it is not used as often as it should be.  The implementation does not always lend itself to a mediator.  Instead, the design needs to be thought through enough to create one. The Mediator Pattern Defined As always, we will start with the " Gang of Four " intent to set the...

We started this series on AWS services in the late 3rd quarter of 2018.  As we start in 2019, there are over a dozen new AWS services that have come online during that time.  Although we have covered a few of these in an overview with one of the groups due to the timing of their release, most of these are yet to be looked at. AWS Services March On The good and bad news about these offerings from A...

The Internet has become so pervasive that web browsers are everywhere.  It is hard to find anyone that does not at least know how to launch one on their phone or desktop.  Of course, there is more to be desired from your browser than merely surfing the web.  All of these examples are free, and each has its strengths and weaknesses.  If nothing else, here is an excellent way to expand your list of...

At long last, we come to my number one pattern.  The iterator is one of those software concepts that you come across and do not know how you managed before you learned it.  Maybe it is just my frequent need to work through a collection of objects, but I think this is one of the most fundamental behavioral patterns you can master. The Iterator Pattern Defined As always, we will start with the " Gan...

One of the latest advances is the Internet of Things.  As one would think, this focus on small and connected devices has not been lost on Amazon.  They may be one of the most visible adopters of this wave of technology.  Thus, it should not be surprising that they have a large number of services to assist you in your IoT strategy. AWS IoT Core The core helps you connect devices to the cloud.  This...

[podcast src="https://html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/8033606/height/360/theme/standard/thumbnail/yes/preload/no/direction/forward/" height="360" width="100%" placement="top" theme="standard"]We turn to hosting in this episode of our search for free and low-cost tools.  To be honest, free is not a long-term option with these tools although you can find a few that will start free.  These a...

In this episode, we look at a behavioral pattern that is key for solving certain types of problems.  These happen to be grammar and translation applications.  Thus, the interpreter pattern gives us a way to do precisely that.  We use this to interpret text into a set of commands. The Interpreter Pattern Defined As always, we will start with the " Gang of Four " intent to set the stage for our disc...

The AWS analytics group of services has a lot of members.  These are some of the newer offerings from Amazon.  However, they are very effective to use in professional development and learning more about your enterprise environment. Amazon Athena Query Data in S3 using SQL.  Store your data in S3.  Then you can define your schema on top of the data set and run queries.  The UI is not very awesome c...

Every year it is common to see articles about the next hot technology that will be part of our lives in the year ahead.  We are not going to skip this opportunity to provide our thoughts on the matter as well.  These items may seem obvious, but that does not mean you can treat them lightly.  Here are some areas you should advance your knowledge to stay relevant in 2019. Azure and Office 365 Micros...

One of our annual topics is a look back at the year we have completed.  In this episode, we cover precisely that and look at what we learned in 2018.  Ok, maybe this is what we should have learned.  In any case, this holiday special may give you some items to catch up on during your time off. Java Is Still Growing Microsoft has been pushing forward on C# and .NET languages.  Java is now joining th...

In this special episode before the Holidays, we look at some ways to make the most of your downtime.  We have focused on how to squeeze more out of every minute.  However, there are also times we need to rest and relax.  When we use our downtime correctly, there will be a benefit in productivity, health, and even drive when our work schedule resumes. Downtime Rest Sleep and rest are often at the t...

There are those that say email is dead and texting is the most popular form of communication.  However, those people are also the most likely to have an inbox with thousands of unread emails.  For most of us, the mail client is one of our most used applications.  While these applications have almost become a commodity, there are still some important distinctions among the top players.  There are a...

We continue our look into the behavioral patterns with an examination of the Command pattern.  This is another one of them that will seem very familiar.  In fact, you have probably made use of this in one way or another in your code. The Command Pattern Defined As always, we will start with the " Gang of Four " intent to set the stage for our discussion. "Encapsulate a request as an object, thereb...

The Amazon mobile services group is one of the newer ones in their offerings.  However, that does not mean it is something you want to skip over.  These solutions are likely to be very valuable to your mobile application development efforts.  They will help you increase productivity and ease your integration with the AWS infrastructure when you use it for the solution platform. AWS Amplify This he...