The last 4 weeks were awesome!
There were not 1 but 2 events that any local web developer was anticipating!
The first one was Software Freedom Day held last September 21. The second one is the GDG(Google Developers Group) Devfest, the 1st one held in Mindanao, Philippines ever!
I was also able to utilize some new frameworks in my job. One is a JS framework called KnockoutJS. The the other one is Laravel, a PHP framework that is the talk of the PHP community nowadays
More information are shown below.
Software Freedom Day
Software Freedom Day
Last September 21, Software Freedom Day was being celebrated here locally in Capitol University.
The tracks in the morning ranged mostly dealt with Web technologies
The tracks in the afternoon most dealt with the Sysadmin side, a programming language and a continution of the tracks in the morning
- More Open Source tools
- Kali Linux, a Linux distribution focused on Security
- Common System Administration task for Novices
- Ruby Programming
GDG DevFest Cagayan de Oro
Immediately on the next day, the first ever Devfest in Mindanao, Philippines was being held in Cagayan De Oro City. N Hotel near the Kauswagan highway was the chosen venue to host it.
As a Web Developer, it was a very exciting event! We fully expected to learn some cool new language or some new technologies being shown.
Unfortunately, there was a travel ban in effect at that time for some countries because of some bombing incidents in the southern part of Mindanao. It was sad that some delegates such as the one from Australia who should have been the one doing the track on Go, was not able to go.
But even with that setback, some delegates were able to push through with their tracks. Woohoo!
The tracks for the event were divided into two groups, a room for each of the groups. You can freely move over to the other room if a track there interested you.
Here is the list of tracks
Group A
- HTML 5 Frontend Development
- HTML 5 Game Development
- AngularJS
- Technoprenuership
Group B
- Porting HTML to Android
- Android meets Arduino
- Google Maps API
- Google App Engine
KnockoutJS
One of my jobs was to implement a simple ledger mobile app. KnockoutJS was the one that is chosen for the job.
I found out though that KnockoutJS is more like a bare bones data binding library as compared to AngularJS which is more of a full blown stack.
It doesn't have any advanced features like routing system, directives, etc. But I feel that this is intentional.
After using it for many days, it certainly taught me a lot on Javascript Frameworks and how they work. It really is fun doing everything without reloading the page.
Laravel
I found out though that KnockoutJS is more like a bare bones data binding library as compared to AngularJS which is more of a full blown stack.
It doesn't have any advanced features like routing system, directives, etc. But I feel that this is intentional.
After using it for many days, it certainly taught me a lot on Javascript Frameworks and how they work. It really is fun doing everything without reloading the page.
Laravel
Laravel was something I stumbled upon easily because of the amount of information and praise PHP developers were giving it.
It piqued my interest because of it's OOP centric framework and PHP 5.3+ support. Morever, Codeigniter has not been in a very good place lately so I was looking for something new that could replace it.
I have just been using it for a few times and I found it very good. It has that same Codeigniter feel where you feel that the system doesn't force you to follow a rigid convention.
Why bother with all of this?
The programming/IT field is a field in constant state of flux. You can't just learn one thing and ride it into retirement. Languages, frameworks, skills usually become irrelevant quickly.
On the bright side, learning something new is something that people in this field mostly enjoy so it is not really something to dread.
It is imperative that developers learn new stuff so that their skills will stagnate but that means learning new stuff which is enjoyable.
It piqued my interest because of it's OOP centric framework and PHP 5.3+ support. Morever, Codeigniter has not been in a very good place lately so I was looking for something new that could replace it.
I have just been using it for a few times and I found it very good. It has that same Codeigniter feel where you feel that the system doesn't force you to follow a rigid convention.
Why bother with all of this?
The programming/IT field is a field in constant state of flux. You can't just learn one thing and ride it into retirement. Languages, frameworks, skills usually become irrelevant quickly.
On the bright side, learning something new is something that people in this field mostly enjoy so it is not really something to dread.
It is imperative that developers learn new stuff so that their skills will stagnate but that means learning new stuff which is enjoyable.