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15 November 2019

The Hacker’s Tribute Vol. 31: Draw.io, GitHub, and Visual Studio

tech

Greetings and salutations!

We have some new toys for you to play with. But do you deserve to use them?

Some bring about ease of life – like Draw.io, a splendiferous new flowchart designer. Because we know you all love a great flowchart. GitHub caters to the sloth in all of us with its new mobile app. Cloud services, meanwhile, are turning hostile … well, indifferent. So while they might not care about you – we certainly do. We introduce an online version of Visual Studio and SeleniumBase, because you deserve them!

Oh, and for those guilty of having slow websites – Google is coming for you. Just a heads up.

Stay safe, coders!

Sincerely,

dan

Dan ‘the Man’ Kowalski

Editor-in-Chief, The Hacker’s Tribute

GitHub Goes Mobile

Git Mobile App – merge code from the comfort of your Bathtub / Hammock / Bench at the Starbucks, which you’re only using because it’s the cleanest seating area in the entire train station at this time of night. We know you don’t like their coffee. GitHub understands.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/14/git_mobile_app/

Stormy Clouds Up Ahead

Cloud computing was meant to save us. Now the formations have turned dark and are heading our way. What has been described as ‘availability degradations’ could be easily mistaken for working ineptitudes. Microsoft Azure DevOps, and Google cloud both seem to share the problem. It’s a blunderous affair that reminds up to keep our assets safe, and out of sight of stormy conditions.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/11/double_downtime_for_azure_and_google_clouds/

Tour de SeleniumBase

Take your pick of JavaScript libraries for prototyping walkthroughs, onboarding experience, and digital adoption solutions on any website. Select from Shepherd, Bootstrap Tour, IntroJS, and Hopscotch. Get a grip on the realities of Javascript with SelenumBase tours by creating a New Tour, adding steps, playing, and exporting. As for the realities of life – that’s for you to figure out. No help for that here.

https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/examples/tour_examples/ReadMe.md

Rent a Dev

Microsoft, a small, Seattle-based software business, has launched an online workspace for coders. MS Visual Studio is their version of tapping into the spirit of renting developer environments. Up in the cloud and out of this world – this coder-optimised version is sure to turn some heads, as the first Online-situated program. What could go wrong? Well, the demos, aren’t great… and Gitpod still seems more viable. But who am I to judge. Your opinion is all that matters – after all.

https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/services/visual-studio-online/

Down Low? Too Slow!

When Google ever ‘experiments’ with an idea, society worries. This isn’t one of those times. Chrome may soon publicly shame slow-to-load sites with lacklustre coding. Based on a site’s historical load latency, the browser will inform users that it’s ‘not me, it’s you’. If that’s you, be sure to check out PageSpeed Insights, and Lighthouse. They’ll show you the way.

https://blog.chromium.org/2019/11/moving-towards-faster-web.html

Draw.io

Bring out the artist in you! Draw.io is an online diagramming website and all-out sensational flowchart creator. It’s production-grade, with full security process, and licensed under Apache v2, so you know you’re dealing with some big wheels. Oh, and it integrates with user tools – what a time to be alive!

https://github.com/jgraph/drawio

Knowledge is free and shared. We’re always on the lookout for new insights into the world of App Development. Get in touch with us, and we’ll give you a heads up on your next big idea.

We’ll be in touch with more news, as it happens!



Author

Hackers of the world dream to be him. And that’s an understatement. With methods decades ahead of cyberspace, he’s proceeded only by his own reputation. ‘The Man’ infamous for single-handedly causing the ’08 global financial meltdown, he dropped off-grid searching for purpose. He twice-dominated each of the Himalayan peaks, negotiated the rift valleys of Africa, and swam the Amazonian Basin end-to-end. It was in Siberia where we caught up to him – convincing him to work for the ‘good guys’. The veteran’s veteran of coding, now confidently within our ranks, is finally a force for good. Just don’t test him.