Mr Branding

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

WhatsApp Is Now The Second Non-Google Android App To Complete Five Billion Downloads On Play Store

Five billion downloads! Can you believe that the digits actually represent the fact that more than half of the total population on Earth downloaded an app? This height of success was first achieved by Google which rolled out with a handful of pre-installed applications to boost up the Android...

[ This is a content summary only. Visit our website https://ift.tt/1b4YgHQ for full links, other content, and more! ]

by Daniyal Malik via Digital Information World

Pair Programming: Benefits, Tips & Advice for Making it Work

Pair Programming: Tips and Advice for Making it Work

Pair Programming — a pair that's greater than the sum of its parts. You may have heard about pair programming and wondered whether it was worth trying in your workplace. On the surface it sounds simple, but two developers sitting together are not all that it takes to achieve productive pairing.

Logistical and personal hurdles such as scheduling, tool choices, and distractions can stop you from getting the most out of pairing. But the potential advantages can make it worth the trouble of recognizing and surmounting these challenges.

Why Pair?

How could it be more productive to take two programmers who were previously working on separate projects and have them work together on a single project? Won't everything take twice as long? To an outsider the idea of pairing may sound counterproductive at first, but the advantages become apparent when you start to think about why we code and what we're trying to accomplish.

Programming is not about churning out the most lines of code in the shortest amount of time, or even delivering the most features within increasingly tight deadlines. You can have engineers working around the clock pushing new features into production, but how productive are they really if those features are cranked out by individuals working in isolation according to their own unique understanding of the overall architecture? The resulting code is likely to be riddled with technical debt such as hidden bugs, performance issues, idiosyncratic syntax, and inefficient designs that may not use resources efficiently and may make it that much more difficult and time consuming to modify the code when one of those flaws surfaces.

You need your code to be meaningful and well written so that it works together seamlessly and can be modified easily. You need it to encapsulate the desired functionality so that your end product behaves properly and performs as expected. You need it to be resilient so it can withstand organizational changes that are a natural part of working together, as well as environmental changes and new customer expectations that may make today's workable solution obsolete without much warning.

In order to make that possible, developers need to be able to agree about fundamental requirements clearly, get up to speed quickly with whatever new or established technologies may be required, and focus without interruption to test out creative solutions and develop a product that's worth putting in front of the customer.

These are the real-world challenges that pair programming helps to address. When two developers work together in a pair, the quality of the code they produce improves along with their shared understanding of how it works. This makes it easier for the next person who reads the code to pick it up and modify it when necessary, and it reduces the danger that the only person on the team who knows how part of the code works may win the lottery and leave the team, taking that precious knowledge with them.

The time cost in mythical work hours is nowhere near the 50% that may seem intuitive if you tried to to equate the intricate art of coding with repetitive assembly line work. Some empirical studies have concluded that pair programming might result in about a 15% increase in the time it takes two programmers to accomplish the same tasks had they been working alone, but the resulting code will also be of much higher quality, with about 15% fewer observable defects to fix. Combine this with the shared ownership, deeper engagement, and faster problem solving that comes from having more than one mind engaged in solving a problem, and it's clear why pair programming is a popular approach.

What Exactly is Pairing?

So what does it take for two developers working together to achieve the productivity and quality improvements that come from pairing? It's mostly a matter of learning how to work collaboratively, which is not necessarily the way most of us learned to code.

By definition, pair programming doesn't start until you have two people working together on one computer. But how does that work in practice?

Two People …

The fundamental element of pair programming is working together with your pair. When a task is accepted, it needs to be shared between both of the people working on it, and they both need to be fully engaged in the task while they’re pairing on it. That means that they both need to understand the requirements the same way, and work together to come to a shared understanding of how they want to go about meeting them.

Pairing helps people get better at verbalizing their ideas and expectations. The implicit understanding you have in your head when you're working alone needs to be communicated so both you and your pair know you're on the same page. Getting as explicit as possible about the work and the approach up front will help make the pairing experience much more agreeable. Pairing involves a lot of talking, as that's the best way to keep two minds actively engaged in the problem at the same time.

For this reason, pairing is often associated with agile story writing, in which requirements for a feature are defined in consistent, plain language that can be understood equally well by Product and Engineering people with little room for ambiguity. Often pairs will ask for stories to be spelled out in Gherkin, which is a way of using common, non-technical phrases that are easy to translate into automated tests, so the pair can verify and demonstrate that each feature works as expected.

Writing in Gherkin means taking a feature and breaking it down into a simple story about a customer who wants something that this feature will deliver:

As <a customer of the product>
I want <something desirable>
So that <I can achieve a specific goal>

Then all the acceptance criteria are written out in a consistent syntax, defining the anticipated permutations and scenarios associated with that story:

Given <a customer in a particular state>
When <something specific happens>
Then <there is a specific outcome>

Given <a customer in a particular state>
When <something different happens>
Then <there is a different specific outcome>

etc.

Of course, it's not mandatory to use this exact phrasing, but if the requirements of a feature can't be expressed in this minimalist way, it's possible that the expectations are ambiguous. That's a potential red flag that's easier for a pair of programmers to spot when they start to discuss what's needed.

As soon as a pair accepts a story to work on, they should be able to define how they will know they are done and how they're going to prove it. From there, they can start to figure out together how best to approach the job.

In fact, the pair working on a feature should know enough up front that they could start by writing an automated test based on the first acceptance criterion before writing any code, making sure the new test fails, and then writing just enough code to make that test pass before refactoring and then starting on the next acceptance criterion. This approach is known as behavior-driven development, and while it’s not part of the definition of pair programming, it harmonizes beautifully, along with test-driven development.

The post Pair Programming: Benefits, Tips & Advice for Making it Work appeared first on SitePoint.

by M. David Green via SitePoint

How to Install WordPress

Final product image — What You'll Be Creating

So you want a WordPress site?

That’s great. WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system (or CMS), and for good reason.

With WordPress you can get yourself a flexible, scaleable and user-friendly website. The software itself is free and all you have to pay for is the hosting you’ll put it on.

But before you can start, there is one thing you’ll have to do, and that’s set up WordPress. This puts a lot of people off: they think it’s tricky, or long-winded, or requires writing code.

None of these are true. You have two options for installing WordPress, both of which are designed to be quick and easy. I’ll show you how to do both of them in this guide.

Premium WordPress Themes and Plugins

Once you've got your site set up, you'll want to explore the thousands of WordPress themes on ThemeForest and WordPress plugins on CodeCanyon. Purchase these high-quality WordPress themes and plugins can and improve your website experience for you and your visitors.

Options for Installing WordPress

There are two ways of installing WordPress: manually, or with the click of a button.

For most non-techies, the click of a button option is the preferred option. But just in case you are prefer the more thorough way, I’m going to help you to do it manually too.

Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Automatic Installation

Pros:

It’s easy.
It works.

Cons:

Your hosting provider might add some extra code or plugins, which could cause you problems in the long run. Or might just annoy you. For most people, this isn’t an issue.
A poor hosting provider might not install the latest version of WordPress. A good one will. (Hint: you should only go with a good one.)
If your hosting provider doesn’t provide cPanel (or something like it) as part of your package, you might not have access to an auto-installer (which is why this is an important criterion when choosing hosting).

Manual Installation

Pros:

You get a clean installation with no extra code or plugins.

Cons:

It takes longer.
It’s not as easy.
Sometimes it doesn’t work properly (although that’s normally due to user error).

For 90% of website owners, the automatic installation is absolutely fine. It’s only if you’re planning to customize the code in your site that you may have issues.

If you fancy trying your hand at manual installation, read through the instructions below and give it a go. But if you prefer an easy life, go with the automatic option.

Installing WordPress With an Auto-installer

Let’s start with the quick and easy option.

First, you’ll need to access your control panel with your hosting provider. This is normally called cPanel, although some providers give it a name of their own.

If you’re not sure how to get to this, check the email you received when you set up your hosting account. It should contain a link to cPanel. And if that fails, ask your hosting provider to tell you or google ‘access cPanel [my hosting provider]’.

The hosting provider I use is Siteground. To access cPanel via their client area, I go to My Accounts > Go to cPanel.

You’re then presented with the cPanel screen.

At this point, you might panic. So many options! Databases! Joomla! Mail! Security! How on earth do you know where to start?

You only need to find the WordPress auto installer. Ignore everything else. Just blank it out. Pretend it isn’t there.

You should find a section called Autoinstallers. In that section you’re looking for an icon with the word WordPress beneath it. If you can’t find that, you’ll need to use Softaculous instead.

Let me start by demonstrating the process with the dedicated WordPress installer.

Installing WordPress With the WordPress Auto-installer

Click on the WordPress logo. This will take you to a set of screens for installing WordPress.

If the Install tab isn’t already open, click on it.

Now complete the fields as below.

Version: lLave this as the default.
Protocol: If you have SSL already set up for your site (some providers give you this when you register the domain), select https://. If not or if in doubt, select https:// Note that SSL makes your site more secure and is worth using if possible.
Choose Domain: If you have more than one domain registered, choose the one you want to use.
In Directory: Leave this blank.
Site Name: Enter the name of your site. You can change this later.
Site Description: Your tagline. Again, you can change this later.
Enable Multisite: Leave this unchecked. Some auto-installers don’t have this: don’t worry if you can’t see it.
Admin Username: Type in the username you want to use. Don’t use admin as this isn’t very secure. You can’t change this later so make sure it’s what you intend to use forever.
Admin Password: Type in the password you want to use. Use something different from your username, with a few upper-case letters and numbers for extra security. You want to make it as hard as possible for people to get into your site. You can change your password later via the WordPress admin screens, to make it more secure.
Admin Email: Type in the email address you want to use for any emails relating to your site. This isn’t publicly displayed.
Select Language: Choose your language.
Select Plugins: Leave all of these unchecked. This will only be an option with some hosting providers: don’t worry if it isn’t there.
WordPress Starter: Uncheck this. Again, this is specific to some hosting providers and you might not have it.

If there are any other options, just leave them unchecked. And ignore any advanced settings: you don’t need to worry about them.

Once you’ve filled out the fields, click the Install button.

The auto-installer will take some time to set up your new WordPress site and then you’ll be taken to a screen with details of your new site. There will be a link to the site itself and a link to your dashboard. In the screenshot below I’ve installed WordPress in a subdirectory.

Congratulations, you now have a WordPress site!

Installing WordPress With Softaculous

If your cPanel doesn’t have a dedicated WordPress installer, you can use Softaculous instead. Follow these steps:

Click on the Softaculous icon in cPanel.
From the menu on the left, select WordPress.
Click the WordPress icon at the top of the screen.
Follow the steps in the previous section.

In fact, the WordPress auto-installer is nothing more than a shortcut to the Softaculous installer. So the process is the same.

Once you’ve done that, you can follow the link to your shiny new site and start getting it ready.

Installing WordPress Manually

Alternatively, you can use the "famous five minute install" to install WordPress manually.

To install WordPress manually you’ll need:

A web browser.
An FTP client. This will let you upload files to the server where your website is hosted. Personally, I use Coda, a code editing application with FTP client included, but if you just need FTP you can choose from our list of the top five FTP clients out there.
Access to your server to create databases—your hosting provider will likely provide you with a tool called phpMyAdmin to do this. If in doubt, ask them!

Note that you won’t need an FTP client if you’re running WordPress locally—that is if you're running it on your computer instead of on the internet.

To install WordPress you’ll need to follow three steps:

create a database on your server
download WordPress and copy it to your server
run the WordPress installation

Create a Database

The database will hold all of your site’s content and without it, WordPress and your WordPress site won’t work. You can create yours in one of two ways, depending on your hosting provider’s setup:

via your hosting admin screens
using phpMyAdmin

With my hosting provider, I use their admin screens to create a database, so let’s look at that first.

Using Your Hosting Admin to Create a Database

In your hosting admin screens, find an option called databases, SQL databases or similar. The exact name will vary depending on your provider.

For example, here’s the screen I use:

If you’re using a similar admin screen, follow these steps:

Give your database a name and type it in the field.
Click on Create Database.
You’ll then be asked to enter a password for the new user associated with this database. Choose a password, type it in, and click OK.
Make a note of the database name, username and password. You’ll need these later.

And, that’s it—your database is ready!

Using phpMyAdmin to Create a Database

If your hosting provider gives you phpMyAdmin as part of your package, or you’re using MAMP to install WordPress locally, you can use this to create your database.

In your hosting admin screens or the MAMP welcome screen, click the link to phpMyAdmin, which might look something like this:

The phpMyAdmin welcome screen will open. Click on the Databases tab at the top left to open the databases screen:

In the Create Database field, type the name of your database.

Click the Create button.

And with that, your database will be created. Make a note of the database name for later. The username and password will default to root.

Step 1 is done—and that’s the trickiest part. It’s plain sailing from here on in!

Download and Upload WordPress

Now you need to download the latest version of WordPress.

Go to the WordPress download page.

Click the Download WordPress button to download a zip file containing all of the WordPress files to your computer.

Unzip the file on your computer in exactly the same way you would normally unzip any other file. You’ll now have a folder called wordpress with all of the WordPress files in it. Make a note of where that folder is.

Next, you need to upload WordPress to your server.

Open your FTP client. Sign in to the FTP on your server using the FTP login details your hosting provider gave you when you created your account. If you’re not sure about these, ask them. You’ll need the server address, your username and the password.

In your FTP client, find the wordpress folder on your local machine and the public_html folder on your server. You should be able to see the two of them side by side. As an example, here’s mine in Coda:

Note that my folder on the remote server is empty because I’m installing WordPress in a subdirectory. Yours will have other files in there—ignore those.

Now drag the contents of the wordpress folder (not the folder itself) to your public_html folder. Your FTP client will copy the files to your server.

Wait for the files to finish copying. Now you’re ready for the third and final stage: Running the WordPress installation.

Run the WordPress Installation

Your database and files are in place and you’re ready to install WordPress!

Open your browser and go to your website. You’ll see the first WordPress installation screen.

You should have all this information noted down from when you were creating your database. Click Let’s Go!

On the next screen, input your database name, username and password. If you’re working locally, the username and password will default to root. Otherwise they’ll be what you specified when you created your database.

Leave the Database Host and Table Prefix fields as they are (note: if in any doubt, ask your host for what to enter as the Database Host, as this can vary between hosting providers—assuming they haven’t already let you know in a previous email when you initially signed up for their services) and click Submit.

Next, you’ll see my favorite screen—the one that tells you WordPress is ready to install. Well done!

Note: If you’re in the US, it will say ‘All right sparky!’. I’m in the UK so it uses the more sedate ‘sunshine’. I prefer ‘sparky’ to be honest.

Click Run the install to access the site details screen.

Finally, enter your site details: the site title, your username and password and email address. If you want Google to find your site, leave the Privacy box checked. Click Install WordPress.

WordPress will be installed and you’ll see a success screen. Hurray!

Now you can log in to your site by clicking the Log In button and entering the credentials you provided when you were installing WordPress.

This will take you to the WordPress dashboard.

Congratulations, you’ve successfully installed WordPress and can now start managing your site!

Installing WordPress isn’t as tricky as you may think. By following the advice above, you can get yourself a brand new site with the world’s favorite CMS. Enjoy!

The Best WordPress Themes and Plugins on Envato Market

Explore thousands of the best WordPress themes ever created on ThemeForest and leading WordPress plugins CodeCanyon. Purchase these high-quality WordPress themes and plugins can and improve your website experience for you and your visitors.

Here are a few of the best-selling and up-and-coming WordPress themes and plugins available for 2020.

by Rachel McCollin via Envato Tuts+ Code

TikTok will beat Instagram as it's a talent-based platform, claims Evan Spiegel

TikTok, owned by the Chinese giant ByteDance, made its parent company one of the world's most valuable startups with its popularity. Today TikTok, an app that allows users to make short videos of lip-syncing and dancing, and boasts 1.5 billion downloads. Evan Spiegel, the founder and the CEO of...

[ This is a content summary only. Visit our website https://ift.tt/1b4YgHQ for full links, other content, and more! ]

by Abdullah Matloob via Digital Information World

Germany and US tops the list to request user data, Apple Reveals in its Transparency Report

Recently, Trump started coming at Apple for not helping the FBI, but Apple has responded that they have done whatever is under their control. Apple has already told before that they cannot build backdoors in their system to help the law enforcement agencies. Users save their data on iCloud and...

[ This is a content summary only. Visit our website https://ift.tt/1b4YgHQ for full links, other content, and more! ]

by Madiha via Digital Information World

OpenLayers – High Performance, Feature-Packed Library for Maps

OpenLayers is a high-performance, feature-packed library for creating interactive maps on the web. It can display map tiles, vector data and markers loaded from any source on any web page.

by via jQuery-Plugins.net RSS Feed

You'll Soon Be Able To Choose Who Can Mention You On Instagram

Social media has transformed the way we communicate with others. Where things have changed for positive, there are multiple ways it has ruined the positivity too. In a recent attempt to address these issues, both Facebook and Instagram have tried to make changes to make both platforms...

[ This is a content summary only. Visit our website https://ift.tt/1b4YgHQ for full links, other content, and more! ]

by Aabroo Saeed via Digital Information World