Forem: Stefan Omerovic

What is Angular Material?

Stefan Omerovic — Tue, 07 Feb 2023 17:52:49 +0000

As I just recently started a new YouTube series on my channel related to Angular and Angular Material, I wanted also to share with you what is Angular Material in this form.

What is Angular Material?

By this image, you can already see that it presents Material Design components for Angular, but it is more than that.

Yes, Angular Material presents a User Interface (UI) Library which is full of components that are specifically created to be used in Angular technology.

Through Angular Material, Angular developers can also create their own custom components, customize already existing components, and all that while Material will handle the hard part.

Let’s talk more about those Components.

What are Components?

We see components through a variety of different technologies and today, it is quite often to recognize components on all modern Websites and Web Applications.

As an Example, Bootstrap as a Framework has its own components, but none of those is on an advanced level as Angular Material handles it.

As an example, Angular Material has components like Form Field, Card, Checkbox, Chip… But next to those simpler components we can use components like Autocomplete, Expansion Panel, Stepper, Tabs, Tree, and many others.

On top of all these components, we can also combine components as well, so we don’t need to use only Autocomplete, but we can combine it to Material Input to do that Autocomplete and maybe even Chip Component to show those selected items from Autocomplete.

The material also has its own library for icons and in Material Library we do have components of Icon that will use and customize Material Icons.

Next to all of this, Material has this nice feature called CDK.

What is CDK?

CDK stands for Component Dev Kit and it's a set of tools that implement common interaction patterns while being unopinionated about their presentation.

This means that it can give us features that are often used on the Web to simplify Web Applications to customers.

What would be those features?

Well, some of those would be Drag and Drop, Accordion, Simpler Layouts, Stepper, Tree, and much more.

What else can we get from Angular Material?

Well, there are a few things that you should know before I wrap up this post.

Angular Material follows up with Angular releases and currently in the time of making this post, both technologies are at version 14.

Angular Material has its themes, so by installing it, we will be able to select and use some of their pre-built themes.

Angular Material also gives us the option to customize and create our themes and use those.

Angular Material gives us the option to write Unit Tests with Harnessing.

Other additions could be said here, but it is sure that through the years, Angular Material will evolve even more.

Community

The last thing that I wish to talk about is the Community itself.

Angular as a technology was developed by Google, Material as a Design Pattern was developed by Google as well. So Google as a company did some nice things by combining those and making things easier for us.

As developers, we can get access to Google Groups related to Angular and Angular Material, to Discord Channel of Angular Community, to Twitter of Angular, and even Angular Blog.

So don’t be afraid, access some of those, learn from other developers, share your experience, pass knowledge, help others, get some ideas from others and make partnerships.

Conclusion

There is much more that should be said on this topic, but I wanted to make this post as brief as possible.

I already mentioned that I am currently releasing Angular Material Series on my YouTube Channel and there you can learn everything from Angular Material.

Angular Material Series → https://bit.ly/3mlsG83

YouTube Channel → https://www.youtube.com/c/Omerko

Until next time.

Learn JSON in Just 15 Minutes - JSON Crash Course

Stefan Omerovic — Tue, 17 Jan 2023 13:16:19 +0000

JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a lightweight data-interchange format that is easy for humans to read and write and easy for machines to parse and generate.It is based on a subset of the JavaScript Programming Language.

To learn JSON in 15 Minutes, Watch This Video!

JSON is a text format that is completely language-independent but uses conventions that are familiar to programmers of the C-family of languages, including C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Perl, Python, and many others.

One of the main advantages of using JSON is its ability to transmit data between a server and a web application, as well as between different systems. This makes it an ideal choice for web and mobile applications that need to transmit data over a network. Additionally, JSON is also easy to read and understand, making it a popular choice for data storage and sharing.

Getting started with JSON is easy. Here are the basics:

JSON consists of key-value pairs, similar to a dictionary in Python or an object in JavaScript. The key is a string, and the value can be a string, number, boolean, null, array, or another JSON object.
JSON uses double quotes for keys and values, and each key-value pair is separated by a comma.
JSON objects are enclosed in curly braces {} and arrays are enclosed in square brackets [].
Here is an example of a JSON object:

{
    "name": "John Smith",
    "age": 30,
    "isStudent": false,
    "courses": ["math", "science", "history"]
}

To parse a JSON object in JavaScript, you can use the JSON.parse() method, like this:

let jsonData = '{"name":"John Smith","age":30,"isStudent":false,"courses":["math","science","history"]}';
let obj = JSON.parse(jsonData);
console.log(obj.name); // "John Smith"

With just these basic concepts, you can start working with JSON in your web and mobile applications. And as you can see, you can learn JSON in just 15 minutes!

JSON is very useful and widely used format in today's web development, it's lightweight and easy to use, so it's a good idea to have a basic understanding of it.

Once again, to learn JSON in 15 Minutes, Watch This Video!

How to Make Money with Programming

Stefan Omerovic — Fri, 06 Jan 2023 13:20:29 +0000

Many Programmes, Coders, Developers can’t get out of “the box”, even if they truly wish to do so.

For many of us, we would like to dive into another specter of Programming and maybe earn a few bucks by doing different things, but still in our sphere.

As a Programmer myself, I indeed felt the need to do something different, maybe it will be fun, maybe I will be able to find an additional stream of income, or maybe I am just doomed to fail and start over, still, I needed to do something differently.

Let me share with you additional ways to make money and still do fun things while not going away from your career a lot.

If you wish to see more content from me, visit my website… www.omerko.com

Blogging

The first thing on my list will be Blogging, not because it is easy, it is not, or I prefer it, I don’t, but because it is the most obvious.

You see, if you wish to write about programming you can do that very easily as it does not require a long experience or a huge knowledge.

Blogging as it is, requires a nice exploration of specifics and passing that information through words that are suitable for the audience.

So, if you plan to write a blog about HTTP Protocol as an example, you should know your audience and pass your knowledge in a most easier way for them to understand.

Now, as Blogging is obvious, it is not easy, to be honest, it is quite hard to be a successful Blogger, specifically in the Programming industry.

First of all, you need to realize that you will need to write multiple blogs per day, quality of those must be top-notch and as those are related to Programming, it is much harder as you will need to understand technology and terms properly and make sure to transform those into suitable words.

YouTube

As a platform with millions of users every day, YouTube is probably one of the best places to learn and teach Programming.

It is well known that it is quite hard to make it on YouTube, but those who did, use YouTube as their main Stream of Income, so that should be enough to motivate you.

As I teach on YouTube as well, let me share with you my usual roadmap, before publishing a new video.

First of all, realize the video subject, explore around it, even if you are sure in your skills, code the example, prepare a script, record a video based on a script and while watching that example, edit the video, render it, upload it, add all information with the best quality for SEO and then publish it.

This is not me wanting to scare you, but it is for you to realize the scope of work needed for it before you start.

Let me share with you some YouTube Channels that I follow for Programming Content.

Traversy Media → https://www.youtube.com/c/TraversyMedia
Fireship → https://www.youtube.com/c/Fireship
The Net Ninja → https://www.youtube.com/c/TheNetNinja

Here is my channel as well → https://www.youtube.com/c/Omerko

Freelancing

Did you ever feel that you have time to spare? Maybe you have a part-time job? Or you are in search of one?

Well, as a Programmer, Freelancing could be just for you.

By being a Freelancer, you won’t go at all away from the Programming aspect, you will earn money, learn new things and still be free.

Freelancing could be a nice additional Stream of Income, especially for more experienced Programmers as you will be able to be paid more.

The big plus of Freelancing is that “free” part. Even if you work for a client, you don’t need to work from an office, you can enjoy the warmth of your home and still make money.

Now, also, Freelancing is not for everyone. I met people that are unable to work from home at all, they feel lazy or blocked by something, so they prefer to work from the office.

My advice, try it, feel it, if you like it, good for you, if not, you can still find different ways to make money as a Programmer, as there are endless possibilities.

Here are some examples of platforms for freelancers.

Upwork → https://www.upwork.com
Freelancer → https://www.freelancer.com

E-Books

This example is for more senior programmers as it requires decent knowledge, professional communication, and the ability to pass knowledge.

In today's era, E-Books are read more than Books as those are easier to make, we have easier access to those and you don’t need to write at least 200 pages so you could sell one.

Many E-Books also have Audio versions and those Audio Books are highly listened to, to the point that people today almost prefer listening to an Audio Book than to some Radio Station.

Here is an example of E-Book library where you can publish your book.

Scribd → https://www.scribd.com

Courses

Next to YouTube and tutorials, programmers often dive into the courses, so creating courses and selling those can be highly profitable.

The course usually requires more than a simple tutorial from organizational point to publishing, but it is also a better Stream of Income.

Courses offer to us a Royalty Stream of Income and for you who don’t know it means that whenever we sell a course, we get some percentage from it as a Royalty.

This also means that our course can make money as long as it exists, so you won’t just build courses but your legacy as well.

Here are some platforms suitable for publishing courses.

Udemy → https://www.udemy.com
SkillShare → https://www.skillshare.com

Here you can see my profiles on those platforms.
Udemy → https://www.udemy.com/user/stefan-omerko
SkillShare → https://www.skillshare.com/user/omerko

Consulting

Now, maybe you are already doing this, but you still don’t know, so you probably don’t make as much as you should.

Consulting is another example for Senior Programmers as it requires experience and deep knowledge.

There are few ways to do consulting as a Programmer, as an example, you can be hired as one to help a team achieve their goals, or you can work as a consultant in 1–1 sessions, but you can also bring yourself to that position in your company by being more active and involved.

Consulting usually brings more perks and higher pay and if you are into something like this, maybe consulting is just the way to go for you.

Workshops

Next to Tutorials and Courses, Workshops are in a similar group. Can you just imagine a live session where you pass your knowledge to multiple viewers?

Now, workshops can be held in many different ways, but if you are communicative and reliable, this could be just for you.

You can host your workshops on websites like Twitch, where you can do Programming assignments or whole projects, and that way people can learn while you can get donations, subscriptions, and followers.

One additional way to create your workshops, especially if you already have an audience is to create a locked one, so people can pay for a sign-up and all of those who did sign-up can come to your life lessons.

Both of these examples can make money and both of those give a bit of fun as well.

Job

Well, one obvious way is to get a job. We all know this, but let’s discuss different ways of jobs that you could have.

I already can guess that most of us are at least part-time or maybe even full-time employed and that most of us probably work from an office.

Obviously, with the latest changes due to COVID-19, you are moved to work from home, but still, once everything is safe you will be back in the office.

Next to office work, I already mentioned in this list of this Freelancing. Freelancing can offer you a full-time position as well.

Remote work is a combination here, so maybe you are a freelancer but full-time employed, so by that you are working for one company remotely, or your company allows you to work remotely without you moving positions.

If you wish to change something, maybe you don’t need to do additional work, but simply ask your Manager to work a bit from home, as that remote work could refresh you for the future as well.

Competition

This is a more specific example, as it requires preparation, knowledge, a sense of competing, and acceptance of failure.

We can see more and more competitions each month, before COVID-19 we could see competitions in person and usually, they come with nice prizes and bonuses.

Now, we can find also competitions online, prizes are not good as they were, but hopefully, soon we will be back in our usual surroundings.

Some examples of Programming Competitions are Code Jamp, Hash Code, Kick Start.

Conclusion

So, did you get an idea of the additional Stream of Income as a Programmer?

Is there something that you would like to try from this list?

Whatever it is, keep your head up, code daily, do at least a little for your additional Stream of Income, and in time, it will become a successful one.

For me, Tutorials, Courses, and Freelancing are the way to go, which of these do you choose?

Angular CLI - Quick Guide

Stefan Omerovic — Fri, 23 Dec 2022 21:22:32 +0000

Angular CLI is one fantastic tool that we will explore through this post. The entire post will be a Quick Guide for it, so if you are a beginner, this post should get you into understanding it.

If you wish to see this post in a video format, click this link → https://youtu.be/t9m_O_SOcSw

If you are into Angular, you can learn it here → https://bit.ly/3hdZvRX

What is Angular CLI

Angular CLI stands for Command Line Interface and it is for Angular Technology. It was developed by Google as Angular is as well.

The main goal of this tool is to help you to Develop, Initialize and Maintain Angular Projects.

Installation

Installing Angular CLI will also install the latest version of Angular. To do that, run the next command.

npm install -g @angular/cli

This command will install Angular and Angular CLI globally on your machine.

With the installation finished, you will be able to use the help command.

ng help

The help command will show you the entire list of commands that you can use and it should look something like this.

Generating a Project

One such Automation Command could be to generate an Angular project. Command itself will create all necessary files and set up the entire project for us.

ng new my-todo-app

In this example, I am creating a new Angular Application which is called my-todo-app.

Replace your application name with mine and you are good to go.

Running a Project Locally

To run your generated project, we first must go into our project and use a command which will open our project on http://localhost:4200.

cd my-todo-app
ng serve

The first command will route ourselves into our project, in my example my-todo-app.

The second command will serve our Angular Project on a local host.

Generate

Even if the creation of Angular application and serving those is nice feet, there is much more automation that we can do with Angular CLI.

For example, we can generate files for our Angular applications like Modules, Components, Services, Guards, and others as well.

ng generate --help

Passing help flag next to generate command, you will get all different files that Angular CLI can generate.

Creating a Component

To create or generate Angular Component with Angular CLI we can run the next method.

ng generate component todo

This will generate our todo folder with todo component files like HTML, CSS, TS, and test file which is SPEC.TS.

Testing

Next to the generation of specific files, Angular CLI can help us with testing as well.

ng test

Command of test will run our testing files and give back to our results of tests.

Angular uses Jasmin and Karma for testing.

Linting

Linting can help us to clear our code and remove redundant code.

ng lint

Command itself will check all of our files and give us the result of that check. If there were some errors or warnings, it will point those to us, so we could resolve those.

Conclusion

This is a quick guide for Angular CLI and if you liked this post, make sure to comment on it and I can create another with more in-depth details about Angular CLI.

If you wish to see this post in a video format, click this link → https://youtu.be/t9m_O_SOcSw

If you are into Angular, you can learn it here → https://bit.ly/3hdZvRX

Until the next time.

Angular 15 Updates: What's new?

Stefan Omerovic — Fri, 02 Dec 2022 16:27:29 +0000

Just recently, Angular came out with the version 15, and this version has some amazing things built in.

If you wish to check the video format of this post, click here.

I would advise to watch the video, as it is more detailed.

Standalone Components

In the Angular 14, we got one cool feature called Standalone Components. This feature was not related only to the components, but to the directives, and pipes.

In the Angular 15, and now improved API, Standalone Components are stable.

This means that we can develop full applications with those, and not use NgModules, if we don't want to.

Because this is the case, Angular has added additional ways to use their modules, like HTTP, or Routing module.

Directive Composition API

The Directive Composition API is a new feature added into the Angular framework.

With this, from now on we can add host directive property to our components, and pass directives into it, instead into our HTML code.

This will keep things more smooth, and private, but still keep the same, if not enhanced functionality.

Image Directive

Another stable feature that will work with Standalone Components and NgModules.

To use it, simply replace src attribute to ngSrc on your images.

This will add default lazy loading, it will optimize your images, and improve load times.

Another cool thing that came with this Image Directive is Fill Mode. From now on, we don't need to use explicit width and height on the images, we can simply use Fill Mode.

Additional Updates

There were additional updates as well, and here are some of those:

Additional ESBUILD Support
New Features in Development
SVG Templates (IN DEVELOPMENT)
File Replacement Support (IN DEVELOPMENT)
Additional Quick Fixes
Generate Standalone Components
More Minor Updates

Debugging Improvements

There are some improvements in the debugging department as well. So from now on, we should get much better error messages.

Angular Material Updates

Additional updates were made to Angular Material as well... Here are those:

MDC
Accessibility Improvements
Identical API Paths
Guide to Update to Angular Material 15
Update Module by Module
Range Selector Support
Customizing Density
CDK Listbox
And More

Conclusion

With all these updates that Angular has, it is worth updating our apps to it.

Once again, to watch the video format of this post, which has more details, click here.

10 Amazing Websites for Web Developers

Stefan Omerovic — Wed, 09 Nov 2022 17:56:40 +0000

Land me just a few minutes of your time as I wish to present to you 10 Amazing Websites for Web Developers.

If you wish to see those websites in a video format, make sure to click the link down below.

TEN | 10 Amazing Websites for Web Developers → YouTube Video

I will start this list with W3Schools, which is an online school to learn Web Development. You can simply select one of their tutorials for specific technology and even specific feature that you would like to build and start your journey.

W3Schools is with us for many years and each of their tutorials and courses will have many different lessons, practices, and examples.

CSS Author is a website where you as a web designer can get into. The website will hold ideas and projects that people made and by those, you can even get some ideas yourself.

The cool thing about is that it also holds collections, like 15 Bootstrap Themes that are easy to use. In that, you would get real 15 themes that are easy to use with some examples as well.

Codrops is another collection website. It is again mostly for web designers even though, Front-End Developers could find it quite useful as well.

There are different collections of features, whole tutorials, articles, and even something called Playground where you can see what others build and build it yourself.

Codewars is a platform based on challenges. So, simply, create your account, select the technology that you are working with and you will be able to select exercise and practice for that technology.

The idea here is to try and solve those challenges and even compete with other developers. Codewars as an idea is here to help us so we can be better at our craft.

You can look at a SitePoint as a Library Website. In that library, we can find many resources suitable for Web Developers.

Some of those resources would have to be Books, Courses, and even Tech Talks that SitePoint is offering.

Dev or Dev Community is a social media website suitable for Software and Web Developers, it even looks similar to Twitter.

Simply, make an account, post something, get to know someone, see the ideas from others, help them if you can, or maybe they could help you.

Such a website helps us in creating of Community for ourselves which can be quite useful.

If you are a Web Developer, it is a must to know Stack Overflow. You can look at it as a Forum for us developers. There, we can post and explain problems that we encountered and the whole community will be able to help us solve those, while we could do the same for others as well.

Next to the forum bit of a website, developers can often find work as there is a section dedicated to remote and office works for developers.

As its name says, DevDocs is a documentation website. Just think about the technology that you work with or you wish to work with. DevDocs will keep you covered.

Website will hold whole documentations of all technologies, so by that, it is useful to use this website at least as a reference to some specific features of specific technologies.

CSS-TRICKS is probably one of the best CSS websites out there that you can find. As it holds resources, tutorials, videos, examples, practices, and even their books.

Every CSS developer should use this website as it can help you solve many problems, but references to it are also quite useful.

The last on this list would have to be CodePen. As a platform for showing our small projects and skills, CodePen came a long way and it is one of the most useful websites for Web Development.

Seeing work that others do could motivate us to build something on our own and CodePen is there for exactly that. Also, it can be used well as a Portfolio.

Now that this list is over, could you share with me some of your favorite websites for Web Development?

Once again, if you would like to see this blog post in video format, make sure to click the link down below.

TEN | 10 Amazing Websites for Web Developers → YouTube Video

Until the next time.

Build Spotify Clone with HTML & CSS

Stefan Omerovic — Tue, 25 Oct 2022 17:49:53 +0000

When I say "Build Spotify Clone," I think about the Homepage UI. Well, in this particular tutorial, we will rebuild the whole Spotify Homepage UI only by using HTML & CSS.

To clarify things, we will use Flexbox for layout, build some simple but nice-looking animations, and even cut our titles with an ellipsis.

Link to Tutorial

https://youtu.be/xVZqEmRQjLM

How to Price Yourself as a Freelancer

Stefan Omerovic — Fri, 21 Oct 2022 10:09:46 +0000

Being a Freelancer comes with specific struggles. One of those is not knowing how to price yourself, or which are the ways to price yourself so you can be paid accordingly while delivering the finished product.

You should know that this is coming from a point of a freelancer. Also, by reading this article, I assume that you already have a Portfolio, Freelancing Career, or at least a Part-Time Job. So this article is not suitable for people who didn’t even start with a freelancing career. As there are many steps to take before pricing yourself.

Also, if you wish to watch this article in a video format, make sure to click the link down below.

How to Price Yourself as a Freelancer → https://youtu.be/kXxZd4bEQUg

Hourly Rate

As a first option, we will have an hourly rate. Being priced hourly is a double-edged sword. Why? Well, let’s see.

If you find a client to work as a full-time freelancer and it is expected from you to be present 8 hours per day, 5 days a week, then being priced hourly is absolutely great.

In this example, let’s say that you agreed to 20$/h. So 40 hours per week would be 800$, which is 3.200$ per month or 38.400$ per year without vacation.

This example is good, but not many freelancers have full-time jobs as freelancers. First of all, it is hard to find that kind of job. And the clients who are searching for Freelancers will mostly search for someone to work part-time or project-based. So, by that, we can see that full-time employment is not so often in the freelancing world.

Now, let’s talk about the bad side of it. Let’s say that you sign a contract where is expected from you to deliver a Landing Page Website. So again, your hourly rate is 20$/h and you thought that you will need around 20 hours for such a project. So you will be paid around 400$.

But, you finished the project in 14 hours and now, you are paid 280$. Obviously, not what you expected. Also, what if you go for 30 hours of work. The client can easily say that they didn’t plan to pay that much as 600$ could be too much for a client. This can also lead to a bad review on your platform or a website where you found that client initially.

Fixed Price

Being fixed price is good, but it can also lead to demotivation. Let me give you an example.

You sign a contract with a client to develop an app for 1.000$ and you plan to work around 40 hours for that app as you think that 40 hours is enough to work on that app and also to be paid that amount.

You suddenly were good and you finished up the app in 25 hours instead. As you used the fixed price model, you are still paid 1.000$ and now you also have additional 15 hours to find your next client.

Great, but how this can lead to demotivation? Let’s say that there were few crucial bugs in the app, so suddenly you had to work 50 hours in total. With the fixed model, you are still paid 1.000$ and you had to work 10 hours longer to finish the project.

Also, not many of us are able to stand our ground and handle clients accordingly. So, some clients can openly tell you to do some additional changes and with those, you will do all that extra work and be paid the only the price that you agreed on, so those 1.000$ in this example.

Pricing in Tiers

Being priced in tiers is good and it will mostly lead to negotiations, where you will be able to get a better deal for additional work.

Let’s say that you are offering 3 tiers to your customers:
Tier 1 — Develop a Website in the Price Range of 200$
Tier 2 — Develop a Website in the Price Range of 500$
Tier 3 — Develop a Website in the Price Range of 1.000$

The client for example can contact you for Tier 1, saying that there is only one page to develop for example. You can try and change that offer now, by adding yours.

For example, you can ask clients to add some additional pages to a website, doing some animations, adding JavaScript code, making a website fully responsive, and so on. With this type of negotiation, you can easily build your price from Tier 1 to Tier 2.

Client with Budget

Many clients will openly tell you their budget. And yes, sometimes they could lie, just to better price, but mostly they will be straightforward and honest with it.

And this here is just up to you. If the client is offering a smaller budget for a bigger project, I would not accept it personally, but if you are someone who is just starting your career as a Freelancer and you need some reviews, or you changed platform as a Freelancer and you need reviews again, this is where you can get those and be satisfied.

One more thing here, you can also alter that budget for clients that are ready to take a step forward, even for clients who lied about their budget.

If those clients truly wish to develop something and they mentioned a small budget. BE CONFIDENT. Show examples and reasons why the project would cost more. As they truly wish to develop it, they will pay you more as long as you have the necessary skills.

We Don't Have a Big Budget

As I mentioned clients like this, let’s talk about those as well. There are clients who will openly tell you that they don’t have a big budget, well, not a suitable budget for a project.

They could lie, or tell truth, but either way, it will point only to one thing. They truly don’t wish to pay for your services. Just be prepared for something like this.

If you continue to work with such clients, there is quite a big chance that they will ask you to work for free. Or to just make some smaller changes without payment.

This can often happen and it can stay like that for a longer period. Talking from my perspective, I would openly refuse any offers from those clients.

Those clients can often either you as well, but I would usually point to every single small thing that should be done on a project so the project could be successfully finished and with those, they will realize that their budget is not suitable for such a project or you as a Freelancer.

BE CONFIDENT

With this article, you should know more about pricing and How to Price Yourself as a Freelancer. We went through several pricing models and also examples for all of those.

Now, if you wish to watch the video format of this article, make sure to click the link down below.

How to Price Yourself as a Freelancer → https://youtu.be/kXxZd4bEQUg

Also, make sure to subscribe to my YouTube Channel, as there you will find many Web Development Tutorials and Similar Discussions.

Omerko YouTube Channel → https://www.youtube.com/c/Omerko/

5 Learning Methods for Self Taught Web Developers

Stefan Omerovic — Fri, 14 Oct 2022 11:20:24 +0000

As a Self Taught Web Developer myself, I found it hard to learn due to bad resources, or just not understanding resources at all. So this time, I will share with you my personal choice of five different methods to learn Web Development.

I would also advise you to not just stick to one choice, but through your career, try and use all of these, as there will be the time when one of these will help you much more than the other, but also that same one in different situations won’t even give you a grasp of knowledge.

Now, don’t forget that you can also watch a full video on this topic, just click the link below.

Watch Video → Learning Methods for Self Taught Web Developers

Courses

I would like to start this list of five with courses. I don’t just think courses that we buy on Udemy or watch on SkillShare or any other similar platform. I am also thinking of all courses, tutorials, and snippets that you could find on the web.

Learning through courses is good, as mostly we are creating real-life projects through courses. Usually, courses would start with lessons for beginners, but as we progress, it will pick up the pace.

Developing real-life projects could give you a really good sense of organization, dedication, you will see all that good work that should be put into a project and even think out of the box a bit.

You should also keep in mind that there is a consequence from learning through courses. So, don’t get used to code through the course, but use course content as guidance, or a reference. Make sure to code on your own, as there will be specific issues and blockades that the course could not solve for you.

Written and Audio Material

This one would be a really good and almost harmless way of learning. Learning through written material means that you would mostly learn through books. So, it should be easy. Get out, buy the book for specific technology and just keep your head in it.

Books will hold each little piece of information for technology that you need. So this should be a good way of learning. But, what about those who are not in a friendly relationship with books?

Audio material is also one way of learning, as you can listen to audiobooks, audio materials for a specific technology, and as usual, podcasts. This is also a great way to catch up on something, learn something new and even expand your knowledge.

As an example, I use this platform called CodePen, where I post my code from time to time. CodePen also has its Podcast and from time to time, I make sure to listen to a bit of it and you can do that too. With their podcast, I learned a lot in fields that I usually lack, like DevOps in general, servers, deployment, and much much more.

As you can see, this can be a nice way to learn and catch up on technology. Also, you can see obvious holes here, as you won’t mostly catch the whole podcast, or you won’t understand audiobooks fully, and the book itself is a hard way to keep a reference from. So keep that in mind.

Other People

Okay, to be honest, this one will put you in fifth gear. It is great to learn with other people, like your colleagues, team members, coworkers, partners, and so on.

This is probably the fastest and most reliable technique of learning to go with. As working and learning with others will allow you to learn new technology, implement complex features, solve hard problems. Also, most importantly… It motivates you!

There is just something in seeing others doing a better job than you. You will go into a competitive mode where you will make sure to learn and work even harder.

As with everything, this one also has its catch. If you are a self taught web developer and you are on top of that a freelancer, well you won’t be around people with the same interest. Which means that you won’t have people to learn from.

Also if you are in a big team of people, or even a smaller one surrounded by grumpy people. In the same way, you won’t have people to learn from, or those that could pass knowledge to you, simply… won’t.

Code Itself

Living in this era is great for this. As we are kind of surrounded by code and you can simply learn how to code just by looking at it.

To give you some examples, where we do have quite a lot of resources now online, we also have whole platforms with code examples, technologies today have their documentations and of course, read your code, from your projects.

One thing that we lack here would be an explanation. This doesn’t mean that people that are writing those code examples, documentation, and blogs are not doing their job properly. It is just that… we cannot feel it properly, as we would feel it from a person telling us on live sessions, courses, and even in real life.

Create

Finally, one of my favorites. Create, build… just work on something.

This is a little bit advanced technique, as it requires you to know at least the basics of technology that you wish to properly learn.

Through work, through code, you will feel probably mixed emotions. Like if you are doing good, then you will be at the top of the mountain, but if you are doing bad, well, you are at the very bottom.

You should know that this shouldn’t bother you. We all as web developers have our ups and downs and even senior web developers tend to be stuck on even simple things. It is just the nature of our work, so adjust and overcome.

Conclusion

This list of five could help you and to some, it will probably, but don’t forget to be consistent. You need to put in the work every day, no matter if you are just starting your journey as a Web Developer. Code at least one hour per day and make sure to enjoy your journey.

If you wish to see the video format of this blog post, make sure to click the link down below.

Watch Video → Learning Methods for Self Taught Web Developers

Subscribe → Omerko YouTube Channel

How did COVID-19 Impact Software Industry

Stefan Omerovic — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 19:30:07 +0000

We had and still have a long ride to go with this current situation called Corona Virus. And I hope that you are all safe and well.

If you wish to take a look into the video resource of this post, make sure to click link down below.

How Did COVID-19 Impact Software Industry

What is COVID-19?

Well, I guess that we all know by now, but, let’s remind ourselves what is the Corona Virus itself and disease behind it.

Disease

COVID-19 is a infectious disease caused by newly discovered Corona Virus. It started in December of 2019 in Wuhan, China. Pandemic started in March in 2020.

Virus

The virus that caused COVID-19 is mainly transmitted through droplets generated when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or exhales. These droplets are too heavy to hang in the air, and quickly fall on floors or surfaces.

Statistics for COVID-19 until now are not looking so good, as many people were infected and our death count is in high numbers.

There were more than 618M of infected cases through our planet and from those we lost more than 6.55M of people due to the COVID-19 or some other diseases that were caused or involved COVID-19.

Impact on Software Industry

Public Gatherings

As COVID-19 is infectious virus, we as a society had to go in a lockdown and pandemic alarm was raised. By that, all public gatherings including summits, conferences were postponed or shut due to the virus.

Economy, Transport of Goods

During pandemic, measures were extreme. As much as those helped with Virus, our normal social life didn’t exist, which caused even raids in stores, as by know we know that very popular Toilet Paper raid.

During Pandemic chances were high that equipment, or any type of goods won’t make it’s destination. We can even confirm that after pandemic in some countries, many of those hold even higher price now.

Job Security

Okay, we know that this is not causing just the issue in Software Industry, but all industries as well. To be honest, Software Industry could easily adapt as most of the work done, could be finished even from home.

Still, many companies decided to close, or cut on their salaries and funds for their developers. So many developers lost their jobs or struggled to maintain one.

How it felt?

A Lot to Take on

Pandemic was extreme indeed, yes we had to wear masks and we still do, but at the time, it felt odd for many, even though it helped us to coexist.

Many were just too scared, locked in their homes, but we all also know people who are just not willing to cooperate for our better life.

So I guess that even it was a lot to take on, it gave us the experience and realization of life, society and togetherness.

Development and Work

Most people had sense of scariness for their job position, but many were able to continue normal workflow. Freelancing was almost not in danger at all and I can confirm that as a freelancer myself.

Many had to adjust, moving to their home offices and continuing from there, which gave a lot more freedom to individual and as many big corporates wish to control employees, working from home worked for both parties, as employee were more free, they were also more productive.

Struggles

Before pandemic itself, all of us had our struggles, someone struggled to get a job, some struggled in relationship, some with social skills and so on.

Pandemic moved our fears, our fears were able to grow even larger and that struggle that we had, well just wen to another level. Jobs were hard to find, even someone that had secure one, couldn’t tell it for sure. Emotions moved us and being social was not an option anymore.

One thing is for sure, I guess that we harden a bit and that this experience will make our life easier starting from now.

Focus

How some were able to went through whole pandemic and still be awake of themselves? Well, simple, focus.

Focus plays big role in our life and through pandemic, those who were able to focus on their work, on their changes, on their relationships weren’t bored or even scared, they just kept going.

What Future Holds for Developers and What to do?

Check your Portfolio, Projects, Repos

I know that we endured some bad times, but we should not give up. While in pandemic and even after, we as developers could prepare ourselves for better future.

That would include things like finish up your personal projects, make your portfolio better or create a new one, go through your repos, your old code, learn from it and become better.

Demand Skills

Don’t lose your time by just existing, make sure to learn. Even if you are already established developer, learning is what got you there.

Make sure to learn some of demanding skills this days. Some of those will only grow after this whole chaos and you don’t wish to miss a train.

Increase Traffic

This is not obviously in real life, but more of your online one. If you have a project, blog, app, you could try to move more traffic to that, as many companies and startups did, which increased their sale and revenue even during pandemic itself.

Secure Work

If you had interviews with clients, you could secure those. Don’t be like me and skip work, be smarter and work your way into securing long term relationships.

Even you who already have a job, make sure to learn and be better in it. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, from those questions will come answers with experience, so by that learn and secure your position.

Invest

Stock market, crypto market, real estate market, all of those changed a lot during pandemic and it is still good to invest. As soon, prices will go up and that could make a good profit for you. You could also invest in your projects, apps and so on.

Stay Safe and Take Care of You

Be smart, take care of hygiene, always wear mask and always be at the distance from another person at lest 2 meters. Health is most important.

Once again, if you wish to see video resource of this post, make sure to click link down below.

How Did COVID-19 Impacted Software Industry

Also, make sure to subscribe to my channel as that is the place where I post Web Development updates as well as tutorials.

Omerko YouTube Channel

Take Care and Stay Safe.

Back End Web Development

Stefan Omerovic — Tue, 27 Sep 2022 15:55:24 +0000

Back End Web Development is a vast topic for discussion, as it is not requiring specific skill, or a skill set, but it can be done and managed by many. Let’s see what Back End Development is, some of the skills that we could acquire to work with it, tools and more.

If you wish to see video format of this article, make sure to click this link — Back End Web Development

What is Back End Development?

Back End Development is also known as a Server Side Development. We as developers work on Back End systems to create functionalities, like Authentication, Authorization, Better Validation, Payment Processing and even Manipulation of Data.

Server side development is something that is not visible to an everyday user, so it is much safer to create functionalities with personal data on a Back End and call those from a Front End.

History

Since we have the HTTP Protocol, our development grew. HTTP Protocol is something that our Client Side uses to contact our Server Side and our Back End Side uses it to contact Third Party if needed and return response to a Client Side.

Today, we are able to develop API’s, Applications, Software and much much more using Back End Development.

Skills

Mostly, the developer will select his language by preference, so how the developer plans his career, does a specific company require a specific skill set, or does a specific project require specific technology and so on.

Node.js — Is a JavaScript Runtime Environment that is built on Chrome’s V8 Engine. It is a Async and event driven tool that is made to build scalable network applications. It can also support developers with Frameworks like Express.js, Meteor.js and many others.
Python — Is open source, high-level programming language. Can be used for general purposes, so it could be used to create Web Apps, APIs, Desktop Software, Games etc. It can also support developers with Frameworks like Django, Flask and so on.
PHP — Is widely used server side scripting language used to create dynamic and interactive web apps. It is well suited for Web Development and it can support developers with Frameworks like Laravel, Symfony and so on.
Java — Is a general purpose programming language that is class-based and object-oriented. It is also well organized and easy to understand. It can support developers with Frameworks like Spring, Selenium and so on.
C# — Is also used for general purposes, it is generic, functional and object-oriented. It was made in 2000 and it is highly used to this day. It can support developers with Frameworks like ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Core and so on.

Next to these languages, developers are also able to learn many others as all of these are highly used to this day. To mention some other languages, developers can also learn C++, Go, Kotlin, Ruby, Scala and many others.

Tools

Now to mention some of the tools that Back End developer has to use to make his work more valuable and truly be Back End Developer.

APIs — Develop, Read, Use for Multiple Purposes.
Text Editor — To write code, some of the well known would be, Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, Sublime Text, Atom…
JSON — JavaScript Object Notation, used to show data in a specific syntax, so data formatting.
Version Control System — To handle versions of code for a project, some of those would be Git, Vim and so on.
Database — To store and manipulate data, some of those would be MongoDB, MySQL, MariaDB…
Cloud Hosting — To host Apps, Software and APIs, some of those would be AWS, Heroku.

Career

Career of a Back End Developer can be really different, so this is specific to a person, as everything is with a Back End Developer. As you choose which skills to learn, you also choose which Career Path you want to have.

Freelance:

Usually a nice Portfolio with a couple of good projects is a nice start to get clients. It involves Self Learning through courses, documentations and tests. Hard time is learning, as developers had to do it on their own without any help, but also rewards a freedom upon success. Developers usually get clients on websites like Upwork, Freelance…

Office Job:

Following path after college, camps and school, developers tend to take a look into jobs in the office. Most companies have their own skill set that developers should know, so developers have to focus on those. Apply, interview, test and you get a potential job or at least practice. Once you land a job, it is easier to learn as you have people around you with similar skills, it is also a mostly secure job, but lacks freedom.

Conclusion

Touching this very root of Back End Development could not clarify for you the whole process of learning and being a Back End Web Development.

To learn about Back End Development, make sure to watch this video — Back End Web Development

If you like to see more of my content, feel free to check my other posts. Also, make sure to subscribe to my YouTube Channel.

Front End Web Development

Stefan Omerovic — Fri, 23 Sep 2022 19:02:45 +0000

For many beginners, Front End Web Development or Front End Web Developer as terms are still not clarified. That’s why through this article you will be able to learn about those terms and all skills that one as a Developer should know to work in Web Development Industry as a Front End Developer.

If you wish to see video format of this article, make sure to click this link — Front End Web Development

What is Front End Development?

Front End Development is known as a Client Side of the Website, or Application. In that said, everything that we see through different websites that we visit, everything was created through Front End Side.

History

Back in the days, Front End Development wasn’t vast as it is today. Back then, Front End Developers were able to work only with Design of the pages and it was quite a challenge to manipulate the DOM ( Document Object Model ).

Now, Front End has much more work to do. As JavaScript grew, JavaScript Frameworks were introduced to us ( Angular, React.js, Vue.js… ). With modern JavaScript and it’s Frameworks we as Front End Developers are able to do much much more.

Skills

As a Front End Developer myself, through several years of experience I learned which skills would be required for a Front End Development and which are more optional. By saying Optional, I mean, we do have several different skills that we can use to essentially do similar or same work.

Main Skills:

HTML / HTML5 — Hyper Text Markup Language is essential for every Front End Developer as it gives us the option to create our markups with its elements. HTML uses Tags and those are using Attributes for best performance and quality of our Web Pages.
CSS / CSS3 — Cascading Style Sheet is a language that offers to us option to style our page. CSS will do that by targeting specific elements in our HTML by their Tag or Attribute and set properties of styles that we wish to change.
JavaScript — Scripting Language that is being used through all of modern browsers out there. It’s popularity is at the very top and next to Python it is one of most Used Programming Languages today, even though Python and JavaScript are used for different type of Development.

Optional Skill:

CSS Preprocessor — Preprocessors such as SASS/SCSS and Less offers us variety of techniques that we can use to make our syntax better in CSS, organize better our CSS and each of those has their own perks like using mixins to not repeat our code.
Frameworks — Such as Bootstrap or Materialize will give us sets of stylings that we can already use with prebuilt components as well. Those also includes their own Grid Systems for Responsive Websites and many options to customize those for our needs.
JavaScript Frameworks — As I mentioned, Frameworks like Angular, React.js, Vue.js and many others gave more life to Front End Web Development. Using those, we are able to create Single Page Applications with variety of different tools.

Tools

Let’s now see some amazing Tools that we as Front End Web Developers can use to improve the quality of our work.

Text Editor — Well, yes we do need one if we wish to write code and some of those would be Visual Studio Code, Sublime Text, Atom and many others.
Git — It’s a Version Control for our Code. So it handles version of our code and it is able to branch out those and merge those together making work in team quite easy.
Design Editors — As Front End Developer works directly with the page itself, it is highly suggested to know at least Photoshop or Figma or some other similar software so you can be sure to create those pages by design.
Terminal — Well whole workflow with terminal is important as Front End Developers can often work with Git or even Module Packages and mostly we manage those directly in terminal.
NPM — Node Package Manager is a Bundle of Packages that we can use and next to the NPM, we have similar ones like Chocolatey or Bower.
Bundlers — Todays technologies have bundlers already fully setup, but it is highly suggested to at least understand how those will work as those offers to us Smaller Bundle Sizes and Faster Loading.

Career

Career of a Front End won’t be same for everyone. Even if we do need to know specific technologies and go through similar process to learn those, Front End Developers could have quite different career paths.

Me personally, I like working as a Freelancer and many Developers choose that path. Many of those works even remotely for a company which still goes as a Freelance work as individual has it’s free space and time.

For you, maybe you wish to get an Office Job and that is good as well. With recent popularity in JavaScript Frameworks, many big companies now are hiring Front End Developers.

Some other options for you would be to work for a Startup, work on a Project Basis and even work on your own project that you eventually would deploy and show to entire world.

Conclusion

Touching this very root of Front End Development could not clarify for you the whole process of learning and being a Front End Web Development.

To learn about Front End Development, make sure to watch this video — Front End Web Development

If you like to see more of my content, feel free to check my other posts. Also, make sure to subscribe to my YouTube Channel.