Annyce Davis

Helping you write beautiful code

Frustration-Free Code Reviews

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#wocintechchat

Hopefully, code reviews are already a part of your software development process. They should be a collaborative, non-judgemental tool for improving code quality and decreasing knowledge silos. Yet instead, they often serve as a source of frustration and fear. But why?

Well, if this was a play we’d have the following parts:

  • The code
  • The Author
  • The Author’s Ego
  • The Reviewer
  • The Reviewer’s Ego

As you can imagine bringing this cast of characters together can be a challenge! Especially since we want to do so in a way that results in high-quality software. Thus we need a plan, just like any good play has a well-written script.

Let’s look at the following areas and how they contribute to a frustration-free code review:

  • Goals
  • Pull Requests
  • CI Integration
  • Giving Comments
  • Responding to Comments

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Talk: Getting a Grip on GraphQL

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GraphQL is a query language for your API. This allows you to interact with your existing web services and databases in a new way. Instead of relying on a predetermined output structure from your API, you can “query” it and choose only the fields that you’re interested in. In this talk, learn what GraphQL is all about and how you can take advantage of it in your applications.

A few key GraphQL terms we’ll cover are:

  • Fields/Types
  • Variables
  • Queries/Mutations

We’re going to explore how you can create a GraphQL Server with a stack written entirely in Kotlin. Then we’ll take a look at how you can integrate the Apollo Client library inside of a Kotlin-powered Android application. GraphQL isn’t going away, so here’s your chance to get a grip on this exciting technology!

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How to Create a GraphQL API in Kotlin

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There are several freely available datasets online. One platform I came across was Kaggle. It supports analytics competitions based on user-mined datasets. After a bit of digging, I uncovered a CSV file of user reported UFO Sightings. This turned out to be interesting data. For instance, which countries had the most reported UFO sightings? Is there a particular day of the week where sightings occur the most? I had so many questions! My first step however, was to expose the data as a GraphQL API.Continue Reading

[NEW COURSE]: “Intermediate Kotlin for Android Developers”

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My second course with LinkedIn Learning is now available, “Intermediate Kotlin for Android Developers”! As an avid fan of the Kotlin programming language, I had lots of fun putting this course together. I hope you enjoy watching and learning!

Course Description:

Kotlin is now officially supported by Google as an Android development language. If you’re an Intermediate Developer interested in learning more about Kotlin, this course can help you get acquainted with this concise, fun language by learning about its efficiencies and power in Android development! The course starts with a general overview of what Kotlin has to offer, and how to leverage the Kotlin Android Extensions plugin. It also explains how to work with Anko, and provides an overview of some of the library’s main artifacts: commons, layouts, and coroutines. To wrap up, the course covers how to work with collections.

Topics Included:

  • What Kotlin has to Offer
  • Working with Lambdas
  • Common Android Extension functions
  • Kotlin Android Extensions overview
  • Making use of the Anko library
  • Working with Coroutines
  • Nullability and Collections

For more great video content, check out my course page!