TypeScript Demystified

TypeScript can be a confusing term for anyone new to JavaScript development. The first impression of TypeScript for beginners is that it is a programming language, more or less, similar to JavaScript. Even professionals with enough coding experience often fail to define TypeScript. So how can we put the answer to this question - What is TypeScript? TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript. It has optional static typing, classes, and interfaces. TypeScript is not a separate programming language, what makes it different from JavaScript lies in part of its name - Type. Every programming language has data types, In JavaScript these include the commonly used number, string, boolean, etc. To understand TypeScript, we first need to understand how JavaScript behaves with its data types. ...

December 17, 2020 · 6 min · 1118 words · icarnaghan

Getting Started with Entity Modeling in OpenText AppWorks

AppWorks provides a handy feature for modeling business objects through the use of entities. Objects could take the form of any aspect of a business application you are building. For example, if you needed to write an application that would be used as part of a school’s administration system you may include entities that represented objects such as teachers, students, courses, lessons, and so on. AppWorks provides a nice interface for managing these different types of entities and even lets you build relationships. The term entity modeling is not new to this platform, the concept behind this has been around for a long time, but it has traditionally been the responsibility of database engineers or software developers to define. The low-code platform AppWorks provides now enables business analysts to define these entities and relationships, without the need to have a software engineering background. ...

October 27, 2020 · 6 min · 1277 words · icarnaghan

Low-Code Development with OpenText AppWorks

OpenText AppWorks is an application development platform that enables rapid creation of software designed to meet business problems. It’s low-code capabilities means that we can involve requirements specialists and business analysts in the development process while working along-side developers implementing more advanced services integrations and business processes. A few months ago I wrote a couple of articles outlining how to install AppWorks locally using Docker as well as setting up a version control system for your applications using SVN. If you are interested in setting up AppWorks as a development environment, I highly recommend checking these out. ...

October 19, 2020 · 5 min · 989 words · icarnaghan

Understanding Asynchronous JavaScript

The term “asynchronous” is often associated with JavaScript, which can be a confusing concept, especially for beginners. This can become even more confusing because JavaScript is a synchronous language with asynchronous capabilities. In order to understand asynchronous development in general, we need to start with the difference between synchronous and asynchronous programming. In simple terms, executing one task or item at a time is often referred to as synchronous, while executing multiple tasks (or threads) at a time is referred to as asynchronous. ...

September 11, 2020 · 13 min · 2748 words · icarnaghan

Understanding Higher Order Functions in JavaScript

A function is an organized block of code that is created for a specific task. It can accept and return values. The main purpose of using functions is for code reusability and organization. In JavaScript, functions can be considered ‘higher-order’. To better understand this term, we need to look at some basic concepts related to JavaScript functions. Functions in JavaScript Take a look at the following code snippet: function demo(){ console.log("This is a demo function") } demo() This is a very basic example of a JavaScript function. The name of the function is “demo” and its prints “This is a demo function!” in the console. We we can do a lot more with this function, including assigning it to a variable, or passing it to another function as a parameter. This is possible because JavaScript is a functional programming language. ...

September 8, 2020 · 5 min · 898 words · icarnaghan

Quick Intro to Express.js

If you have ever come across Node.js, then you may have heard the word “Express.js”. Express is also a part of popular full-stack web development stacks - MEAN and MERN. M, A/R, and N, meaning MongoDB, Angular/React, and Node.js, respectively are very popular in the web development community, while E, i.e. Express.js is unpopular. Many developers who work with MEAN or MERN stack don’t even know what is the exact meaning of express. So in this article, we will discuss express.js with examples. ...

September 7, 2020 · 10 min · 1949 words · icarnaghan

Up and Running in Node.js for Beginners

The word “Node.js” is very popular today in the web development community. Everyone is talking about Node.js. The IT giants, startups, everyone wants Node.js developers. But what is Node.js and why it is so popular? Simply put, Node.js is nothing but JavaScript outside the browser. Yes, you read it right. Node.js is JavaScript that runs outside the browser. Not much difference, right? But no doubt, Node.js is one of the most popular “language” today. So in this article, we will discuss everything about Node.js. Before we jump to node.js, let’s talk about JavaScript first. ...

August 27, 2020 · 14 min · 2834 words · icarnaghan

Understanding the Role of Kubernetes in Application Development

Traditional software application development depended upon a mirroring of all conditions across launch environments including the supporting hardware structure and configuration, the operating system, and the asset files. Even slight variations between the development environment and the launch environment can result in application error or failure. This model of software development and launch created needless complexity, taxing limited server resources. The development and implementation of Kubernetes has eliminated most of these issues, smoothing out the path from development and testing to launch and implementation. Understanding the role of Kubernetes in your application development is essential if you are to avoid many of these application development and launch issues. ...

August 16, 2020 · 5 min · 942 words · icarnaghan

Creating a Super Simple JavaScript Validated Form

There are times when you need to create a basic HTML form that provides validation to end users. Without leveraging a framework or additional libraries, this can be easily achieved by using JavaScript directly. This article walks through the basic steps of creating a simple validated form using basic selectors and error handling. Our requirements are: For successful submission, all fields must be entered correctly within our validation rules If one or more error occurs, the form will not submit. Feedback provided to the user A correct form with no errors once submitted, will send an email to the recipient In real life we would most likely have a call to a web service or some other piece of code that would execute once a form was submitted with no errors. ...

June 24, 2020 · 9 min · 1743 words · icarnaghan

Setting up a Local SVN Container for your AppWorks Development Environment

In my last post I walked through the process of setting up a local instance of AppWorks 20.2 using the container image from OpenText. Any development work ideally should be managed in Version Control System (VCS). The preferred VCS for OpenText AppWorks is Subversion (SVN). It has been a long time since I used SVN so I needed to quickly bring myself up to speed. Thankfully there is a handy quick start guide at Apache that walks through the various SVN commands. Once you have SVN installed, the ‘svn help’ command also provides a nice breakdown of everything you would need to know to successfully navigate an SVN repository. Since I’m already using Docker for my AppWorks installation, it makes sense that I would also want to use this platform to run my SVN server. ...

June 20, 2020 · 5 min · 966 words · icarnaghan