Tech Time Podcast

Agile development has imprinted solid mark in the software development in last 5-6 years. There is a jump from fringe to the mainstream, and the claim of "We are Agile!" is truer at this time in the teams while it wasn't back in 2010.

The Agile Manifesto was written by a group of software developers for their use. Many of the underlying principles of a framework like Scrum assume the existence of an in-house team and working for the business that employs them.

There is a strong argument for

"Agile Methodology is easier in the settings where you have all the control. Adhering to agile frameworks such as Scrum is more difficult within an agency/consulting structure than it is for an in-house development team especially with the client who understands fixed costs, fixed deadlines, and fixed bid contracts."

On this notion, Atish Narlawar speaks with Christopher Cunningham, a Group Technology Director at Huge, to understands "Does Agile works in the client engagements?" and what are the factors which play a significant role to make it happen.

They start the discussion by going through the factors which have changed in the engagement following Agile process. Chris mentions the importance of a shared language which plays a significant role to create a shift where agencies and client services pushing Agile with their customers. This change has worked with a positive note as agencies started to spend more time delivering excellent products, and less time arguing over out-of-date functional specs. Infact he thinks clients are also requesting and even demanding agile practices from their agencies.

Chris mentions even though some contracts bound with a deadline and fixed costs but there are better ways to get overcome with this, and the best way is to get rid of the fear of uncontrolled cost with the clients. With the combination of informed decisions, tangible results, waste reduction, risk transparency and time to market Agile can certainly give enough ammunition to influence customers and build the trust. With delivering a fully-working product at every milestone, Chris mentions agile expects more involvement from the clients at every step, and corporate companies responded to this need with the positive note.

On the reporting side, Agile driven burn down charts, sprint velocity and points breakdown offers the better way of tracking the progress, identifying the impediments than traditional metrics.

Christopher also notes that within an enterprise environment, Agile methodology is restricted to the software development teams. Other parts of an engagement like business, approval workflows and delivery management still go through traditional way, and that's one of the main reason the clients are not able to leverage the full Agile potential. He predicts there will be a positive change in upcoming days and companies will experience company-wide adoption.

Podcast: Tech Time Podcast

Venue: Brooklyn, NY.

Host: Atish Narlawar

Guest: Christopher Cunningham

React Native is a framework for building native apps using Javascript and React js. Since the announcement which came on early 2015 from Facebook React has been one of the hot topics has ever discussed in Mobile community.

With this notion, Atish Narlawar speaks with Nicholas Brown, Founder of React Native NYC meetup. They start the conversation by jumping to the React JS component based framework and then natural progression of extending the web framework to mobile platforms through React Native.

Nicholas briefs the Architecture and introduces the feature of converting Javascript functionality into native platform code. Nicholas clarifies how React Native differs entirely from existing Javascript based mobile frameworks like Cordova and Appcelerator Titanium. He mentions within a year, the number of contribution to React Native exceeds that to the Cordova.

He explains the performance impact of using React Native compared to directly developing with Native code, especially during the transition of Javascript to Native code. But to address this concern, better features and tools has been evolved like live reload and Microsoft CodePush. He also goes through various use cases where developing a mobile solution using React Native turns to be better as compared to native ios/android code.

He thinks once the solution gets developed on one platform, for example, iOS then the same solution can be used for Android with the minimal efforts around of 10% of the total. The discussion then goes through the current adoption of React Native in the tech industry and how most of the company are gearing up themselves meanwhile taking the cautious approach to be ready for next real change. He also shares the Google's attempt to enter into this domain with Flutter.

The discussion winds up with the recommendations for the beginners, with Facebook own tutorial and plugin repository named as React Parts for Native and Web plugins.

Podcast: https://soundcloud.com/techtime

Venue: Brooklyn, NY.

Host: Atish Narlawar

Guest: Nicholas Brown

Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/React-Native-NYC

Links:

https://facebook.github.io/react-native/

https://react.parts/native

https://adtmag.com/blogs/dev-watch/2015/11/google-unveils-flutter.aspx

Atish Narlawar talks to David Sosnowski, a technologist, SEO Analyst, Group Director of Marketing, Inbound and SEO at Huge. They start the discussion by discussing about ever changing landscape of SEO. David explains fundamental principles which has remain same even in 2015 and explains the importance of the user signals like bounce rate, ATOS (average time on site), ATOP (average time on page), conversion rate, click throughs which should be using to guide SEO strategies.

David also shares the insights about how to keep and stay ahead in SEO Learning curve. He also clears the misconception evolves around redirects 401, add notes to the security and keyword selections.

He understand the importance of Machine learning through the introduction of Google ‘RankBrain’ and explains SEO is turning to be a team work with co-ordination with other disciplines like UX and Products.

David concludes the discussion with the mantra of SEO is no different, and definitley its not a rocket science. He recommends to come up with roadmap of “Do, Report, Understand, Do.”

Venue: Huge, Brooklyn, NY.

Host: Atish Narlawar

Contact: [email protected]

Guest: David Sosnowski

Twitter: @SEO_Raptor

Since the age of Geocities Era, CSS has been evolved a lot. It has seen the transition from plain CSS to emerging development framework such as such as OOCSS (Object Oriented CSS), SMACSS and now BEM.

BEM – stands for block, element, modifier. By definition, it is a CSS development methodology specifically designed for flexibility and ease of modification in the mind. In the given podcast episode, Atish Narlawar talks to William Anderson about the BEM. William is a die hard Technologist, Software Engineer and part time Professor at The New School University New York.

The conversation gets a start by going through high-level CSS evolution since the 1990s. William shares the fascinating things in the CSS in 2015 like logical integration, media queries, and animations. Along with he also explains how CSS development became quite complicated down the line due to cascade, responsive design and the javascript itself.

One of the biggest challenges gets added to the newfound complexity includes messy CMS, broken semantics and SEO refactor, and BEM emerged as one of the possible solutions to address these challenges.

With the example of feature card, William explains how BEM tries to fix the issues mentioned, such as complexity, semantics, and decoupling. Using zero specificity, he shares how seamlessly his team were able to integrate SEO tag change in the active project.

William also shares his valuable insight regarding how BEM works with other CSS methodologies such as OOCSS (Object oriented CSS) or SMACSS (smacks). He tries to clarify the lingering haunting doubts about BEM such as BEM is too verbose, and it pollutes the DOM with Blocks, Elements, and Modifiers all cooked in class names. He shares what could be the best strategy for initiating the adoption of BEM into existing projects, and entirely possible barriers team may face during the transitionary switch.

In the end, he also shares valuable resources where someone should start digging about BEM methodology and its related practices.

Venue: Brooklyn, NY.

Host: Atish Narlawar

Guest: William Anderson @TheWAAnderson