Posted by Lyanne Alfaro, DevRel Program Supervisor, Google Developer Studio
Developer Journey is a brand new month-to-month sequence to highlight various and international builders sharing relatable challenges, alternatives, and wins of their journey. Each month, we’ll highlight builders world wide, the Google instruments they leverage, and the sort of merchandise they’re constructing.
We’re kicking off #DevJourney in November to present members of our neighborhood the possibility to share their tales via our social platforms. This month, it’s our pleasure to function 4 members spanning merchandise together with Google Developer Professional, Android, and Cloud. Take pleasure in studying via their entries under and be looking out on social media platforms, the place we can even showcase their work.
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| Sierra OBryan, Google Developer Professional, Android |
Sierra OBryan
Google Developer Professional, Android
Cincinnati, OH
What Google instruments have you ever used?
As an Android developer, I exploit many Google instruments daily like Jetpack Compose and different Android libraries, Android Studio, and Materials Design. I additionally wish to discover a number of the different Google instruments in private tasks. I’ve constructed a Flutter app, poked round in Firebase, and skilled my very own ML mannequin utilizing the mannequin maker.
Which device has been your favourite to make use of? Why?
It’s arduous to decide on one however I’m actually enthusiastic about Jetpack Compose! It’s actually thrilling to have the ability to work with a brand new and evolving framework with a lot power and enter coming from the developer neighborhood. Compose makes it simpler to shortly construct issues that beforehand may very well be fairly complicated like animations and customized layouts, and has some very cool tooling in Android Studio like Dwell Edit and recomposition counts; all of which enhance developer effectivity and app high quality. One in all my favourite issues about Compose normally is that I feel it’s going to make Android improvement extra accessible to extra folks as a result of it’s extra intuitive and simpler to get began and so we’ll see the Android neighborhood proceed to develop with new views and backgrounds bringing in new concepts.
Google additionally gives loads of actually useful instruments for constructing extra accessible cellular apps and I’m actually glad these necessary instruments additionally exist! The Accessibility Scanner is out there on Google Play and may determine some frequent accessibility pitfalls in your app with recommendations on the best way to repair them and why it’s necessary. The “Accessibility in Jetpack Compose” code lab is a superb beginning place for studying extra about these ideas.
Please share with us about one thing you’ve constructed previously utilizing Google instruments.
A favourite private challenge is a (very) easy flower figuring out app constructed utilizing ML Equipment ’s Picture Labeling API and Android. After the 2020 ML-focused Android Developer Problem, I used to be very interested by ML Equipment but in addition nonetheless fairly intimidated by the concept of machine studying. It was surprisingly straightforward to observe the documentation to construct and tinker with a customized mannequin after which add it to an Android app. I only in the near past migrated the app to Jetpack Compose.
What recommendation would you give somebody beginning of their developer journey?
Discover a neighborhood! Like most issues, growing is extra enjoyable with pals.
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| Harun Wangereka, Google Developer Professional, Android |
Harun Wangereka
Google Developer Professional, Android
What Google instruments have you ever used?
I am an Android Engineer by occupation. The instruments I exploit on a day-to-day foundation are Android because the framework, Android Studio because the IDE, and a number of the Jetpack Libraries from the Android Staff at Google.
Which device has been your favourite to make use of? Why?
Jetpack libraries. I really like these libraries as a result of they resolve many of the frequent ache factors we, as Android builders, confronted earlier than they got here alongside. Additionally they concisely resolve them and supply finest practices for Android builders to observe.
Please share with us about one thing you have constructed previously utilizing Google instruments.
At my office, Apollo Agriculture, I collaborate with cross-functional groups to outline, design and ship new options for the agent’s and agro-dealer’s Android apps, that are solely written in Kotlin. We’ve got Apollo for Brokers, an app for brokers to carry out farmer-related duties and Apollo Checkout, which helps farmers try varied Apollo merchandise. With these two apps, I am helping Apollo Agriculture to make financing for small-scale farmers accessible to everybody.
What recommendation would you give somebody beginning of their developer journey?
Be good to your self as you study. The journey will be fairly arduous at instances however bear in mind to present your self time. You’ll be able to by no means know all of the issues directly, so attempt to study one factor at a time. Do it constantly and it’ll repay within the very finish. Bear in mind additionally to hitch current developer communities in your space. They assist lots!
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| Richard Knowles, Android Developer |
Richard Knowles
Android Developer
Los Angeles, CA
What Google instruments have you ever used?
I’ve been constructing Android apps since 2011, after I was in graduate college finding out for my Grasp’s Diploma in Laptop Engineering. I constructed my first Android app utilizing Eclipse which gave the impression to be an amazing device on the time, at the least till Google’s Android Studio was launched for the primary time in 2014. Android Studio is such a strong and phenomenal IDE! I’ve been utilizing it to construct apps for Android telephones, tablets, smartwatches, and TV. It’s superb how the Android Accessibility Take a look at Framework integrates with Android Studio to assist us catch accessibility points in our layouts early on.
Which device has been your favourite to make use of? Why?
My favourite device by far is the Accessibility Scanner. As a developer with a listening to incapacity, accessibility is essential to me. I used to be born with a sensorineural listening to loss, and wore listening to aids up till I used to be 18 after I determined to get a cochlear implant. I’m a heavy closed-captioning consumer and I depend on accessibility each single day. Once I was youthful, earlier than the smartphone period, even via the start of the smartphone period, it was difficult for me to totally get pleasure from TV or movies that didn’t have captions. I’m so glad that the world is beginning to adapt to these with disabilities and the attention of accessibility has elevated. The truth is, I selected the software program engineering subject as a result of I needed to create software program or apps that will enhance different folks’s lives, the identical means that expertise has made my life simpler. Ensuring the apps I construct are accessible has at all times been my high precedence. Because of this the Accessibility Scanner is considered one of my favourite instruments: It permits me to effectively take a look at how accessible my user-facing modifications are, particularly for these with visible disabilities.
Please share with us about one thing you’ve constructed previously utilizing Google instruments.
At Twitter, one of many Accessibility Expertise Staff’s initiatives was to enhance the expertise of picture descriptions and the usage of alt textual content. Do you know that whenever you put photos in your Tweets on Twitter, you’ll be able to add descriptions to make them accessible to individuals who can’t see photos? If sure, that’s nice! However do you at all times bear in mind to do it? Don’t fear if not – you’re not alone. Many individuals together with myself neglect so as to add picture descriptions. So, we applied Alt Textual content reminders which permit customers to decide in to be notified after they tweet photos with out descriptions. We even have been working to reveal alt textual content for all photos and GIFs. What which means is, we at the moment are displaying an “ALT” badge on photos which have related various textual content or picture descriptions. Normally, alt textual content is primarily used for Talkback customers however we needed to permit customers not utilizing a display screen reader to know which photos have various textual content, and naturally permit them to view the picture description by deciding on the “ALT” badge. This function helped accomplish two issues: 1) Customers that will have low-vision or different disabilities that will profit from obtainable various textual content can now entry that textual content; 2) Customers can know which photos have various textual content earlier than retweeting these photos. I personally love this function as a result of it will increase the attention of Alt textual content.
What recommendation would you give somebody beginning of their developer journey?
What an thrilling time to begin! I’ve three ideas I might like to share:
1) Don’t begin coding with out reviewing the specs and designs rigorously. Draw and map out the structure and technical design of your work earlier than you bounce into the code. In different phrases, work smarter, not tougher.
2) Take the time to learn via the developer documentation and the supply code. You’ll turn into an skilled extra shortly in the event you perceive what is occurring behind the scenes. Whenever you name a perform from a library or SDK, get within the behavior of trying on the supply code and implementation of that perform so as to not solely study as you code, but in addition discover alternatives to enhance efficiency.
3) Study accessibility as early as potential, ideally similtaneously studying every part else, in order that it turns into a behavior and never one thing you must pressure in a while.
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| Lynn Langit, GDE/Cloud |
Lynn Langit
GDE/Cloud
Minnesota
What Google instruments have you ever used?
So many! My favourite Google Cloud providers are CloudRun, BigQuery, Dataproc. Favourite Instruments are Cloud Shell Editor, SSH-in browser for Compute Engine and Massive Question Execution Particulars.
Which device has been your favourite to make use of? Why?
I really like to make use of the open supply Variant Transforms device for VCF [or genomic] information recordsdata. This device will get bioinformaticians working with BigQuery shortly. Researchers use the VariantTransforms device to validate and cargo VCF recordsdata into BigQuery. VariantTransforms helps genome-scale information evaluation workloads. These workloads can include a whole bunch of 1000’s of recordsdata, hundreds of thousands of genomic samples, and billions of enter data.
Please share with us about one thing you’ve constructed previously utilizing Google instruments.
I’ve been working with groups world wide to construct, scale, and deploy a number of genomic-scale information pipelines for human well being. Latest use instances are information evaluation in help of Covid or most cancers drug improvement.
What recommendation would you give somebody beginning of their developer journey?
Anticipate to spend 20-25% of your skilled time studying in the course of your profession. All public cloud providers, together with Google Cloud, evolve continuously. Constructing successfully requires realizing each cloud patterns and providers at a deep stage.
