In today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape, partnering with the right development team can make or break the success of your tech project. Finding the right development partner is essential whether you’re an established company trying to update your operations or a startup looking to launch a ground-breaking product. In this blog , we will examine the crucial elements to take into account when choosing a development partner to ensure a fruitful and successful relationship. By adhering to these recommendations, you can make a choice that is in line with your objectives and maximize on the potential for success.

1) Define Your Project Requirements

The  first step in choosing the best development partner for your  project is defining your project requirements. By doing so you can provide a thorough document that serves as a reference during the selection process. Let us now look at the importance of defining your project requirements:

• By outlining  project requirements, you can create a clear goal for what you intend to accomplish. Start by identifying the goals and desired results of your  project. Then go on to determine the precise features and functionalities you need, like user experience, performance, security, scalability, system integration and so on. It also helps find development partners who can work within the budget that has been set.
• Ensure that the technical stack is defined  well. Choose programming languages, frameworks, and platforms that best meet the objectives of your project. By doing so you can  target development partners who have knowledge and expertise in those particular subjects. This can help you by minimizing the learning curve and increasing efficiency.
• Setting up a reasonable timeline is essential. Establish the launch date you want and any important checkpoints along the way. Potential development partners might use this data to determine their availability and capacity to cooperate with you.

2) Evaluate their Technical Knowledge and Experience

By doing an evaluation, you can  be sure that the partner has the abilities to carry out your project’s needs and produce a successful result. The importance of assessing technical knowledge and experience are as follows: 

• Expertise in Relevant Technologies: Evaluate the partner’s expertise in the particular platforms and technologies needed for your project as they will be more capable of handling problems, enhancing performance, and coming up with creative solutions. Examine their past projects, case studies, and customer feedback to gauge their experience dealing with such technologies.
• Structured vetting processes- As  demonstrated by GoodWorks TestRocket Assessment Platform and Netskill Upskilling Platform, structured vetting processes play a pivotal role in establishing successful business partnerships. These processes, encompassing rigorous certification, AI-matching, talent benchmarking, and personalized development paths, ensure optimal candidate alignment and growth. By prioritizing structured vetting, companies enhance talent acquisition, foster upskilling, and strengthen their HR and L&D strategies for future challenges.
•  Industry Experience: Take into account the partner’s experience in the industry. An experienced development partner will be more knowledgeable about the challenges, rules, and practices unique to the business. Throughout the development process, they can use their knowledge to offer sensible ideas and  insightful commentary.
• Complex Project Management Skills: Consider the partner’s background managing projects of comparable complexity and size. A development partner who has completed complicated projects successfully in the past displays their capacity to overcome obstacles, effectively use resources and produce high-quality outcomes. 

3) Assess their Communication and Collaboration Skills

Understanding project requirements, addressing issues, and maintaining a healthy working relationship are all based on effective communication and collaboration. This is why it’s so important to evaluate these abilities:

• Clear Understanding of Requirements: A  development partner with strong communication skills will actively listen to your project’s requirements and, if necessary, asks for clarification to fully comprehend your ambitions, goals, and anticipations. This ensures that everyone is on the same page and lessens the possibility of miscommunication or inconsistent deliverables.
• Responsive and proactive communication: Search for a partner who communicates in a proactive and responsive manner by offering regular updates, status reports, and feedback. They should respond to your questions and resolve your problems in a timely and efficient manner. Maintaining transparency, controlling expectations, and ensuring a smooth project progression all benefit from frequent and open communication.
• Collaboration and problem-solving skills: A development partner with effective collaboration skills actively participates in conversations, contributing knowledge and ideas based on their expertise and can even  explain technical ideas to stakeholders who aren’t technically savvy. In addition, the partner should be able to solve problems creatively and choose unconventional routes when confronted with difficulties.
• Resolution of Conflicts: Disagreements and conflicts can occur during any collaborative project. Examine the partner’s skill at resolving disputes in a way that benefits both parties. A development partner who is skilled in communication and conflict resolution can successfully navigate difficult situations while maintaining a productive workplace.

4)  Evaluate their Project Management Skills and Quality Assurance

To guarantee the efficient execution and delivery of your tech project, it is essential to assess a possible development partner’s project management and quality assurance procedures.  Here’s why evaluating these techniques are important:

• Effective Project Management: Working with a development partner who employs sound project management techniques guarantees that your project will advance without hiccups, stick to schedules, and remain under budget. To make sure that their methodologies—such as Agile or Scrum—are compatible with your selected strategy, evaluate them. Look for good task tracking and reporting tools, defined roles and responsibilities, and clear communication channels. 
• Thorough Quality Assurance: Delivering a dependable and bug-free tech solution depends on thorough quality assurance. Reliability is ensured through automated testing and seamless delivery when DevOps is integrated with CI/CD. This minimizes post-launch issues, increases customer satisfaction and maintains the quality of the development cycle. Review the partner’s quality control procedures, such as their code review and bug tracking procedures. In order to reduce post-launch disruptions and customer dissatisfaction a strong focus on quality ensures that possible issues are detected and addressed early on in the development cycle.
• Risk management: Consider the development partner’s approach to handling unforeseen difficulties and managing risks. A partner who takes a proactive stance toward risk management can foresee potential problems, create mitigation plans, and keep you updated on any potential obstacles. To deal with scope changes, resource limitations and other unforeseen occurrences, they should have contingency plans in place.
• Continuous improvement: Search for a development partner that places a strong emphasis on continuous improvement in their project management and quality control procedures. They should continuously evaluate and improve their procedures, taking into account the lessons discovered from earlier projects and new technological advancements. A partner who is dedicated to constant development exhibits a commitment to producing greater outcomes on each assignment.

Making the correct choice for your technology development partner is an important decision that can have a big impact on your project’s success. You can make an informed choice by adhering to these recommendations and taking into account aspects like technical expertise, communication skills, flexibility and project management procedures. Don’t forget to carefully investigate possible partners, determine whether they are compatible with your project objectives, and take into account their track record of completing projects successfully. Your tech vision can come to life through a successful collaboration with a development partner who shares the same values as you. 

In a rapidly evolving technological landscape, finding the right partner to build scalable and bug-free tech solutions is paramount. GoodWorkLabs stands out as the ideal collaborator, armed with a proven track record of excellence. Our unwavering commitment to innovation, coupled with a meticulous approach to development, ensures that your project not only meets but exceeds expectations. With a team of dedicated experts who are adept at anticipating challenges and delivering ingenious solutions, we empower your vision to reach its full potential. As you navigate the intricate journey of tech development, our partnership emerges as a beacon of reliability, proficiency, and success. Trust in GoodWorkLabs to not just build technology, but to craft an impeccable and enduring tech legacy. To know more please visit our website. 

In the fast-paced, cutthroat world of technology, companies must balance development costs while providing high-quality goods and services. Finding this precise balance can be the secret to a successful and long-lasting company. This blog will explore expert tips that tech companies can use to optimize costs without sacrificing quality.

• Careful Planning and Requirement Analysis 

For tech companies, careful planning and requirements analysis are essential elements in optimizing development costs without sacrificing quality. The followings steps can be followed to optimize development costs:

• Involve  all stakeholders from the beginning of a project to establish precise goals and expectations.  
• By carefully examining the project requirements and producing user stories, wireframes, and prototypes you can cut down on uncertainty and speed up the development process.
• Companies can prevent expensive adjustments and delays later on in the development process by devoting attention to the planning and requirements phase.
• Having clear objectives helps development teams stay concentrated on crucial activities, lowering the possibility of scope creep and unneeded costs.
• Thorough planning and requirements analysis help to make the development process more effective and efficient, guaranteeing that the final product fulfills the specified quality standards while keeping development expenses under control.

• Embrace an Agile Methodology 

Adopting the Agile methodology is an important strategy for tech companies  to reduce development costs without compromising quality. Agile methodology helps optimize development costs in the following ways:

•  Agile encourages gradual and iterative development, enabling regular testing and feedback over the course of a project. 
• Development teams can swiftly find and fix problems early on by splitting the project down into smaller, manageable jobs, decreasing the likelihood of costly fixes in later stages.
• It promotes cooperation and communication between team members and stakeholders, ensuring that everyone is in agreement with the goals and specifications of the project. 
• Better decision-making is a result of this transparency, which lowers the possibility of rework and cost overruns.
• Agile’s adaptive planning enables businesses to react quickly to shifting consumer preferences or developing project specifications, resulting in effective resource management. 
• Companies may verify progress and make knowledgeable decisions about upcoming development steps by regularly delivering working software increments, which ultimately results in a high-quality, cost-effective end product.

• Outsourcing Non-Core Activities 

Tech companies can employ the strategic approach of outsourcing non-core functions to reduce development expenses while focusing on essential work and assuring quality. 

• If done internally, non-core tasks like infrastructure management, testing or customer service may take a lot of time and resources. By delegating these tasks to specialist service providers, businesses may access knowledgeable experts without having to worry about keeping up with dedicated teams.
• Outsourcing delivers financial benefits by eliminating the need for new infrastructure, equipment and training expenses.
• Outsourcing partners frequently have established procedures and best practices, improving efficiency and producing results of a higher caliber.
• When non-core duties are performed by outside professionals, the internal development team can focus on innovation and important projects, leading to faster time to market and competitive advantage.

• Automation and DevOps 

Tech companies can reduce development expenses while maintaining product quality by utilizing automation and DevOps approaches. 

• Automating repetitive operations like testing, deployment, and code integration entails using tools and scripts. 
• The development cycle becomes more effective by automating these procedures, lowering the requirement for manual intervention and lowering the possibility of human error.
• Contrarily, DevOps emphasizes cooperation and synergy between the development and operations teams. 
• It encourages a continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) culture, allowing for rapid upgrades and releases. 
• This strategy guarantees that code is extensively tested and immediately deployed, enabling speedy feedback and bug corrections.
• Companies can achieve quicker software development cycles, more dependable software releases and better resource utilization through automation and managed DevOps.
• Lower costs and higher-quality products result from less manual effort and deployment-related concerns since development teams can concentrate on adding value and innovation rather than getting bogged down by manual chores.

• Prioritize Quality Assurance 

Tech companies must prioritize Quality Assurance (QA) if they want to reduce development expenses without compromising on quality. 

• The possibility of expensive post-release problems and customer unhappiness is decreased by assurance that the product complies with specifications and functions as planned. 
• Early emphasis on quality assurance allows for the early detection and correction of any flaws and faults, reducing the need for subsequent labor-intensive rework and costly bug fixes.
• Technology companies may produce a solid and trustworthy product by investing in thorough testing techniques, such as unit testing, integration testing, system testing, and user acceptability testing. In turn, this lowers the possibility of poor user experiences, client complaints, and product recalls—all of which can result in high expenses.
• Making QA a priority also helps to establish a track record for producing high-quality goods, which can foster customer loyalty, good word-of-mouth, and enhanced market competition. 
• By lowering the need for frequent updates, maintenance, and customer assistance related to product concerns, the investment in QA ultimately results in cost savings.

• Monitor and Analyze Metrics 

For tech companies looking to reduce development expenses without sacrificing quality, tracking and evaluating metrics is an essential discipline.

•  Metrics give useful information on the effectiveness and efficiency of the development process, assisting businesses in making data-driven decisions and allocating resources wisely.
• Companies can spot possible bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and areas for improvement by tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) relating to development timeframes, defect rates, resource utilization and customer satisfaction. 
• Monitoring the length of time required to complete various development stages, for instance, can point out areas where procedures can be reduced, resulting in cost savings.
• Companies can identify recurring problems and focus on quality assurance activities by analyzing defect rates and customer input, which lowers the likelihood of expensive post-release defects and customer support costs.
• Metrics can also be used to evaluate the effects of process modifications and technological advancements, allowing businesses to optimize development workflows and manage expenses based on solid data.

In conclusion, for tech companies , maintaining a balance between development costs and quality is a constant issue. However, companies can reduce development costs while providing high-quality goods and services by adopting careful planning, embracing Agile methodologies, utilizing open-source tools, outsourcing non-core tasks, investing in automation and DevOps and giving QA and monitoring metrics top priority. Pursuing this balance will put tech companies in a position to maintain their competitiveness, adjust to market demands, and prosper in an ever evolving technological world.

A software development and technology consulting company GoodWorkLabs is renowned for providing its customers with cutting-edge solutions. We have experience in a number of fields, including blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning and mobile app development. With the help of cutting-edge technology and agile development processes, GoodWorkLabs has a reputation for offering high-quality tech solutions that are both impactful and scalable. We are well-known in the technology industry thanks to our knowledge and dedication to providing value to our customers. To know more please visit our website.

The last decade introduced the world to the digitization of many sectors. This helped the global trade to increase worldwide as many developing and emerging countries became important trading partners and potential sales and development markets. Digitization has helped us to be more connected and perform our daily tasks more effectively. It has made the world a global village and people global citizens.

However, the economies built in the previous decade came crashing to the ground in the last few weeks as COVID-19 pandemic hit the world. While the pandemic has had a great impact on the global economy, it taught us how to fight and improve the current condition using technology. It has laid a new pathway by disrupting our lifestyles by enabling contact-less and virtual experiences. Even though the technology cannot prevent the onset of the pandemics, it can, however, help prevent the spread, educate, empower, and warn people around. Today, these technologies are emerging more than ever – mobile, cloud, analytics, robotics, AI/ML, 4G/5G, and high-speed internet.

Let us look at three technologies that are disrupting our lifestyle each day during this pandemic:

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

From tracking the travel history of COVID-19 patents to analysing the symptoms of people exposed to the infection, the applications used by many governments do it all. These applications use chatbots to gather information from people, and the technology used in these applications is that of AI and ML. This enables the government to collect reliable information much easier and faster without any human intervention.

The advent of more such mobile applications and software will help ease the lifestyle of customers.

Extended Reality

Augmented and virtual reality is surely a boon in the world of lockdown and quarantine. This technology can be used in providing more meaningful and real experiences for people. The technology can help you see the world while you are locked in your home. This experience will change the way we travel, work, and relax. For instance: Realty brands can focus on using AR/VR videos to target their audiences by helping them take a walk-through the project while they are seated in the comfort of their home. This is an example of how a sector can use the contact-less experience to their advantage.

Cloud and Internet

The last few weeks have seen a great transition in the way the workforce can function. Companies got to believe that remote working and work from home concepts can be of their advantage. The transition to work from home and remote working has increased the dependency on cloud and internet infrastructure. The usage of this technology is set to remain the same even post lockdown and pandemic as many companies are moving towards welcoming a ‘hybrid’ way of working. This will increase the demand for teleworking applications and software for the team to be connected and interactive.

Talking about the internet, technology has changed the sector of education. It has enabled kids to learn and study from home using applications that require an active internet connection to connect with their peers and teachers. For times to come, e-learning will be an accepted norm for the parents and teachers alike.

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated to the world that importance of digital readiness. The acceptance and usage of digital technology will allow the business and individuals to continue their work and chores as usual during the pandemic. The companies at large will focus on building necessary digital infrastructure by using the latest technology to stay connected with their employees and customers. The pandemic has increased their market competition by many folds, therefore businesses will have to take an approach that is human-centred and inclusive using technology governance.

Are you looking to incorporate AI tech in your existing business model or are you generally curious about this technology? Get an insight into how Artificial Intelligence technology increases the productivity of the business and accelerates performance.

In either case, there are some mind-boggling essential facts that you must know about AI. 

Starting with the basics, we are quickly briefing you about this technology.

In the current industry scenario, some industry sectors are at the start of their AI journey, while others are veterans. 

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are now considered one of the significant innovations since the microchip. 

We have come a long way since they set foot in the market. Machine Learning used to be a fanciful concept from science fiction, but has now become a reality.

Neural networks paved the way for “deep learning” breakthroughs in Machine Learning. While the previous Industrial Revolution has harnessed physical and mechanical power, this new revolution will harness mental and cognitive capacity. Many experts in the field believe that Artificial Intelligence Technology is ushering the next “Industrial Revolution”. 

Someday, not only manual labor will be replaced by computers, but also intellectual labor. But, the question is how exactly is this going to happen? Or has it already started?

By 2025, it is projected that 463 exabytes (EB) of data will be produced globally each day — equivalent data in 22 crore DVDs per day. That’s huge!

How Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning will impact our day-to-day lives in times to come?

1) AI into Automated Transportation

Have you been flying on an airplane recently? If so, you’ve already experienced the automation of transportation at work. Such modern commercial aircraft use FMS (Flight Management System) to control their location during flight, motion sensors, a combination of GPS, and computer systems.

2) Self Driving Cars and AI

It is more difficult to leap into self-driving car business. Since there are more cars on the road, many obstacles to avoid, and the traffic patterns and rules restrictions which we need to adhere to. 

According to a report of 55 Google vehicles that have traveled over 1.3 million miles overall, these AI-powered cars have even exceeded the safety of human-driven cars.

With Google Maps’ assistance on your smartphone about location data, we have already conquered the GPS forefront. A similar GPS is used in these cars, which can calculate how quickly the device is traveling by comparing the position of a device from one point in time to another.

It can decide how slow real-time traffic is. It can combine information with user-reported incidents to create a traffic image at any given time. Maps will determine the fastest route between you and your destination based on traffic jams, construction works, or accidents.

What about the ability to drive a car? Well, machine learning enables self-driving vehicles to adapt instantly to changing road conditions while learning from new road situations at the same time. Onboard computers can make split-second decisions much faster than well-trained drivers by continuously filtering through a flow of visual and sensor information.

All this is based on the very same machine learning principles used in other industries. You have input characteristics (i.e., real-time visual and sensor data) and output (i.e., a decision on the next actions for a car). Amazing, right?

3) Cyborg Technology

Our minds and bodies are less than perfect. Technology will improve to the extent that we can increase some of our computer weaknesses and limitations, enhancing many of our fundamental skills.

But, wait before you start to imagine dystopian worlds of steel and blood, consider for a moment that most people walking around are in a certain way “cyborgs.”

How many people do you know that without your trusty smartphone would survive the day? For contact, navigation, information learning, receiving important news, and a host of other things, we still rely on these handheld computers.

4) Taking Over the Dangerous Jobs

Bomb disposal is one of the most dangerous jobs. Today, among other things, robots (or more technically drones) take over these risky jobs.

Currently, most of these drones need to be operated by a human.

But as machine learning software is evolving in the future, robots with artificial intelligence would do these tasks entirely. This technology has already saved thousands of lives on its own.

Welding is another work outsourced to robots. This type of work produces noise, intense heat, and fumes toxic substances.

Such robot welders would need to be pre-programmed to weld at a specific position without machine learning. Improvement in computer vision and deep learning, however, has allowed greater flexibility and accuracy.

5) How AI helps in nursing elders?

Everyday tasks can be a struggle for many senior citizens. Many have to hire help from outside or rely on members of the family. 

For many families, elder care is a growing concern. In-home robots can support elderly relatives who don’t want to leave their homes.

This approach provides more flexibility to family members to handle the care of a loved one. The in-home robots can help seniors with daily tasks and allow them to stay as long as possible independent and live in their homes, improving their overall well-being.

Health and Artificial Intelligence scientists even have infrared-based systems that can identify when an older adult falls. Scientists and medical specialists can also track sleeping, feeding, decreasing mobility, fluid intake, chair and bed comfort, urinary frequency, restlessness, fatigue, food and alcohol consumption, and many more.

6) AI into enhanced Health Care

Hospitals might soon put your well-being in the hands of AI.  Hospitals that use machine learning to help treat patients have fewer accidents and fewer cases of hospital-related illnesses, such as sepsis.

Artificial Intelligence also tackles some of the most intractable problems in medicine, such as helping scientists to understand the genetic diseases with the help of predictive models better.

Initially, health professionals must manually check the information reams before they diagnose or treat a patient. High-performance computing GPUs have become primary resources for deep learning and AI applications.

Deep learning models can offer real-time insights and, in conjunction with an abundance of computing power, help healthcare professionals diagnose patients more quickly and accurately, create innovative new drugs and treatments, minimize clinical and diagnostic errors, predict adverse reactions, and reduce healthcare costs for clinicians and patients.

7) Artificial intelligence is capable of changing the business forever

It is a promise to take care of all the tedious things that employees are already doing, freeing their time to be more imaginative, and doing the job that machines are unable to do.

Today, emerging technology is mainly used by large companies through machine learning and predictive analytics.

Here’s a look at AI’s current county and what lies ahead:-

1. Nowadays, only 15% of companies use AI whereas 31 percent said it was on the agenda for the next 12 months.
2. For those companies already in the Artificial Intelligence range, high-performing companies have said that they are more than twice as likely to use technology for marketing as their peers (28% vs. 12%). Unsurprisingly, data analysis is a key Artificial Intelligence focus for businesses, with on-site customization being the second most frequently cited use case for AI. 
3. The survey respondents have described customer personalization (29%), AI (26%), and voice search (21.23%) as the next dominant marketing pattern. These top three responses, totaling 75% of all AI applications, indicate that AI is more widespread and accessible than the respondents are aware of. 
4. 47% of digitally mature organizations or those with advanced digital practices have established a specified AI strategy. 
5. Business leaders said they agree that AI will be fundamental in the future. In reality, 72% said it was a “business advantage.” 
6. Of those who have an innovation plan, 61% said that they are using AI to find information gaps that would otherwise be overlooked. Just 22% said the same thing without a strategy. 
7. Consumers use more AI than they know. While only 33 percent claim that they are using AI-enabled software, 77 percent currently using AI-enabled products or phones. 
8. 38% of customers said they believed that AI would boost customer service. 
9. Out of 6,000 people surveyed, 61% said they thought AI could make the world a better place. 
10. In a survey of more than 1,600 marketing professionals, 61%, regardless of the size of the company, pointed to machine learning and AI as their company’s most significant data initiative for next year. 
11. The effect of AI technology on business is projected to increase labor productivity by up to 40% and allow people to make more productive use of their time. 
12. The largest companies, those with at least 100,000 employees are most likely to have an AI plan, but only half of them have one. 
13. More than 80% of the executives see AI as a strategic tool. 
14. Voice assistants are incorporated into a wide range of consumer products; almost half of US adults (46%) are now using these apps to communicate with smartphones and other devices. 
15. When asked about requirements for marketing software providers to have native AI capabilities, more than 50% of the communicators said it was essential or appropriate to do so. 

Winding Up

As many people have rightly noted, the idea of Artificial Intelligence is not a new one. It’s been around since the very early days of computing. Pioneers always have invented ways to build smart learning machines.

At present, the most promising method for AI is the use of applied machine learning. Instead of trying to encrypt machines with everything they need to know beforehand (which is impossible), we want to allow them to learn, and then learn how to learn. 

The time for machine learning has arrived, and it is in the process of revolutionizing all of our lives.

Liked our content? Then visit us today at GoodWorkLabs and learn more about us. For any feedback or suggestions, you can comment in the drop-down section.

With a boom in the use of smartphones among customers, application development has been growing at a rapid pace. Different devices, carriers, and software have created their own identity in the everyday lives of people around the globe. Almost anything gets done with the help of a smartphone.

In terms of global market share, Android tops the list with around 76% of market share. The next in line is Apple’s iOS and Windows, respectively. Being a mobile developer, it gets confusing at times to figure out the best platform to run your app, other than its native platform.

Learning a new language, the API’s, and other related stuff is not only tedious but can keep you stuck on your platform. Xamarin can help you there. You can build cross-platform mobile applications to facilitate similar functions like platform native apps.

Know Xamarin:

Xamarin is the name of a software company founded in the year 2011. Acquired in 2016 by Microsoft, Xamarin provides tools to developers to help them create cross-platform mobile applications. All these applications have their natural features intact while sharing a standard code set at the same time.

Xamarin tools are readily available, and they get downloaded with Visual Studio. You can directly develop apps for Android, iOS, and Windows apps from the Visual Studio itself.

A significant part of the standard code gets written in C#, eliminating the need to learn any other language like Objective-C, Swift, or Java as well. Using Xamarin instead of the usual learning procedure will prove helpful to you in learning app development on multiple platforms.

How Does Xamarin Work?

On a very elementary level, Xamarin converts the total iOS or Android SDK to C# to facilitate coding in a more familiar language for the developers. With one style to code for both platforms, you do not need to remember too much of syntax as well.

This makes it easy to access any Android or iOS API through Xamarin tools.

The Benefits of Xamarin:-

There are several reasons Xamarin is used by a lot of companies, with brands like Trello, Slack, and GitHub a few of the ones.

We bring you some of these profound benefits Xamarin has over other technologies-

A SINGLE TECH STACK FOR CODING ON ALL PLATFORMS:-

Xamarin takes the help of C# integrated with a.Net framework for creating apps for a mobile platform. Through this, you get to reuse about 96 percent of source code leading to a speedy engineering cycle. Xamarin also does not need to switch among the development environments.

All of the Xamarin apps can be entirely built in Visual Studio, a replacement for the Xamarin Studio. The tools to facilitate cross-platform development come without any added cost.

PERFORMANCE ALMOST AS GOOD AS NATIVE:-

With the traditional hybrid solutions based on web technologies, a cross-platform app can never get the classification as native. With Xamarin, however, a cross-platform app can still get classified as a native app. The performance metrics can be easily compared with those of Java for Android and even Objective- C, or Swift to create a native app for iOS. 

The performance of Xamarin is also improved continuously to meet the standards of native application development. Visual Studio provides a total option to build, test, and track the performance of an app.

NATIVE USER EXPERIENCE:-

With Xamarin, you can create a superb experience with the help of platform-specific UI elements. A lot of simple apps for iOS, Android, and Windows get designed with the help of Xamarin. 

The use of Xamarin with the Forms tool brings about a significant increase in the pace of application development. With such a speedy process of development, it becomes a fantastic option for business-oriented projects.

However, you might always have the chance to see a slightly depleted performance, due to the presence of an extra abstraction layer. For a customized user interface and increased performance, you can use Xamarin for iOS and Android separately to get the best out of it.

TOTAL HARDWARE SUPPORT:-

Xamarin provides your solution with native-level app functions. The tool eliminates every hardware compatibility issue through plugins and particular API’s. This allows Xamarin to work with conventional device functionality across all platforms.

With access to platform specific API’s, Xamarin provides the function of linking native libraries. It gives a better degree of customization and a native-level functionality with just a little added cost.

OPEN SOURCED WITH A STRONG CORPORATE SUPPORT:-

When Microsoft acquired Xamarin in the year 2016, the licensing policies underwent quite a lot of significant changes. Xamarin SDK, with runtime, command line tools, and libraries have all become open sourced and available as per MIT license through Visual Studio.

The cost of license tends to be a significant barrier, and by eliminating this, Microsoft opened up the doors to further development of this platform.

EASE IN MAINTENANCE:-

Because of its cross-platform ability, Xamarin makes maintenance and providing updates easier. Developers can deploy the changes or updates to the source file itself. These updates then automatically get applied to both the iOS and Android applications.

It is important to note that this only works for the applications running on Xamarin. In short, with Xamarin, you save a lot of time and money spent on keeping your apps up to date.

Conclusion

As we mentioned before, these are just a few of the benefits of Xamarin for mobile app development. A lot more is in the store that makes Xamarin the undisputed leader in cross-platform development. The feature-rich layout and subsequent benefits make Xamarin an almost perfect option for cross-platform development.

Apart from the many benefits, Xamarin has also become a community of more than 700,000 developers. This number is only increasing as collaboration and enhancement of software becomes more comfortable than ever with Xamarin as the app development tool.

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Keeping the business at a constant level of growth is a priority for everyone today. With quickly evolving trends in technology, DevOps is the perfect response to ensure that growth.

DevOps makes growth hacking for your business considerably by delivering the features your customers expect, quickly in the market. DevOps came into existence after a long history of software development, and this is why it is a very well-thought approach.

With software, an integral part of every tech company today,  DevOps has a high value among companies.

DevOps has been a crucial factor for the success of well-known companies like Netflix, Google, and Amazon. Amazon has been able to successfully automate their releases, speeding up its software development lifecycle in the process.

Everybody is looking for ways to faster releases and high-quality services. If you too, fall under the same category, then for increased customer satisfaction, applying DevOps principles in the right way is an important key.

The primary motive of DevOps is pretty straight-forward: Deliver better quality software updates regularly, with a high degree of reliability. In a concise perspective, DevOps is a mental model shift for the entire company to provide higher organizational flexibility.

This transformation to DevOps can be a smooth process, through the hacks we have in store for you.

7 Hacks/Tips for DevOps Transformation:-

GETTING PREPARED FOR A CHANGE AND ACCEPTING A CLOUD-NATIVE APPROACH

Accepting and going with the change is the only way to keep your business growing. As a business owner, you may get apprehensive of this change, but not changing as per the technology trends is the worst thing you can ever do to lose amidst the competition.

DevOps aims to solve one of the most significant problems of the IT industry, by acting as a bridge between the Dev and Ops people. It is an urgent need, looking to get addressed as soon as possible.

The change cannot be an abrupt one. Consistent and small progressive changes can only achieve it. The management of a company should ensure that they convey the advantages and benefits of DevOps to everyone before actually going ahead with the change.

This change will initially be through the IT managers and architects of individual teams in the company.

The term cloud-native, too, is not just a trendy word. On the contrary, it is a complete methodology, taking advantage of a lot of modern techniques; it combines Agile methodology, DevOps and Continuous Delivery. The technologies and architecture of Microservices, Containers, Cloud and Serverless.

A cloud-native strategy is responsible for increased speed, performance, power and margins for business enterprises.

TAKING NOTE OF FAILURES AND LEARNING QUICKLY FROM THEM

Because DevOps is related to accomplishing tasks quickly and learning fast, the chances of failure initially are quite vast. This may look a bit rough at the start, but with the right approach and a correct set of guidelines, the problematic situations get handled with a lot of ease.

What is more important here is the acceptance of failure, because any scenario otherwise will lead to people blaming each other. Teams should understand that DevOps is there to eliminate the confusion between groups, but to reach that stage, the initial chaos will have to get managed tactfully.

LEARN TO BE CONTINUOUS EVERYWHERE AT ALL POINTS OF TIME

The meaning of being continuous everywhere is to be able to apply the practices of continuous testing, continuous integration, continuous deployment, and continuous improvement.

These things slowly build up the value in the learning curve of a company and help in making processes more lean and accurate.

With the end goal being a continuous presence everywhere, a well-developed software will become liquid wherein the products and services will tightly get connected to the appropriate points in the software.

It will lead to a constant stream of updates into the devices and systems, with the software automatically updating the operations without any human involvement.

PUT A KEEN FOCUS ON AUTOMATION

A significant part of DevOps deals with automation, and there too, zero-touch automation if possible. DevOps leads and IT managers should be involved to select the tools and DevOps processes, having the motive of achieving DevOps at scale.

Once the right set of tools are available, it is the perfect time to define the policies and steps for each tool. Tools like Kubernetes, Terraform, Slack, Chef, and the likes help you build up your automation capabilities. Automating the repetitive tasks of developers provide them with extra time to focus on the other things necessary for the business.

HAVE A FEEDBACK LOOP IN PLACE TO COMMUNICATE BETTER

The lack of coordination between Dev and Ops can be taken care of with the help of a feedback loop. A feedback loop is capable enough to identify the bottlenecks and remove them. A feedback loop assists teams in rectifying their errors, while keeping a keen eye on patterns disrupting continuous software delivery.

A stable feedback loop will help teams to outperform by removing the bottlenecks causing the problem, leading to a growth in the overall productivity.

There are several simple processes to validate a feedback loop in software development- code reviews, Daily Scrum, unit tests, etc.

Ideally, a feedback loop should be as short as possible. This makes it easier to implement your process quickly.

CARVING OUT TRUST BETWEEN THE TEAMS

Trust is the first requirement for any business aspiring to succeed with DevOps. The performance of a business depends on a large extent to the team collaboration and trust among teams present in the company.

Because DevOps practices flow from downwards to the upper level of management, trust is of high importance because it will help the team collaborate and work more collectively. Developing confidence has always been a primary aim of DevOps.

Due to DevOps, the Dev and Ops team act as a support to each other rather than blaming each other. The team bottlenecks will considerably reduce with DevOps. This is why trust is essential.

HAVE PATIENCE

There is one critical issue generally present when people think that DevOps will give overnight results. The reality is otherwise. Because, patience is essential where DevOps is involved.

It takes from a few months to some years before the culture and fully gets embedded into an organization. It is never easy for an old company using all the legacy practices to adapt and execute DevOps practices.

Conclusion

Automation with DevOps can provide critical competitive advantages to the businesses. With the immense necessity in any software-driven company, rightly using DevOps will need the right mental approach. Adding to it, a growth mindset to understand procedures for easy automation will also make the coming years exciting for DevOps.

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India’s most anticipated events of 2019 — General Elections of Lok Sabha is right here.

From political campaigning to social good, AI seems to have been actively used for data prediction & accuracy. On the other hand, New Zealand which will be hosting the election for Prime Minister in the year 2020. For this very election, Sam is the frontrunner. He has the right amount of knowledge on education, policy, and immigration and answers all related questions with ease. Sam also is pretty active on social media and responds to messages very quickly. When it comes to being compared with the other politicians; however, there is one huge difference- Sam is an AI-powered politician.

Sam is the world’s first Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled politician developed by Nick Gerritsen, an entrepreneur driven by the motive to have a politician who is unbiased and does not create an opinion based on emotions, gender and culture.

This is just one of the many instances where AI is playing an increasingly crucial role in politics all over the globe. Political campaigns have been taking the help of AI for quite a long time now.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND POLITICS

The most significant advantage of AI in politics can is its ability where it can accurately predict the future. Political campaigns make the use of machine learning, social media bots and even big data to influence the voters and make them vote for their political party.
Apart from just wins and losses on the political front, AI presents with more obvious implications in decisions and policy making. Reports claim that deep learning, an essential aspect of AI, can look after issues that relate to executing the schemes laid down by the government.

The technologies that use AI for social good are also on the rise since some time now. This is why the arrival of AI politicians is not very surprising. As to how big data and deep learning help it all out, we will be discussing it further below.

BIG DATA AND VOTER’S PSYCHOLOGY

With such a flurry of content on all social media platforms, it is understandable to get confused in determining which political leader is going to have the best interests of the nation at heart. You will be surprised to know that the leaders know how you think and also what you expect from them. Elections have a lot to do with psychology other than just indulging in political games.
While going through the Internet or mobile apps, you must have noticed that there is a pattern to the kind of videos which pop on your window. Some of these pop-ups are also related to the elections and candidates located within your vicinity. This pattern is backed up by reason.

The Lok Sabha election of 2019 may or may not play a decisive role in creating a bright future of India, but it is a witness to the fact that the use of technology is driving the people to act in a certain kind of way. It essentially is India’s big data election which is underway through several algorithms, analytics, and obviously, Artificial Intelligence.

Though they are not exactly visible in the election, they are more of the channels which are always present when it comes to tracing the online actions of voters, political messaging, customizing the campaigns and create advertisements targeted at the voters.

The Congress political party has provided all its candidates with a data docket which can track on-ground activities by their Ghar Ghar Congress app. The data dockets have information regarding households, missing voters, new voters, and even the local issues which plague the concerned constituency.

At the other end, the BJP looks far ahead in its quest to appeal the citizens to keep their party in power for another tenure. In states of the North, the party is a host to more than 25,000 WhatsApp groups. Ironically though, by the time Congress thought to compete with it, WhatsApp changed their policies, leaving the Opposition out to dry.

The optimal use of neural-network techniques, more often referred to as deep learning allows the political parties to have an unbeatable ability and have a fact-based study as to how such kind of data.

We at GoodWorkLabs are enthusiastic about creating such offbeat solutions using our expertise in AI, ML, Big Data, RPA. If you’ve any requirement which is this interesting & complex in nature, drop us a line and let us help you with a robust solution.

What You Need to Know About the New Google Assistant Update

As if we weren’t short of surprises this year particularly from the tech industry, Google made an announcement that could very well be the most pleasant one so far this year. At the Google I/O conference 2018 held this week, CEO Sundar Pichai announced that the Google Assistant will be getting major updates. And the updates are major indeed with several AI based application that could make life a ‘breeze’ for all you couch potatoes out there. Anyway, let us have a look at the updates that are soon going to hit the market.

Source: crowdfundingheadlines.com

Google Duplex

Speaking of couch potatoes, here is an update that is for the ages which could make that expression a literal one soon. The Google Duplex is an AI tool that will be assisting you with real world tasks all accomplished through the phone without you having to move an inch. With the ability to understand natural speech and complex sentences, the google assistant can now book appointments, reservations or orders and should any complication arise it will place a call to have a conversation with the concerned person and get it done. Which, while on the surface seems swell and all, but in the ‘real world’ when have we ever convinced a snooty receptionist at a fully booked hotel to make room. Maybe, Google should add the Jedi mind trick as part of their update if they haven’t already. ‘These are not the reservations you’re looking for’. Anyway, without digressing further, the application has to be trained in such conversations to become accustomed to and eventually become adept at it. And Google stresses that the application can only carry out conversations based on such scenarios and not answer questions like ‘why won’t my girlfriend talk to me anymore? I only made an observation about her dress’. For that, you still have to go to Quora.com.

Enhanced Interface

Google is also planning on changing the interface of the Google assistant on both iOS and Android platforms to make it more informative and interactive. A certain degree of automation will be available in the interface as well with timeline-based snapshots, suggestions, summaries of activities etc. being part of the order. All your planner based details from various applications will also be integrated to the assistant. As announced earlier this year Google’s Smart Displays will also be launched later this year which will further enhance the experience.

Google Maps

Google maps will now be integrated with the Google Assistant AI to allow multitasking. Now you can access weather-related information, songs, send text messages and even podcasts for some reason according to news outlets. This raises an interesting question, what are Google’s policies on driving while speaking on the phone? Because, hands-free or not, talking on the phone is something that I assume is frowned upon all the world. As a matter of fact all over India that is an offense punishable by law. So, food for thought?

New Voices

One of the most highlighted features of this update are the 6 new male and female voices. And the most highlighted aspect of these voices is that they are ‘natural sounding’. So instead of that persistent and seemingly strict lady asking you to take a left turn at 100 meters, you get John Legend and no you won’t be getting ‘all of him’, just his voice. Hey, at least now we can have a soothing semi-baritone voice telling ‘All your base are now belong to us’ when the machines take over. And if you think I am exaggerating, John legend himself feels threatened by his AI self. That’s why he felt the need to tweet out ‘Real John Legend > AI John.’ Anyway, the new voices will be playing a huge role in achieving the goals that Google seeks to achieve through Google Duplex. Furthermore, you will no longer have to use the phrases ‘OK Google’ or ‘Hey Google’ to trigger a conversation with the assistant. The new update will enable the assistant to distinguish conversations with others from the ones you make with it. Which again is not necessarily a reassuring prospect.

To sum up the new updates seem to be targeted at enhancing user experience by a huge margin and resolving some of the most infuriating issues people have had over the years with various google assistant functions. As ambitious as it is, the project will take a while to incorporate all these functions and hopefully, it would change our lives for the better.  And the question in everyone’s mind now probably is what is going to happen with Siri?

PHP 7 Traits Revealed

PHP 7 comes with latest features and fast performance as compared to its previous versions. PHP 7 has been introduced with a goal to free up space which leads to improvement. It was crucial to get rid of many deprecated functionalities , old and unsupported Server APIs and extensions to increase the speed and free up space.

This clean up provides more security by removing items that have deprecated for a while in PHP 5 and not in use for a long time. PHP 7 can break the code if your app is running on older version of PHP.

PHP 7 is a platform that can deliver powerful app, all from cloud to enterprise applications and from mobile to the web Applications. Almost everything comes under the umbrella of PHP 7. This version has the most powerful impact as it decreases the memory consumption with extreme improvements in performance.

Let us have a look at some of the new features PHP 7 is equipped with.

Speed Improvement

PHP 7 is benchmarks for consistently showing speeds twice as fast as PHP 5.6 . It provides unmatched computation speeds and flexibility to adapt to an ever changing environment. Thanks to the new Zend Engine 3.0, apps see up to 2x faster performance and 50% better memory consumption than PHP 5.6, allowing you to serve more concurrent users without adding any hardware. Designed and refactored for today’s workloads, PHP 7 swiftness paves a new path for all developers. 

Type Declarations

Type declarations simply means specifying which type of variable is being set instead of allowing PHP to set this automatically. PHP is considered to be a weak typed language. In essence, this means that PHP website development does not require you to declare data types. Variables still have data types associated with them but you can do radical things like adding a string to an integer without resulting in an error. Type declarations can help you define what should occur so that you get the expected results. This can also make your code easier to read.

Since PHP 5, you can use type hinting to specify the expected data type of an argument in a function declaration, but only in the declaration. When you call the function, PHP website development will check whether or not the arguments are of the specified type. If not, the run-time will raise an error and execution will be halted.

Also, with PHP 7 we now have added Scalar types. Specifically: int, float, string, and bool.

Error Handling

Handling fatal errors in the past has been next to impossible in PHP website development. A fatal error would not invoke the error handler and would simply stop your script. On a production server, this usually means showing a blank white screen, which confuses the user and causes your credibility to drop. It can also cause issues with resources that were never closed properly and are still in use or even PHP 7, an exception will be thrown when a fatal and recoverable error occurs, rather than just stopping the script. Fatal errors still exist for certain conditions, such as running out of memory, and still behave as before by immediately stopping the script. An uncaught exception will also continue to be a fatal error in PHP website development in 7.

New Operators

-Spaceship Operator: The spaceship operator, or Combined Comparison Operator, is a nice addition to the language, complementing the greater-than and less-than operators. The most common usage for this operator is in sorting.

-Null Coalesce Operator: The Null Coalesce Operator, is effectively the fabled if-set-or. It will return the left operand if it is not NULL, otherwise it will return the right. The important thing is that it will not raise a notice if the left operand is a non-existent variable.

Easy User-land CSPRNG

What is Easy User-land CSPRNG? User-land refers to an application space that is external to the kernel and is protected by privilege separation, API for an easy to use and reliable Cryptographically Secure Pseudo Random Number Generator in PHP website development. Essentially secure way of generating random data. There are random number generators in PHP, rand() for instance, but none of the options in version 5 are very secure. In PHP 7, they put together a system interface to the operating system’s random number generator. Because we can now use the operating system’s random number generator. Secure random numbers are especially useful when generating random passwords or password salt.

There are quite a few other features added in PHP 7, like unicode support for emoji and international characters. Another big area that could cause trouble, are features that have been removed. This should really only be an issue if you’re working with an older code base, because the features that have been removed are primarily ones that have been deprecated for a long time. If you’ve been putting off making these necessary changes, the huge advantage in speed with PHP 7 should help convince you, or management, to take the time needed to update your code.

Learning The Right Way

Technology, as a practitioner, is counter-intuitive.  This is perhaps the hardest concept for people learning to become technologists to understand.  It seems simple, but it affects so many things that will occur as you learn and grow your skill-set and build things.  The purpose in most cases of course is to build useful abstractions that make using technology feel intuitive to the end user, but as the practitioner you have to deal with the burden of this inherent lack of intuitiveness so that your users don’t have to.  

Bad technologies do exist, and in many cases, they’re bad because they attempt to make things easy which are not in any way easy or generally considered solved, and therefore encourage bad practices or hide critical problems.  PHP is a perfect example of this, MongoDB is another example of this.  There are hundreds of examples though that meet this criteria.  

Many of these bad technologies are very popular with beginners simply because they are easy to learn and work with.  The problem is, you will end up learning bad habits and putting trust in things which are not trustworthy.  This may not matter much when you’re just playing around on your own time to see how something works or try something new.  But the things you learn always end up coming back to you.  Your time is perhaps your most valuable asset, and how you invest it will determine many of the future choices you will end up making when you’re professionally using those skills to build something.

Because, ultimately, technologies are tools, just because a technology is bad in the general case doesn’t necessarily mean it should never be used.  But, it takes a significant amount of experience and expertise to adequately understand all the possible pitfalls of using a bad technology and whether or not those trade-offs are acceptable.  When you’re in the stage in your career where you’re still learning, this is not the time to throw away your very valuable time by investing in learning bad technologies.  You are much better off investing in learning technologies which are generally good, and ensuring you understand where all their skeletons are buried and what pointy edges exist, so that you can accurately and intelligently decide what trade-offs you’re willing to make in your designs.

The Definitive Answer

This is kind of the philosophical answer as to why we recommend not learning PHP as their first language.  While PHP is very easy to learn at a superficial level, it has a lot of faults and glitches that are not immediately apparent and are a direct result of it having a fundamentally bad language design.  These glitches can be near invisible, because they may not even prevent your application from working, but they could lead to opening up serious remotely exploitable security vulnerabilities or create a ticking time bomb waiting for the right conditions to cause the application to crash.  This type of unpredictable behavior is extremely frustrating even when you understand what is causing it, but as someone who is learning it wastes your time and distracts you from learning a clear understanding of the abstract concepts involved.

Python is an extremely sane, structured language, which is designed specifically to enforce good practices and help guide new programmers into understanding the proper way to build things.  Some of this is enforced in the interpreter, some of this is enforced in the community and the standards of companies and projects that use Python.  Either way, Python is an excellent first language to learn.  

The absolute best way to become a competent programmer, somebody who your peers look up to and rely on to be the person who can really solve problems, is to put a lot of effort in early on learning things the hard way.  Rather than picking heavily abstracted frameworks and technical tools that do a lot of heavy lifting for you, it’s important to understand why those pieces of heavy lifting are being done and what is going on in the background.  Python is a great introduction to this, because it’s abstracted enough to keep it from making you get dejected while learning, it provides immediate feedback because it’s interpreted, and it also provides an easy sliding scale to get you into deeper systems understanding.  

As technology continues to change and improve we have no doubt that there will be a need for you to continuously learn new things.  Don’t start from a easy to learn foundation, learn the fundamentals in a proper way so you have the right knowledge to act as building blocks for a long time to come.  

The choice is ultimately yours.