Building Your App with Kotlin: Interesting Facts You Need to Know

Today, we have numerous programming languages, thanks to ever-evolving technology and innovations. Often, it becomes a daunting task to choose one. Each has its specifications and uniqueness, so there is no point in comparing one with the other. 

Of course, some coding languages are suitable for building more advanced and feature-rich applications, and others are good for less complicated apps. But there is no good or bad programming language. Each language has designed to meet the specific needs and goals of businesses. 

Are you planning to build your mobile app using Kotlin? Though it is a relatively new language, it has become a preferred choice by developers and enterprises for good reasons only. Before you hire a Kotlin Android development company, here are some interesting facts you need to know. 

• Interoperable with Java - When it comes to Kotlin and Java, they are almost similar programming languages. Kotlin is interoperable with Java by 100%. It means if you use codes from both languages in the same project, they will fit perfectly. 

• Null safety - Kotlin comes with a Null safety feature that eliminates the risk of null references from code. The Kotlin system can distinguish between non-null references and nullable references. Hence, it removes NullPointerExceptions.

• Extension functions - In Kotlin, you can write functions using operators and extensions. Extension functions in Kotlin allow you to extend the functionalities of classes without needing to make changes in the code. 

• Inline functions - If you want to build a fancy high-order app, it may come at a runtime cost. But not if you make use of inline functions. It is another feature that is not available in Java. With Kotlin, you can enjoy control over inline functions. 

• Compatible with Java frameworks and libraries - Another fascinating thing about Kotlin is that it supports all Java frameworks and libraries. You can use Maven, Gradle, and others to integrate Kotlin and build systems with ease.

The benefits and capabilities of Kotlin are not limited to the above-discussed points. Do you think it is the appropriate programming language for your mobile app? If yes, then hire Kotlin developers who meet your needs and demands. 

If you are searching for a reliable Kotlin app development company, get in touch with SoftProdigy. We have a team of experts with the right experience, expertise and in-depth knowledge in the field. 

AngularJs Web App Development in 2021: 5 Mistakes to Avoid

AngularJs is one of the most powerful frameworks available today. The JavaScript-based framework creates a buzz among developers and businesses due to its ability to build Single-Page-Applications (SPAs). These apps do not require reloading, whether in use or working within the browser. 

Some well-renowned SPAs are Facebook, Google Map, Twitter, Google Drive, Gmail, and GitHub. Do you know AngularJs is the most suitable framework to develop Single-Page-Applications? If you are wondering why, we are here to answer all your queries. The primary reason is prototyping scalable applications on various devices while offering excellent user experiences. 

Before hiring the best AngularJs development company for your business project, it is vital to get familiar with common AngularJs development mistakes to avoid in 2021. Let us dive straight into mistakes every AngularJs developer must avoid. 

• Failing to make the best usage of available tools - AngularJs has a plenty of tools that allow developers to build dynamic apps with ease. For example, browsers like Chrome and Firefox come with development strings that enable debugging, profiling, and generation of error outputs. With the help of these tools, developers can find out errors in the code in the development process, which saves their time. 

• Keep a watcher’s number - Do you know each binding in AngularJs results in a watcher function that allows returning a value? The returned value should be the same as the previous call. The evaluations take place for previous bindings at each digest phase. Thus, the watcher gets impacted. The more the watcher's count, the slower is the performance of a web app in the browser. If you are looking for smooth performance, it is advisable to reduce the usage of the watcher’s count. 

• Not assigning names to functions - Many developers make the mistake of not giving names to functions when coding. With this, developers can maintain the code to prevent any rework in the future. 

• Neglecting pre-launch testing - Pre-launch testing is essential before releasing the web app to the end-users. It allows developers to find out unwanted bugs. Often, AngularJs developers miss out on this step and result in failing to impress end-users. 

• Forgetting to unsubscribe - Every AngularJs developer needs to subscribe to new libraries and tools when developing mobile and web applications. However, once their need is over, developers must unsubscribe to these tools and libraries. Failing to do so may lead to data security risks. 

If you are searching for a reliable AngularJs web development company for your business, SoftProdigy is your safest bet. We have a team of experts with the expertise, experience, and knowledge in the field. 

How to Determine the Estimated Cost of On-demand App Development?

On-demand apps are taking over every sector and industry. Whether food delivery, cab services, or healthcare facilities, you can find every field leveraging the perks of on-demand apps. But what has caused a sudden surge in demand for these apps? The answer lies in the speed, convenience, and range of services users enjoy with on-demand apps. 

If you are looking for a reliable on-demand app development company to offer your product or service, it is essential to know your needs and budget. Often, a lack of planning results in spending more than expected, which becomes difficult for enterprises to manage. Therefore, always know the estimated cost before delving into the development process. First of all, let us understand the average development cost for an on-demand app. 

• The cost to develop an on-demand app

On average, the development cost for an on-demand app may cost anything between $5,000 and $30,000, which is far less than other service apps. When it comes to building an e-commerce and social networking site, you may expect more money. The cost may vary depending on various factors like customization, your location, and on-demand app development agency. 

Given the benefits and increasing dependency on on-demand applications, we will see more advancement in the field. In short, this trend will soar high in the coming future, making people’s lives more convenient. Therefore, if you want to build your on-demand app affordably, you must set a budget. 

• Tips for creating a budget estimate of your on-demand app project

• Identify your market domain - The first thing you need to do before getting into the development process is identifying the industry you want to make your app. With this, you get a clear idea of what features you want in the app. It will make the budgeting process more convenient. 

• Product requirements document - Well, it is a technical document that you must get prepared when setting your on-demand app development budget. Usually, a product requirements document covers everything about the development process. Thus, on-demand development can give an estimate of each phase, like back-end, design, testing, and many more. 

• The platform choice - There are two platforms for businesses to launch their apps - native platform and cross-platform. So, depending on your needs and preferences, you can choose the most suitable option. Please remember, each comes with specific limitations and drawbacks, so make sure you are familiar with them. 

If you are looking for a company that offers the best custom mobile app development, get in touch with SoftProdigy. 

On-demand Apps: What Role do they play in the Current Scenario?

 The average annual spending on on-demand apps is increasing like a wildfire every passing year. So, what does that imply? It means the business entity is no more unaware of these apps. After all, one-size-fits-all does not bring desirable results. So, custom mobile apps come into the picture to meet the unique needs and offer tailored solutions to every business. 

The beauty of on-demand apps is that they cater to all your needs while giving you quick access from anywhere. Thus, we can say that the companies can provide customers with goods and services immediately. As a result, it pushes the on-demand economy as well. 

Before getting into how on-demand apps shape our lives and businesses, let’s learn a little bit more about on-demand apps. 

• What are on-demand apps?

When it comes to on-demand apps, they link consumers with businesses. These apps have marked space in various sectors, such as healthcare, grocery, car rentals, laundry, food delivery, and many more. Depending on their needs and requirements, consumers can use these apps to get their hands on services in no time and with a few clicks on their smartphones. 

Given the numerous perks, more and more online businesses are driving towards on-demand apps to build a reputation and boost their sales. 

• What role do on-demand apps play? 

A few years from now, on-demand apps were nothing more than a luxury. But today, they are a necessity. Due to convenience and other benefits, nowadays, consumers rely extensively on custom mobile apps for services, like food, transportation, logistics, beauty, healthcare, etc.

To be precise, on-demand apps have changed the buyers’ behavior and the way we run businesses. The following are some ways on-demand apps can improve customers’ buying experience. 

• Ease of making a choice - With on-demand apps, customers can choose the service provider with ease. For example, once the consumer selects a company for making a purchase, it will automatically get added to the list. If they are satisfied with the services, they are likely to come back to the same provider.

• Tracking - Another benefit of customized apps is the tracking facility. Therefore, once the customers place an order, they can track their product using real-time location. 

• Digital payments - On-demand apps also come with the option of a cashless payment facility. As per your convenience, you can make payments using cards, online banking, or cash. 

If you are searching for a reliable company that offers custom-made mobile app development services, get in touch with SoftProdigy. 

Reasons Why AngularJS is Growing in Popularity in Web Development World

Over the years, AngularJS has become a popular name among developers and businesses. Unlike other frameworks, this transcript-based framework offers flexibility and robustness to Single Page Application (SPAs) and web applications. It is one of the prime reasons why more people are relying on AngularJS development services.

If you cannot buy these reasons to consider AngularJS the top web development solution, we are here to help you. Below, we will look at some features of AngularJS that most frameworks fall short of providing. 

• Compatible with different browsers 

One of the best things about AngularJS is its compatibility with multiple browsers, like Opera, Firefox, Chrome, Android, and iOS. As a result, the Angular codebase remains the same, which saves money and time.

• Model-View-Control 

With Model-View-Control architecture, AngularJS can manage sections, such as the data layer, business layer, and presentation layer. 

• REST easy 

The use of RESTful APIs for communication between the client and the server has gained a lot of popularity in recent times. The most interesting thing is that communication happens with one line of JavaScript. 

• Bidirectional data binding

Another vital feature of AngularJS is its two-way data binding process. Well, AngularJS ease-outs developers work, as they have to write fewer codes. 

• Model-View-ViewModel

In AngularJS, the Model uses a root scope to talk to the ViewModel objects, which will find out any changes in the Models. After this, the changes will be rendered by the Views and routed using the routeProvider object. 

If you are searching for a reliable AngularJS web development company, get in touch with SoftProdigy.

Summary - Want to build a user-friendly, feature-rich, and dynamic web application for your business? Hire an AngularJS developer with years of experience and in-depth knowledge in the field. 

Nine Best Frameworks that Cater to the Requirements of Chatbot Developers

Chatbots are among one of the most visible applications that the AI technology has enabled in the last decade. They have truly evolved over the years and turned into indispensable tools for online businesses, consumers, and various industries. They are everywhere – from online assistants to helper bots to home applications like Alexa. They have, in a short span, become one of the most used consumer-facing applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

In a world that is increasingly dependent on data, the ubiquity of chatbots can be attributed to the fact that it is an important application, which directly interacts with consumers. Chatbot developers are helping businesses create a better user experience, and are driving significant value for a diverse range of industries.

A chatbot development company has its work cut out for it – constructing a machine that can mimic human intelligence and interact with real humans in a reliable and pre-programmed manner. Bot development companies opine that these chatbots are still in a state of technical infancy and the rapid development in this sector is helping the technology to begin on the path of meeting its full potential. As the chatbot industry develops and plays an important role in how consumers and enterprises interact, it is bound to generate significant future value in both corporate and consumer settings.

Chatbots have completely transformed the customer service industry, and experts predict that by 2022, more than 90% of customer interactions will be automated. Chatbotdevelopers are working on making these chatbots more intuitive, swift, and accurate.

They are employing time-tested methods and amalgamating them with latest advancements in technology to come out with great products. The framework chosen by a developer also plays a role in determining the efficacy and usability of a chatbot.

A number of frameworks are employed by chatbot development companies, depending on various suitable factors. Some popular frameworks for chatbot development include:

 

• Wit.ai

Wit.ai is an open-source chatbot framework that possesses advanced natural language processing API. It is owned by Facebook and is one of the most popular choices for building apps and devices that users can talk to. Wit.ai can be used to build text or voice-based intelligent bots for social channels, mobile apps, websites, and IoT devices that people can interact with.

Wit.ai is mostly used for: 

• Bots
• Home Automation
• Wearable Devices
• Mobile Apps

• IBM Watson

IBM Watson is a Natural Language Classifier that allows a developer to build, train, and deploy conversational interactions into any application. It can interpret natural language using the customer classifier. IBM Watson supports various machine learning techniques and can be programmed to search for an answer from a knowledge base.

It can even help the bot decide between asking the user for more clarity or directing the user to a human. It supports multiple languages, including English, Spanish, Arabic, and more. It can be deployed in any cloud-based app or on-premises environment. It makes smarter AI available, wherever required.

• DialogFlow

DialogFlow is a Google-based chatbot building framework, which is based on Natural Learning Processing. It has built-in machine learning capabilities and integrates well with popular communication channels. Chatbot developers prefer Dialogflow for its ability to include natural language voice interfaces in the products. This particular framework is mostly used for building conversational apps for customers – not only in various languages but on multiple platforms as well.

•  PandoraBots

Available since 2008, Pandorabots is an open-source chatbot framework that allows developers to build and publish AI-powered chatbots. These bots can be for applications based on web, mobile, or even messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. Pandorabots is majorly being used in academics and research fields as virtual assistants, e-learning, teaching assistants, and more. Pandorabots supports multiple languages, is flexible, and can be extended to support the bot functions.

 

• BotPress

BotPress is another open-source conversational framework that is used in multiple Artificial Intelligence applications. It is not only a flexible and conversational platform that is used by enterprises to automate conversations, but is also robust enough to be applied in applications to manage workflow in global companies. Its most prominent features include:

• Advanced permission requirement
• Secure
• Data compliant
• Release management
• Built for application in analysis and reporting
• Easily available and widespread usage

BotPress is a lightweight and fast framework that developers can work on with extreme ease. It can be deployed by them within an existing infrastructure as well, which explains its widespread usage.

•  Microsoft Bot Framework

Microsoft-owned Microsoft Bot Framework is fortified with powerful tools, SDKs, and services that offer rich foundations to developers to build and connect intelligent bots upon. It is used as a comprehensive framework on which enterprise-grade conversational Artificial Intelligence experiences are built. The framework offers language understanding, question and answer maker, and an array of replies composed in a sophisticated manner. The enterprise-grade bots built using Microsoft Bot Framework are intelligent and give greater control over the ownership of data.

•  Rasa Stack 

The Rasa Stack is a set of open source NLP tools that are mainly used for building chatbots by developers. It is employed for building complex chatbots in a cost-effective and time-efficient manner. It can be regarded as the infrastructure layer that is used by developers to not just build, but also improve and deploy AI assistants that are significantly better. Since it is a machine learning framework, it can easily automate text and voice-based assistant. It offers the basic outline and tools that are absolutely necessary for high-performing, resilient, and contextual assistants.

This framework is used for natural language understanding, dialogue management, and commands integration. Rasa X is preferred by developers as it is a free toolset that is used to improve the contextual assistant, which is built using open-source Rasa.

• ChatterBot 

ChatterBot is a Python library of tools, which is extremely useful as it makes it easy to generate automated responses to a user’s input. ChatterBot is one of the most advanced frameworks as it makes use of Machine Learning algorithms to create different types of responses each time. It helps make applications that are the next best thing to human assistants. Developers prefer it as it creates chatbots that are capable of intelligent automated conversations with users.

The ChatterBot-backed applications are trained to speak any language as they are language-independent. The framework is designed to create software that can engage in conversation with a user and provide assistance in various situations.

•  BotKit 

BotKit is a leading open-source developer tool that can not only be used for chatbot development but also for developing apps and custom integrations for every major platform. It integrates a variety of communication channels, plug-ins, and open-source libraries for chatbot developers. BotKit also provides an integrated natural learning processing environment from LUIS.ai. BotKit is a flexible system that can expertly handle scripted conversations transactions that involve asking questions to verify identity, applying branching logic, and including dynamic behavior. It is a robust system that can handle conversational software creation of all types.

An increasing population percentage is trusting chatbots and is likely to make a purchase from a website by speaking with a chatbot alone.

Businesses are realizing the benefits of automating repetitive tasks through chatbots and making business processes swifter. As consumer insights and data shapes chatbot behaviour, it is becoming an extremely advanced technology with more human-like capabilities.

Why MongoDB is the Best NoSQL Database for Modern Apps?

MongoDB is a popular database for developing modern applications. As a general-purpose, document-based distributed database, the technology is used by millions of developers to power some of the most innovative products and services in the world.

Why Choose MongoDB?

MongoDB is great for transactional stores as its performance is high. It stores data in JSON-like documents which is more natural and powerful than the traditional row/column model. Also, it is a NoSQL database where you don’t have to query the database with SQL. Here are some more reasons to choose MongoDB:

1.      MongoDB is document-centric where data is stored in documents, making it flexible and adaptable to real business world requirements.

2.      Indexes can be created to improve the performance of searches. This allows developers to index any field in a MongoDB document.

3.      MongoDB can run over multiple servers, balancing the load or duplicating data to keep the system up.

4.      It works very well in the cloud and has a great user experience for developers. 

5.      It is easy to get started with lots of clear documentation.

6.      MongoDB can support rapid iterative development & can also scale your data repository to a bigger size.

7.      It is incorporated by a number of internationally-renowned companies.

So, if you've been considering a jump to a NoSQL database, MongoDB is the answer. You see, it has many modern features and attributes that will make your journey smooth and successful. So, get it started today!

Where to Get Started?

We at SoftProdigy, provide the best MongoDB Development Services and help our clients develop modern and feature-loaded applications. Be it e-commerce product catalog, content management, configuration management, or data management, hire Node.JS developers, and let them cater to your project needs.

Contact us to hire MongoDB developers for your next project!