Manish Hatwalne

We are building a new app that serves curated contents from server on mobile - it involves some quizzes, polls, targeted information/contents on the user mobile. For the UI interaction part, we need to support gestures such as swipe, pinch, zoom, long press etc. We have two possible approaches here -

Native Android App - It gets data from server via JSON and uses native components to create UI with swipe, pinch, long-press etc. This is doable, but might take longer and UI changes would be time consuming.

Hybrid App with HTML5 + JS - The server generates UI with necessary JS and gesture support. Given the nature of app, I think it is a better approach but need to figure out right JS library to build UI with gesture support

I have two specific questions and I am hoping that experts here could share some insights -

(1) Any compelling reason to go with native approach instead of hybrid?  I might have overlooked something as I am looking into mobile apps after ages.
(2) Any recommendations for JS libraries for the UI and gesture support that we need? We'd prefer not to use JQuery based libraries - I have found QuoJS that seems to do what we need, but would appreciate recommendations from fellow coders here.  

TIA,
- Manish

That's a wonderful answer Tim - very well articulated and argued.

BTW, I am seeing more and more youngsters in my team and otherwise making fun of Java and strongly advocating loosely typed languages (Python and so on), and though I have experienced their productivity and simplicity, I wish they could realize the advantages of strongly-typed languages that you have so beautifully articulated.

Thanks again! I will keep this post in mind as I choose the technology/language for this project.  

Junilu Lacar wrote:Big Red Flag: "need language/technology that inherently protects against SQL injection or similar threats"

IMO, that's the wrong thing to be looking for if you'e concerned about security. Application security is not free; it's something you have to carefully consider and deliberately build in to your application from the start and all throughout. All languages/technologies have security issues. Choose your language/technology platform first, then do a risk assessment. If SQL injection is a risk you want to address, then learn how to do that in the language/platform that you choose. Come up with a plan/strategy for developing your application with as much security as you are willing/able to build in and see to it that developers know and follow the plan/strategy. Most of all, test, test, test. Lastly, poor quality code is virtually guaranteed to be insecure code. Well-factored, readable, and maintainable code is easier to secure and verify than poorly written code.

Yes, yes and resounding YES!!!

I had this red flag myself when I wrote that - but didn't elaborate on that one.  What I meant is this - often Java frameworks (or similar ones) use ORM and less likely to send loosely constructed SQL to DB. I *completely* understand how we should sanitize input and how to assess security based on language/technology chosen. In that sense I wholeheartedly agree with what you say.

However, based my experience with teams here, code developed by PHP developers (not all, but majority of those who I have seen working here) tends to be more prone to such issues. Again, I understand how we need to ensure security here. But without explaining intricate details of concerns, let me say that I would like to avoid PHP for this project.

Claude Moore wrote:Ok, but what are your currently skills ? Doesn't the language really matter at all ?

Nope, not really. I am language agnostic as long as chose technology/language justifies its use and should be stable enough to actually use in production.

We are trying to build a new HTML5 application and need robust and scalable option for the server-side. We are not considering Java frameworks now. We need to develop robust applications quickly on the server-side. Our data would be big and we need language/technology that inherently protects against SQL injection or similar threats (we won't be using PHP). Python seems to be a good choice, but Django seems to be quite heavy-weight for what we are planning to do. We will host it on a shared server - in case that is important.  

I am contemplating using node.js but not sure if it would be the most appropriate choice. Would appreciate any pointers and inputs that could help me get some clarity. Do ask for more clarification if I have missed out something.

TIA,
- Manish

Do not think too much about reasons for not having "enough" confidence, no matter how valid they are. Keep preparing from sites like geeksforgeeks.com or even here abd appear for interview, and while you talk - just remind yourself that you're trying to explain what you know. Be honest and to the point - it won't be long before you gain your confidence.

Good luck! :-)

Campbell Ritchie wrote:There is a second loop in line 4 where you are seeking the index of a letter.

Yeah, I got it. That's why I edited my post and acknowledged that! :-)

Campbell Ritchie wrote:What do you mean by more efficient?
If you mean readable, then your original option loses hands down.
If you mean in terms of memory use, then you are creating multiple String objects and rejecting them.
If you mean in terms of execution speed, then your suggestion runs in quadratic time whereas the other suggestions would run in linear time.

I meant efficiency in terms of time complexity. I have a single loop (linear), what part of code will make it quadratic? Am I missing something obvious?

Edit: Never mind, I got it!

I am afraid both these approaches (char stream and with loop and String.charAt() ) may not be more efficient than what I have already written!

German Gonzalez-Morris wrote:use a Set, as a HashSet in Java.

I thought about that, but how do I push string characters in a Set without loop. String.asCharArray() cannot be pushed directly!
Or am I missing something obvious?

I have a a given string which may contain any number of alpha-numeric characters, I need to calculate & extract unique characters from this string. That is if the string is "aaabcbbbdaa" I should get 4 (number of unique characters) and "abcd" as those unique characters.

I have a rudimentary code with a single for loop, but I am wondering if there is a better/more efficient way of doing this. Any pointers would be highly appreciated!


int uniqueChars = 0; String temp = ""; for(int i=0; i < substr.length(); i++){ if(-1 == temp.indexOf(substr.charAt(i))){ uniqueChars++; } temp = temp + substr.charAt(i); }

Anayonkar Shivalkar wrote:There are various factors to keep in mind. However, I would go for multiplying factor of 1.5 to 2.

That's the usual formula in India, but I thought in Bangalore it is more like 1.8 to 2.5 since Bangalore salaries are usually better!
Thanks for clarifying.

What is the salary range for a technical architect with 15+ years software development experience in Bangalore, in a well-funded product startup in financial domain?

If you are new to Python, you should consider 'Byte Of Python' - it is really very good - http://www.swaroopch.com/notes/python/

Which is the best free interactive (client-side/JS) charts/graphs package in terms of features, support and licensing for DJango web applications? I have explored this one - http://chartit.shutupandship.com/demo/ but it is a bit broken due to simplejson support and HighCharts is no more free!
Any pointers/recommendations would be highly appreciated!

TIA,
- Manish