Keep IT Real
by Paul Usher

2019 The Road Ahead

Happy New Year!

With 2019 just days away, a lot of people use this time to reflect on the year that was, and the year that is being ushered in.

What should we look forward to next year? From a technology perspective things keep moving at a rapid pace. It seems no sooner have we started to embrace a new framework  something else is being touted as the new thing. What mobile framework is the best to focus on?  Should we be looking at Docker? What about .NET Core?

Personally, I think it’s wise to at least stay informed on what’s happening. Reality for most developers; it’s difficult to look at implementing new things into legacy projects, it’s time consuming and somewhat daunting to try and keep up to date. I’d be keen to hear how you stay on top of the shifting sands.

What about tools? Did you add anything new to the toolbox? are you leaving any particular tool or service behind? For me the following are definitely coming through to next year:

There are some other everyday tools that will stay around, but that list contains some of the coolest applications I use on a day to day basis.

Interestingly, I’m leaving behind

  • Trello
  • Jira
  • Confluence

One thing I’ve noticed as the year progressed, I am spending more and more time inside Visual Studio Code, and less in Xcode and Visual Studio. Which I think shows how much closer the technologies are becoming. I no longer have to switch to my Windows VM to spin up an Azure Web Service or edit a .NET application.

By far my favourite tooling for 2019 has been the Ionic Framework, coupled with the DevExtreme components has made building multi platform mobile applications a cinch.

Closing out 2018, I conquered a number of personal goals, including my first MMA Cage Fight. A big shout out to Jason @ Gamebred Academy for hosting Brisbane’s Series 3 – Wimp 2 Warrior challenge, thank you to Richie Cranny for making it all possible. It was an amazing experience.

2019…

Instead of setting ‘resolutions’ for 2019, I prefer to set some written goals. Moving into January I have committed to writing more blogs and producing more video content. Mainly just sharing the highs and lows of technology and tools that I use each day, some of the quirks I uncover, as well as cool uses of the DevExpress components. If I can save someone hours of scouring StackOverflow or auto generated documentation then it will be a good year.

Wishing you all a safe and prosperous New Year.