Is Java still the fastest growing technology in 2013?

Nobody can deny the huge popularity of Java as a powerful technology to build applications to target different web browsers, operating systems and devices. But the popularity of the technology was recently affected due to certain bugs that were misused by malicious people to carry out identity thefts and other crimes. Despite Oracle releasing a security update of Java software for web browsers, software developers and researchers are still skeptical about its effectiveness in providing adequate protection to computers from these attack.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has already warned users not to run Java in their web browsers, unless it is absolutely necessary. According to Reuters.com, “The U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned that a security update of Oracle Corp's Java software for Web browsers does not do enough to protect computers from attack, sticking to its previous advice that the program be disabled.” The report further added, “Security experts have warned that PCs running Java in their browsers could be attacked by criminals seeking to steal credit-card numbers, banking credentials, passwords and commit other types of computer crimes.”

However, many security experts have said that the bugs are affecting only one part of Java platform, i.e., the software that users plug into their web browser. So, developers can still use Java in 2013 to write one set of code that is compatible with computers running on a variety of operating systems including Apple Macs, Microsoft Windows, and Linux. Despite the experts criticizing the security update released by Oracle, many developers are still excited about a several Java trends. Some of these upcoming trends will further contribute towards Java’s popularity and growth in 2013.

Trends that will Contribute towards Java’s Growth in 2013

Java 8: Most developers are looking forward to the release of latest version of Java. Oracle is expected to release Java 8 in September, if everything goes as per schedule. The updated version will allow developers to start developing applications using the long awaited lambdas functions. However, many tech bloggers have started highlighting the complex nature of the new feature even before its release. The new feature along with the improved Date and Time API will encourage many developers to use Java 8 for making robust web applications.

Powerful Java Virtual Machine (JVM) Languages: Most developers use several JVM Languages to develop software that will run seamlessly on the Java Virtual Machine. As the JVM languages comprises of a number of computer programming language, a developer can easily pick his favorite language to write codes. In 2012, many companies invested in a variety of JVM languages. The trend will continue this year, and many companies will launch new versions to provide programmers with additional features and functionality.

New JavaScript Engine: The upcoming Java version will come with a new JavaScript engine. The engine will make it easier for developers to embed JavaScript into their Java applications. As JavaScript is still used in developing all types of websites, the embedded engine will encourage many developers to use the latest version of Java. The open source project was included last year as part of the OpenJDK repository. The feature becomes more exciting as it includes node.js which is widely used by developers, and adds polyglot future to the engine.

Improved Java API: The OpenJDK also includes a project that aims to use GPU to optimize the greater Java performance. The project is also tested using Java 8 library and specific languages like lambdas. With the advanced feature developers will be able to develop robust web applications using Java API and its constructs.

Java Cloud Functions: Similar to other large companies, Oracle has further established Java in the world of cloud computing. However, the Java cloud features are delayed till the release of Java EE 8. So the providers have to use individual standards. But the updated version will come with a universal framework like jClouds that will optimize and standardize Java’s own cloud features. The growing popularity of cloud computing will further boost the popularity of Java application development.

We provide Java development services. If you would like to know more about our certified Java developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

Who is an Ideal PHP Developer?

The frequent changes in the choices and demands of users have made web application development process both complex and complicated. Most companies, nowadays, look for innovative ways to design websites that can attract, impress and captivate the visitors. As a server side scripting language, PHP is hugely popular among developers to provide a distinct look and feel to a variety of websites.

A php development company planning to hire a PHP web developer can easily receive CVs from a large number of jobseekers. But each organization finds it a daunting challenge to find an ideal PHP developer. When you are looking for a professional PHP developer, the applicant is surely expected to be theoretically and practically sound in PHP development. Also, he must understand the key features of different versions of PHP, and be able to differentiate between PHP 4 and PHP 5.

However, most of the websites, nowadays, are being designed using multiple languages. So a professional, who has minimum knowledge on other languages, can easily integrate the codes in PHP. For instance, if the PHP developer knows HTML, CSS and Flash, he can optimize the look and feel of all web applications. At the same time, he must possess some additional qualities that make the PHP developer ideal and more efficient.

5 Important Qualities of an Ideal PHP Web Developer

• Good Understanding of Object Oriented Programming: A developer with good understanding of Object Oriented Programming (OOP) can learn and use other programming languages without putting any extra time and effort. So you must ask certain OOP-related questions to the applicant to test his understanding. For instance, you can ask several questions to the applicant to check his knowledge on important concepts like inheritance, polymorphism, constructors and interfaces. Also, he must be able to clearly differentiate between private, public, protected and static methods and functions.
• Knowledge of Major Databases: A successful web application must be effective in gathering and synchronizing information from several data sources. Also, the choice of databases varies from one organization to another based on the nature and volume of their data. So an ideal PHP developer must have knowledge regarding both SQL and non-SQL databases. Along with a clear understanding of primary and foreign keys, he also needs to know the database design patterns. It is also important for the developer to at least know one commonly used source control system, along with the importance of CVS.
• Must Know Various Aspects of Web Application Testing: Most companies, nowadays, opt for test driven web application design to save time and resources. So you must hire a PHP developer who has a clear understanding of important web application testing concepts and techniques. The professional also need to know what unit testing is, why unit testing is important, how to unit test JavaScript, and how to use Selenium to check the compatibility of the application with major web browsers. You should also determine if he knows appendChild, removeChild, nextSibling, and other methods to manipulate DOM. The additional web application testing knowledge will further contribute towards controlling the overall project cost.
• Interested in Learning Latest Technologies: Despite being a powerful language PHP cannot be used exclusively to build an entire website. Most web application interfaces are designed using HTML and CSS. Similarly, many web pages used client side scripting languages like DOM Programming and JavaScript to reduce the load on web server. Also, most web applications are designed using open source scripts and templates. Often the open source codes are integrated with PHP script to customize the websites. So an ideal PHP developer must know these languages and technologies, in addition to possessing good PHP programming skills.
• Ability to Connect with Other Professionals: Often companies want to impress their customers by offering innovative and distinct features. So the PHP developer has to face constant challenges to boost the look and feel of various web applications. If the develop is good in communication with other developers, he can easily avail their assistance whenever the need arises. The good communication skill will further make it easier for you to handle clients and other stakeholders in the project. Also, the developer will work as part of a team consisting of other developers and project managers. If he can communicate with other professionals smoothly, it will optimize the overall productivity of your web application development team.

We provide php web development services. If you would like to know more about our certified php developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

10 Reasons to Learn Java Programming Language and Why Java is Best

Today Java is everywhere. It was developed by James Gosling by Sun Microsystems which is merged with Oracle Corporation now. It can be best defined as dynamic, secure, object-oriented, distributed, interpreted, robust, portable, high-performance, general-purpose programming language. This programming language has been the core part of Java platform which designs customized applications sufficing the needs of a variety of computing platforms from cell phones to personal computers.

Java is popular among software developers and users because of the light and compact applications it can produce in significantly less time. Card Java aims at smart cards and Embedded Java is designed for everything from networked air conditioning units to printers. The Java development kit is used for developing desktop computer applications and applets.

Here is a list of 10 reasons, why to learn Java and whether Java is the best programming language in terms of development, community support and opportunities.

Java is Easy to learn: Java has got an easy fluent english like syntax with minimum magic characters e.g. Generics angle brackets, which makes it easy to read Java program and learn quickly. Programmers can easily install JDK and set up the PATH and understand how Classpath works, then it will be pretty easy to write programs in Java.

Java is an Object Oriented Programming Language: Java is an Object Oriented Programming language. Developing OOPS application is much easier and it also helps to keep system modular, flexible and extensible. Oops concepts such as Abstraction, Encapsulation, Polymorphism and inheritance, which are used by Java, helps the programmers achieve tasks easily.

Java has Rich API: One more reason for Java programming language's huge success is its Rich API and most importantly it's highly visible, because it comes with Java installation. Java Applets provide great animation capability, which amazes new programmers like us, who are used to code in Turbo C++ editor. Java provides API for I/O, networking, utilities, xml parsing, database connection and almost everything.

Powerful development tools: Eclipse and Netbeans has played a huge role to make Java one of the best programming languages. It has a powerful debugging capability, which is essential for real world development. Integrated Development Environment (IDE) made Java development much easier, faster and fluent. With tools Java(IDE) can build some amazing applications meeting current business demands.

Great collection of Open Source libraries: With open source libraries, Java could be used everywhere. Apache, Google and other organizations have contributed a lot of great libraries, which make Java development easier, faster and cost effective. There are frameworks like Spring, Struts, Maven, which ensure that Java development follows the best practices of software development and promotes the use of best design patterns.

Wonderful community support: Community is the biggest strength of the Java programming language and platform. Java has been very lucky, it has lots of active forums such as Stack overflow, open source organizations and several Java user groups to help everything. There is a community to help beginners, advanced programmers and even experts.

Java is FREE: Everyone wants to set up their website for free. The organization wants to use a technology, where cost is a major factor. Since Java is free, one can create Java applications at no cost. This FREE thing also helped Java to become popular among individual programmers and among large organizations.

Excellent documentation support: Not everyone has time and intention to look at code to learn what a method does or how to use a class. Java documents make learning easy and provide an excellent reference while coding in Java. All information is freely available in the IDE window itself.

Java is Platform Independent: The famous tag-line for Java is "write once run anywhere" was enticing enough to attract lots of new development projects in Java. This is still one of the reasons of Java being the best programming language, most of Java applications are developed in a Windows environment and run on UNIX platform.

Java is everywhere: Java programmer outnumbers any other programming language professional. Java is everywhere and it's true, it's on the desktop, it's on mobile, it's on card, almost everywhere. This huge availability of Java programmers, is another reason, why organizations prefer Java for new development than any other programming languages.

It is not the end of the features and the reasons of popularity of Java application development. There are more features like its dynamic and extensible nature, network based apps, open-sourcing which makes it free to use for development purpose, etc. It helps one meet its business needs. Java team has extensive experience on Java application maintenance for different platforms. They can help you build application and maintenance within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide Java web development services. If you would like to discuss with a certified Java developer from our team, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

PHP Zend: Presenting tools for the Mobile and Cloud

For any offshore industry organization, PHP turns out to be the perfect code base for swift application development and deployment. As technologies are becoming more and more mobile, and content becoming available across cloud facilities, it is highly anticipated that PHP will come up with something easy and effective for this platform too. Zend Studio 10, derived from PHP’s Zend framework, has brought in innovative tools that make room for a suitable drag- and-drop ambience within the mobile app industry. Another Zend development tool from the closet of PHP is Zend Server Gateway which serves as an API with respect to cloud facilities revolving around the Representational State Transfer or REST architecture. Before we explore these tools let us have a brief understanding of the beneficial aspects of the Zend framework.

Reasons for Popularity of the Zend Framework

Loosely coupled: The Zend Framework can be utilized in the form of a component library. This implies that one can opt for working with a single component or a group of components existing in the framework. For instance, if you need to make use of the Zend Pdf, then it is possible to do so without making use of other components available within the framework. In fact, decoupling of components is done to the greatest extent possible.

MVC constituents: MVC (Model View Controller) components are also available within the Zend framework. This enables the separation of user interface from business logic. Mapping of HTTP Requests is done to a specific function within the user land controller set. The front controller structure is also implemented.

CLI and web programming: Zend framework can be used to compose CLI scripts. Argument parsing functionality is provided by the Zend_Console_GetOpt constituent.

Documentation: The documentation of Zend Framework is exhaustive. Documentation is available in 6 languages in more than 500 pages. Along with the reference guide, online access to and downloading facility for API documentation is available.

Support: There are a number of support channels available in Zend, the official one being the mailing list, which involves active participation from Zend developers. Moreover, a plethora of unofficial forums are available online.

Value creation by Zend: Zend Server and Zend Studio constitute the platform and IDE products available from Zend. Both of these come with a community version that can be freely utilized and provide integration across Zend framework. Partnering with organizations such as Sitepen, Adobe and Google enable Zend to leverage the components of these partner companies.

Zend for the Mobile and Cloud

The capabilities of the PhoneGap mobile industry are integrated by Zend Studio ten with respect to JQuery, thereby crafting a remarkable drag-and-drop ambience for swifter development of mobile applications. For a company operating within the PHP application domain, PhoneGap is of immense help as it enables UI prototyping for Android, BlackBerry, RIM, iOS mobile and Windows Phone operating systems. Design expedient back-ends are provided ranging from cultural media to business applications.

The Zend Server Gateway offers integration of cloud facilities within the drag-and-drop ambience of Zend Studio ten facilitating convenient validation and authentication. The Zend server upgrade enables automatic deployment of applications within the cloud and ensures the availability of dashboards for monitoring the operation of the application across manifold cloud scenarios of the application. Auditing and compliance features are synchronized within the upgrade facilitating Root Cause Analysis (RCA) without making any changes to the live code. The partnership between Zend and Red Hat has led to the introduction of the PHP engine to aid the OpenShift platform. Other remarkable cloud tools that come via Zend are Zend Application Fabric and phpcloud.com.

The PHP Zend industry is advancing rapidly, bringing in cutting edge technology for PHP based network apps, thereby ensuring the implementation of the most cherished network applications within the stipulated time at economical rates. PHP application development teams can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.

If you want to hire a PHP developer for your PHP web development needs, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

Increasing Popularity of PHP Development

PHP is a server-side scripting language that is compatible across major operating systems like Linux, Windows and so on. In the current scenario, programmers largely use PHP frameworks in order to deal with performance tuning issues, quickly and conveniently. Incorporating plug-ins and standard templates, PHP offers a robust architecture convenient for source code programming. A large number of frameworks are available to choose from, which can also be customized to suit particular coding needs. The most commonly used frameworks are Zend, Codeigniter, Smarty, Cake PHP and so on. An interesting aspect of PHP is that it offers ease of use for both newcomers and veteran programmers.

Advantages of using PHP frameworks

Query Generalization: Almost every web application is created with databases. Once you decide to incorporate anything dynamic, you need to search for words such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, or SQLite. Creating queries implies a number of tables, foreign keys, joins, relations and so on. If there is some mistake at any point the application fails to function properly. This is not the case for PHP frameworks, where you just need to call up the function corresponding to a column or table and your work in done.

Code generation: A database is built in order to handle data. SQL INSERT statements are definitely not the most efficient means. PHP frameworks are able to produce the forms once you run the database code generator. The forms can then be used for entering data.

AJAX: Asynchronous JavaScript And XML (AJAX)) is amongst the most preferred functionality so far as web 2.0 sites are concerned. In case you are looking for a completely AJAX powered website, it takes a lot of time to compose the functions, objects and other things. PHP frameworks make this process convenient. To get the desired work done, all you need to do is compose the functions and call them appropriately.

Form Handling: In case you submit wrong information in a form, the database gives an error message and you begin debugging for what has gone wrong. Your problem takes considerable time to get resolved. By using a framework, the probability of errors is greatly reduced because it will check for the correctness of data. If there are some errors, debugging is much more convenient.

State management: Web and Web 2.0 is powered by the HTTP protocol. Many of the new technological executions are aimed at solving the HTTP protocol’s stateless manner. Here ‘state’ indicates a means for the website to recall what the user was doing. For instance, when you are logging in to a site, your ‘state’ should be remembered as ‘logged’. There are in fact a number of states that a web application is required to maintain, Using PHP frameworks, developers are empowered to control the application’s traits along with other aspects, making life much more convenient.

MVC architecture: The Model View Controller (MVC) architecture is used to build a number of websites, wherein the logic (model), behavior (controller) and presentation (view) are segregated. Almost all the PHP frameworks follow similar patterns and facilitate the creation of web applications that are much more in line with the MVC patterns. This makes development an easier process that when the developer tries to compose everything by himself.

Event Driven Programming: This is something which every developer would prefer to do. It revolves around taking actions during the occurrence of particular events. PHP development frameworks facilitate event driven programming in the sense that you are able to take a number of actions on events like button clicks or key presses. The developer is capable of focusing on the program logic instead of spending valuable time pondering about ways to route the request that is generated through the application by the button press.

PHP frameworks offer a comprehensive list of features allowing programmers to do much more easily and quickly. Each specific framework has its distinct functionality to facilitate the developer’s work. PHP development India teams can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide php web development services. If you would like to know more about our expert php developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

Avail Completely Customized Ecommerce solution with Java

Java is an autonomous programming language offering a brilliant computing platform that incorporates automatic memory control. Java programming is secure, robust and guarantees high quality performance. Java is also architecturally neutral, network savvy, and portable. In fact, it is possible to run Java on almost any kind of platform or JVM (Java Virtual Machine), irrespective of the computer architecture. As a programming language, Java is very popular and makes room for viewing 3D images, chatting, and playing games and a host of intranet applications. The striking aspects of this computing platform in terms of accessibility, portability, flexibility, convenience of use and safety make it the most preferred choice for customized ecommerce solutions. Java ecommerce is mainly effective due to its presence at the client as well as the server sides.

Benefits of Java

• Simple: Java is a very simple programming language to learn because its syntax is more or less based on C++. Hence programmers can easily learn it once they are thorough with C++. The Java platform does away with complicated features like operator overloading, explicit pointers and so on, which makes it a convenient tool for ecommerce development. Since Java offers Automatic Garbage Collection, there is no need to eliminate unreferenced objects.

• Object-Oriented: Developers need to organize software in the form of a compilation of different kinds of objects which incorporates behavior as well as data. Through OOPS (Object-oriented programming), Java simplifies software development and offers convenient maintenance.

• Platform Independent: The Java platform is a software-based platform which consists of two components, namely Runtime Environment and Application Programming Interface. It is possible to run Java code on a number of platforms like Linux, Windows and more. The compiler compiles the code which is then transformed into byte code, a platform independent code that can be operated on diverse platforms.
  
  
• Security: One of the major concerns of an ecommerce site is the security aspect and Java is designed to address the same perfectly. This programming language and platform is secured because of the fact that it has no explicit pointer and programs are executed within virtual machine sandbox. There is the Classloader which imparts security by separation of packages pertaining to classes within local file system from those introduced from network sources. The Bytecode Verifier identifies any illegal code within the code fragments while Security Manager estimates the resources that a class can access like reading or writing to local disk.
  
  
• Robust and Reliable: Java makes use of a robust memory management system. The absence of pointers does away with any security problem. Moreover, the presence of automatic garbage collection, type checking mechanism and exception handling feature makes Java robust and reliable. Interestingly, Java compilers are capable of early detection of problems which in case of other languages would reveal themselves only during execution.
  
  
• Distributed and Network-centric: Java makes distributed computing extremely convenient with the inherent networking ability that is synchronized with it. With this platform, it is very easy to work across a network with resources and build network-oriented applications through multitier or client-server architectures.
  
  
• Multithreaded: This refers to a program’s capability to carry out a number of tasks concurrently within a program. Ecommerce developers can write Java programs which deal with many tasks at the same time through defining multiple threads, sharing the same memory.
  
  
• Internationalization: Another reason of the immense popularity for Java for ecommerce development is the internationalization features that this programming language has within its core.

An ecommerce website is a huge platform for businesses to compete for customers. Java, which in many ways is ahead of its counterpart technologies, can indeed offer effective and customized ecommerce solutions. This makes Java web application development hugely popular.

We provide Java web development services. If you would like to discuss with a certified Java developer from our team, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

Top 9 Amazing Facts about PHP

Business has been getting smarter over the years as a courtesy of fast technological evolution. The merits or demerits of technology tendencies can be judged by the kind of influence they have on enterprises. Trends that have no influence on the presentation of businesses in their domain go away, not ever to be glimpsed again. But the ones that help enterprises improve their profitability in more ways than proceed on to become the catalysts for change. Various software technologies have taken the business to a modernize way of representing in the web. Among the popular technologies PHP is probably the most known web development language right now. At least 20 million domains use PHP and it’s the language used on major sites such as Wikipedia and Facebook as well as in some of the world’s biggest open source projects like WordPress and Drupal.

We are well into 2013 and it has thrown up some advanced technology trends that have the potential to affect business and that too in a good way. Some amazing things happened just after the birth of PHP. It has met most of the business needs today from small to midsize and big size business.

Amazing Facts:

• PHP's abilities include outputting images, PDF files and even Flash movies generated on the fly.

• PHP can be used on all major operating systems, including Linux, Unix variants, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, RISC OS and probably others. PHP has also support for most of the web servers today.

• With PHP we can make a template with our own site. One can redesign the look of a site often, or just keep the content fresh on all the pages. By keeping all of the design code for the entire site in separate files and it can be accessible as PHP files to the same design. This means that if one makes a change, he only needs to update one file and all of your pages will change.

• If one wishes to add a Poll, PHP is the best which provides the GD library and thus help in displaying the results of the poll visually instead of just listing the results in the text.

• Hosting a Web Forum is easier with PHP now. It is a popular language to create a web forum. One can use a forum that already exists and modify it for your needs, or can write a new one from scratch. PHP will usually store forum information in a MySQL database. This allows large quantities of information to be stored and accessed quickly as required.

• PHP helps to create a page hit counter which can get the number of people visited on one's site. For a simple counter you don't even need to have a database, you can do it with just PHP using flat files.

• PHP even helps in getting information about last visited users. It can do this by storing a cookie in the user's browser. When they come back, you can read the cookie and remind them that the last time they visited was two weeks ago.

• PHP gives the ability for a company to have a dynamic presence on the web which allowed the company to conduct its business electronically, in essence having an electronic shop. Products can be advertised, sold and paid for all electronically. PHP websites can be exposed to hundreds of users around the world for almost no cost and with information being able to be changed almost instantly, the site can always be kept up to date with all the latest products to match with consumer demands.

• The attractiveness of PHP lies in its simplicity. It is very simple to understand and discover, especially for those with backgrounds in programming such as C, javascript and HTML. The language is alike to C and Perl so that anyone with a background in either C or Perl programming will feel comfortable using it.

Technology has advanced and many things are possible now with a few clicks. One can build customized websites in quicker time with PHP. With the power of technology today, businesses can understand their customers better and can initiate steps that help them build richer and more fulfilling relationships with their customers. The convergence of mobile computing, social networks and contextual services has meant that achieving customer intimacy is no longer an impossible task.

2013 will be the year for PHP which has many badly needed features which will see businesses making a perceptible shift towards implementing threat monitoring tools and data safety research teams, deployment of central management tools to enforce across the board security policies, data encryption, and more focus on cloud security. Newer versions being added with latest features getting more quality work in many countless projects, thus advancing PHP to the next level. PHP development India teams can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide PHP web development services. To know more about the expertise and certifications of our expert PHP developers, please visit us at Mindfire Solutions.