The positive impact of technology in the world today

The positive impact of technology in the world today!

Being a software developer or engineer requires the ability to learn and adapt to new coding languages, frameworks, and tools, and to do so quickly. What’s in demand one year, might fade out the next year as another new technology rises to popularity. When we spoke with our panel of technology specialists, we wanted to know about the tools that they use to help carry out their missions. As you might expect, one size, or in this case, one stack does not fit all. Each environment has its own preference for what works best to help them achieve their goals based on their expertise and skillset. And, these tools are likely to continue to change as technology evolves and advances.

In this article, we examine how companies are using technology to help them achieve their goals for making a positive impact. We also look at the challenges they face and at the newer technologies they see that can help companies give back to society and the environment.

After 18 years of development, I haven’t had one boring day yet. Everything’s always changing, and it’s very interesting.
— Leon Miller-Out, Singlebrook

Software stacks

Among the software stacks that our technical specialists use, we discovered a few common tools, such as Java, JavaScript, PHP, Node.js, Vue, and Laravel. Here’s a closer look at some of the stacks that these purpose-driven developer environments use.

As the CTO at Singlebrook, Leon Miller-Out says he continues to be hands on in developing software. He says, “After 18 years of development, I haven’t had one boring day yet. Everything’s always changing, and it’s very interesting. “We’ve been a primarily Ruby on Rails shop for several years, but we’re writing more and more Javascript these days. For our front-end work, we use React and various parts of that ecosystem, including React Native for mobile development. We focus on tools that are both widely used and efficient enough for our developers to work happily and effectively.” He adds that, although some tools might technically be the best or make developers the happiest, they can become a liability because they don’t develop enough adopters to remain viable for years.

CauseLabs uses a PHP-based technology stack. Mark Horlbeck calls it a ‘traditional LAMP stack’ (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP). Mark says that they favor the “traditional” LAMP stack because it’s well-known and doesn’t require additional skill or knowledge that more specialized stacks may. When you’re developing for a number of clients and jumping between projects, having that baseline is key. However, they look for areas in which to become proficient to improve efficiency, for example implementing using Vue.js on the frontend and Laravel on the backend. They are focusing on the advantages of Docker for local development and for production deployments.

ThinkShout started building a RedHat customer relationship management (CRM) system. It was a Drupal-based lightweight system that was geared toward nonprofits and similar organizations. Now, the company provides a full suite of services that include design, discovery, implementation, support, and analytics. Each piece intertwines together, making the combination critical for the company’s clients to accomplish their goals.

ThinkShout’s Tauno Hogue has seen a continued shift toward increasing complexity on the front end from a focused stack of tools to specialization in React, Singular, and Ember. He says, “We do most of our work entirely in Drupal and WordPress. However, we’ve noticed a shift in the skills for Drupal, particularly between the release of Drupal 7 and Drupal 8.”

Most of the nonprofit organizations that ThinkShout works with don’t have deep budgets. Over the last few years, many of them invested in initiatives to modernize their CRM practices. For example, they are innovating by combining SalesForce or other CRM systems with websites so that their users can log in, update their profiles, and automatically track when they make a donation. It’s the first step toward what many organizations are doing in regard to personalization and building rich profiles of their members.

Hogue adds, “MailChimp is an example of one of our clients who has a positive focus on doing good. We maintain the company’s Drupal integration modules for their tools to ensure that those tools are available and easy to use for the nonprofits that MailChimp serves.”

Challenges facing technology

Every development team faces challenges with getting access to the right technology or using the tools they have to achieve their programming goals. For example, their challenge might be connecting multiple APIs and communicating with remote systems. But, a couple of the people we talked to highlighted greater areas of concern for the IT industry as a whole.

For Leon Miller-Out, the biggest challenge is with security, particularly with the Internet of Things (IoT) and everything becoming increasingly interconnected. He says, “As companies build more IoT devices or basic components, like wireless routers, they need to maintain the software behind them and ensure that it remains secure.” What seems like a simple way to make our lives easier can become hackable, allowing strangers to gain access to our personal data and invade our privacy. He explains, “We’re creating these dangerous environments, and it’s going to get worse. For example, if household appliances are connected to the Internet, a security hole could allow someone access to spy on your home and your personal lives right over the Internet.” The question is whether having that convenience is worth the risk in our own security.

“The biggest technical challenge is with data consistency,” according to Kevin O’Brien. He says, “We’ve done 300 million transactions, with money flowing back and forth. People lend US$25 at a time and are paid back maybe US$2 at a time. All of these transactions can result in delays and bank wires that can create problems that you have to track down. Occasionally when our data center loses power, our backup generators don’t work. Then, all that data gets out of synch for the day, and we have to work our way back through it to make sure it’s correct. At the end of the day, it’s a big challenge to make sure that all the pennies add up to the amounts that they’re supposed to. With over US$1.2 billion in loans, we are confident that we can track every penny.”

We continue this piece via our other blog articles, where we look at AI and tech companies coding for a brighter future.

This article was brought to you by the CEO of Source Coders.