Microsoft announced on Wednesday 6th of March 2019 that it made Windows Calculator an open source software (you can find it on GitHub). Suddenly, the internet went crazy with memes and posts mocking the last announcement judging it as a small piece of code, it’s not worth it and blah blah blah.
Figure 1: Windows Calculator. source: me
I understand why some people are frustrated and see it as a small project and it is not worth it when comparing the project size with .NET or VS Code, but these people are narrow-minded. They did not look at it from a different angle. Well, let me explain the real value of the Windows Calculator in the open source world.
The calculator is a
simple project that new developers and students make as one of their first
projects, and they feel proud of it (at least I was proud of my Calculator
project). You start with simple operations, but you find out that Parsing is
needed and some conditions are a must so that the app does not crash.
Figure 2: young boys on computers. source: pixabay
Later on, complex operations can be added and the real dev
problems appear, such as different
results using different types (Float vs Double vs Decimal), or saving the last operations.
And it keeps getting bigger and bigger. At this moment, beginners don’t know how
to choose the right project structure or how to improve their code and write
clean code. Imagine you have the source code of the most used calculator in the
world made by the biggest Software Company worldwide! That’s insane. Wait! Microsoft offered more than source code,
it included the project Architecture, unit tests, and the build system.
The Application Architecture is useful even for junior
developers and students. Solid use of the
MVVM design pattern in a real application
is helpful to plan their first applications.
Moreover, the Calculator application is written in Visual
C++ (C++/CX), a set of extensions to the C++ language using for Win Apps and Win
Runtime components, which is a solid programming language and it most students
in universities have C++ classes. Microsoft offered them the semestral project
to have great grades 😀 This is just joke, do not do it if you are a new learner,
do it yourself and then you can compare your work. That way, you improve your
skills and it is great to learn from your own mistakes 😉
Windows calculator is
built for the Universal Windows Platform using XAML UI framework. Developers
can learn more about making their own custom controls and VisualStates,
and that comes in handy for creating and publishing apps in Microsoft Store.
Finally, they won’t stop in the development phase, but they will learn Azure Pipelines for the build,
deployment and release phases. This is so important because it can be hard to
apply CI/CD in the first projects.
“I am suffering from these tools, they consume a lot of memory and they need a lot of space” or ” I am overwhelmed with the features of this tool, somehow I find myself lost and I can’t figure out how to do simple tasks”.. Does this sound familiar to you? Many tools nowadays offer great features but we need terabytes of storage to have them locally and a powerful device is needed too. Well, today is your lucky day if you are dealing with databases. Have you heard about Azure Data Studio? In this post, I will give you some tips to improve your work performance with Azure Data Studio. Here is the structure of this blog post.
Azure Data Studio was firstly introduced in Pass Summit 2017
(it was called SQL Operations Studio). It is a cross-platform tool for database
design and operations. If you are friendly with Visual Code, you will love
Azure Data Studio. It is a lightweight version, with the necessary tools and
you won’t be overwhelmed with many features such as the case with SSMS (Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio).
Azure Data Studio is a light-weight cross-platform database management tool for Windows, MacOS, and Linux. It is free (no license needed) and it is an open source project. Azure Data Studio is based on VS Code and MSSQL extension in VS Code, written in ElectronJS. You can report bugs, request new features and contribute to the project. Extensions are an amazing feature of Visual Code, so does the Azure Data Studio, you can add extensions but they are not that much (for the moment 😉 ).
It supports Azure SQL Database, Azure Data Warehouse, MSSQL Server whether running in cloud or on-premises. T-SQL Query is mainly supported by autosuggestions, formatting and advanced coding features. Meanwhile, it still supports other languages such as JSON, XML, Python, SQL, yaml, dockerfile… In addition, you can work with workspaces, folders. Source Control (GIT) is integrated, so no problem with managing your files. This is an amazing feature especially for those who opt for CI/DI pipeline using Azure DevOps. Speaking of Azure, Azure Resource Explorer is a panel in Azure Data Studio that allows you to connect to your Azure account(s) and work with your different subscriptions. If you work with PowerShell or different shells, you can do it also in Azure Data Studio thanks to the internal terminal as it is the case with Visual Code. It has another bunch of features.
The User Interface of Azure Data Studio is similar to the one of Visual Code. It is simpler and not overwhelmed with menus. It has the classic left sidebar as it is the case in VS Code. You can split the window the way you want (literally limitless splitting). Figure 1 shows you how to change theme color.
Most of us have at least 2 devices: a business laptop, and personal laptop/tablet. Let’s say you tested Azure Data Studio in your personal device and customized it. Then, you decided to install it in the second device with the same customized settings. I got you covered! It is easier than you think. I will recreate the two first steps in the Figure 2. (1) Open user settings by clicking on the Settings logo in the bottom left corner and then settings, you can open it from command palette: open it using the keyboard shortcut CTRL+comma. (2) Now, move the cursor over the tab and give it a right click, then “Reveal in Explorer”. (3) Copy the file settings.json and send it to your work device. (4) Repeat the same first steps in your work device and finish it by replacing the current settings.json file with the other file. Done.
The first time you install Azure Data Studio, you will have to choose default terminal shell. Later on, when you click on the add new terminal icon, you will get the same terminal shell, but what if I want to use Powershell and Cmd at the same time. To do so, you need to change the default terminal shell by opening the Command Palette (CTRL+Shift+P), then type “Select Default Shell” and hit the enter key. You can change the shell type by selecting one from the given list. There is another way to do it: Open User Settings (the first step in the previous Tip), then search for :
"terminal.integrated.shell.windows": “Shell path”
You have to change the path and you are ready to go.
For example, my default terminal shell is CMD so it looks
like this
It is a simple tip, but it is worth it in case you have many subscriptions. Azure Data Studio allows multiple linked accounts, that means you can connect to different Azure accounts and use all the resources at the same time, which is really COOL. However, you may have many subscriptions and you will not use all of them. To get rid of the unnecessary ones, you use the subscription filter by hovering over the account as it is demonstrated in Figure 3.
I just discovered it while writing the Subscriptions Filter tip that it may be tricky to connect to a second or third Azure account. You need to click on the person icon (bottom left corner of the window). Figure 4 shows you the way.
Internal terminals, an amazing feature that Azure Data Studio has. It makes the life of DB Admins easier, you don’t need to open many apps and windows, just all in one tool is needed. We all know that we can open a folder or a workspace in Explorer (Explorer panel of Azure Data Studio, not Windows Explorer), you have some file scripts and you want to run it. There is command provided for this task to run the active file or just the selected text in the active terminal. In Figure 5, you can see how it works. This command doesn’t have a keyboard shortcut by default (you can add one by editing the keyboard shortcuts 😉). To make it work, open the command palette and type:
Terminal: Run Active File in Active Terminal
Or
Terminal: Run Selected Text in Active Terminal
Figure 5: Run script from file
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There are other features you will enjoy in Azure Data Studio and they will improve your work such as Auto Save (you don’t have to save changes with Ctrl+S every time), the process Explorer or peek a definition, etc.
The purpose of this blog post was showing some cool features of this great tool. You may notice that I did not mention anything related to working with databases, queries, or extensions; they need another blog post. For now, you can start with the Quickstarts Tutorials and the official documentation. If you don’t have it yet, you download it here.
Contribute
Please help the community by giving your feedback and contributing on GitHub.
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References
To write this blog post, I used the official documentation of Azure Data Studio, Julie Lerman blog posts in MSDN Magazine and two blogs from VisualStudioMagazine (here and here).
I decided to write a series concerning data. Nowadays, most of the buzzwords in the IT world are big data, data science, artificial intelligence, etc. All of them put in value data. It is starting to be as expensive as black gold, some people claim it is more expensive, you can google or duckduckgo “data is the new oil” to read some news articles. We can notice that all newspapers and media are talking about the misuse of data that we generate and offer for free on the internet. Although I am not going to discuss the last point, but it is a fact that we are living and it can change our life for better or worse.
This blog post was meant to be just informative about the series, then I said you should learn at least one thing. So, do you know the difference between data and information? If yes, skip this part and go straight to the next part.
What does data mean?
According to Cambridge, data is
information, especially facts or numbers, collected to be examined and considered and used to help decision-making, or information in an electronic form that can be stored and used by a computer.
Well, this is a typical mistake where data is confused with information.
Oxford dictionaries has a better definition, data is defined as
Facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis -; – The quantities, characters, or symbols on which operations are performed by a computer, which may be stored and transmitted in the form of electrical signals and recorded on magnetic, optical, or mechanical recording media.
We can understand that data itself is not significant.
Data is NOT synonym of information
Information Is something that is understandable and can inform us about something. When data is set and presented in a given context, it becomes useful and called information; information is inferred from data.
Example:
Let’s say: Robot,112, C, Baby. These data aren’t useful and do not inform us about anything. However, if I say the company Robot sold 112 units of the product C. All the customers are persons who have at least one baby. Right now, with the given context the data become somehow useful. Robot is the name of the company, C is the product, Baby is a tag that let us categorize the customers and 112 is the sold quantity for this category (it may be the total, we don’t know).
It is important to understand the basic definitions because later on it becomes more complex with tens of technical words that you can encounter and this can lead to confusion.
In this series, we will go through different topics where
data is the core of the business/subject
Data Preparation
Data sampling
Data in BI / ETL, data mining, data science, Big data, AI.
Data quality, Data maintenance, Data governance
To be honest with you, I was going to write only about data preparation and data sampling because it is the most underrated part and everyone is focusing in creating a good Machine Learning model and solving the problems of humanity with Big Data while with prepared data. The most important stage during the process of data is the preparation stage. It takes a lot of time, and if it is not well tackled, everything can go wrong.
The series will contain some theory and practice using different tools.
That’s why the list is not complete and not in order. I will
post a content table that will have all the links. I may not be posting in
right order, because something has to be explained before moving to the next step
or I feel the urge to explain it.
Who is the series intended for?
The blog posts are useful for anyone who is dealing with
data such as data scientists (1), BI developers (2), software developers (3), etc.
(1) And (2) are the people who are using the data as input and get us as output knowledge and wisdom. *They are not the only ones in this category.
(3) They may design databases and work with data a lot in the product life cycle. *They are not the only ones in this category .
Writing articles is so important
for self-development for different reasons. First of all, it helps me with improving
my writing skills, learning new words, and learning new stuff. Actually, I am
my first reader, so I write about things that I find interesting, or I did
struggle to learn it/use it since no useful information were available in the
internet and I wanted to save people’s time. Also, I may write articles that is
recommended or requested by the community.
Moreover, it encourages me to
read more books (different genres) and read articles in order to get inspired
by other writers and improve my vocabulary. Meanwhile, I found out that it let
me decrease the amount of time that I used to spend in social media.
What kind of content?
The content of this blog will be mainly
technical; it can be general engineering hacks or algorithms, and it can be
also about a specific tool/software or programming language with its specifications
which my not be transferrable as it is due to the details.
Meanwhile, I will be writing in
Medium all the life style hacks, city guides for travelers and personal
activities.
When
To keep up with what’s going on
in the world and motivate myself to write more often, I will make my best to
post twice a month (maybe more when I have free time). 1 article for 15 day
because I write them when I commute to work and finish them during the weekend.
In this article, you will gain access to many resources that you may didn’t know about it before. It is useful for students or anyone who wants to learn MS technologies.
I have heard this sentence many times:
I would like to learn new technologies, but I don’t have money to pay for a private courses or online education platforms.
Well.. That is not true. Nowadays you can learn everything for free with only access to the Internet. There are many platforms sponsored by NGOs, Universities or Companies like Microsoft.
Let’s go through the resources provided by Microsoft and its partners that will help you learn mainly .NET technology :
MVA will be deprecated by April 30, 2019 (update march 2019)
Microsoft virtual academy or MVA has been around for years. Basically, it is a free online school that provides different courses covering .NET and topics related to Microsoft products. Whether you are a beginner or intermediate level or advanced, MVA has something to offer. Moreover, if you have a problem learning in English, you can search for courses in your native language.
To help you choose the right courses, MVA offers different Learning Paths and suggests some starting points for students, developers, etc.
To conclude, this platform is helpful for anyone interested in .NET Technologies.
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Microsoft AI school, launched in 2017, is one of the latest learning platforms offered by Microsoft. It is designed to help those who are interested in Data science and Artificial Intelligence to improve their skills. AI School has different courses with various levels. You can also find AI demos with code source in github. If you don’t know where to start, the platform will help you choose the learning path using the path builder, which is a real example of the implementation of Machine Learning to create magic tools.
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Microsoft Learn is the newest learning platform added to the Microsoft family. According to the article that introduced Microsoft Learn, all content is organized by a learning path. For the moment, there are different paths to learn Azure, Windows development, and Business applications such as Power apps, Power BI, etc.
Microsoft Learn is replacing Microsoft Virtual Academy starting from January 2019.
If you are interested in other products rather than Azure and Business Applications, this is not the right place, but it will have for sure others learning paths in the future.
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Microsoft Tech Academy is another learning platform by Microsoft where you can follow different pathways and customize it thanks to 4 filters : Product, Audience, Level and Partner.
The Tech Academy is part of the Tech Community platform , which is a great place to find blogs, communities and community events around the world. You can also join a community and talk to many experts.
If you love shows and videos, then this was made for you. Channel9 offers amazing content in a format of shows / podcasts / discussions and videos from different Microsoft events. In fact, Channel 9 is behind all the live streaming of Microsoft events such as MS Build, Ignite, etc. It has content in 41 languages. Moreover, you can download the videos in different formats (MP4 different qualities or audio MP3) and most of them have captions in different languages. They also provide links to download the code samples from github.
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Microsoft has also many channels on YouTube. Whether you want to have just an idea about the product, learn some ad-hoc or go through demos and workshops. Here is a list of some channels :
Now let’s see what Microsoft partners offer for free.
A great online school called edx.orgoffers many courses related to anything you can think about (I guess so :D). According to their website, they have more than 19000 courses from 100+ Universities, companies and NGOs. You can attend all the courses for free. You only pay for the certification if you want to have it.
Datacamp is an awesome platform to learn data science. They have different plans including a free plan that offers 7 courses monthly and 100+ of practice challenges. Moreover, Microsoft offers different courses in partnership with Datacamp where you can practice for free.
Pluralsight offers yearly subscription with “35-course limited library benefit” for students with Azure student subscription. To learn about this benefit, please read the dedicated help post here.
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eBooks
If you are book fan, check out the free eBooks from Microsoft. Another free eBook provider is goalkicker.com : they have many eBooks covering different technologies. Many experts volunteered to create good content that you can learn and share it at no cost.
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We went through the different websites and platforms that are providing content, but what about the tools ?!well, I did not forget about it 😉
Microsoft Imagine
Formerly known as DreamSpark, Microsoft Imagine provides students with a set of software and tools for free. To obtain them, you need to create an account with your student email or verify your account using a Code provided by Microsoft (Contact Microsoft Student Partners in your University/Country or the regional Microsoft office to help you with it).
The same platform may offer you more if your school has a web store subscription, you can search it here, if it is not the case, try to convince your school to join the program. For more details, please check this link.
Github student pack
Github gives you the opportunity to shine with 25 premium tools for 0$. You only need to verify your account with a student email. If you already have an account on github, just add your student email in your account settings.
Azure for students
You can claim 100$ credit in azure without a credit card. There are also many features for free such as Machine Learning Studio.
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The list may not be complete, I will try to update it and provide you with interesting resources to build your career 🙂
Feel free to reach me by email or on twitter @Sahbi_Mohamed
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