How to measure usability/devxp of a sdk? - usability

We have a SDK/framework that people can use to build end user facing apps.
I would like to know if there are any standard metrics/surveys etc. that I can use to measure the usability/developer experience of using the SDK ?
I did some google searching and most of the resources are about APIs and also they focus on runtime system qualities (performance, stability..).
Any pointers or experience that could share ?

Related

Autodesk Forge - Best training for transitioning from desktop .Net coding

I have background in Inventor/Revit API development only, and need to learn enough JS to be able to work comfortably with the Forge APIs. I'll be booking myself into a JS training course to learn general skills, but what topics/modules must I definitely cover to have a solid foundation for Forge API development. I'll be working with BOM data, viewers and possibly web configurators.
Many thanks for your help.
We're a .Net shop that recently implemented the Forge Viewer for a client with Inventor Files. We built our service on top of Azure Functions and utilized as much .Net C# code as possible, as it is where we have the most experience and comfortability. The provided .Net SDK is very helpful: https://www.nuget.org/packages/Autodesk.Forge/.
The only API that you can't do entirely in .Net is the Viewer API. However, to get started I was able to use boilerplate code from the provided examples and get the models loading. From there I had our web developers get involved to handle the more extensive javascript programming for me.
Feel free to bounce any questions you may have off of me. We've just finished going down this road and it is very rewarding, but somewhat challenging at times for us .Net developers.
You need the JavaScript, as you already know. Take some time to improve security and OAuth authentication workflow. This sample includes most of it.
In most cases, you'll need a hybrid desktop app that can connect to the cloud, the image below (from the blog post) shows a generic approach for the architecture using Autodesk Forge (or any other cloud APIs).

How can I test my integration with SAP for free?

I need to integrate an API created with .NET with SAP FI/CO.
Researching online I found out there used to be something called IDES that would provide access to an SAP server free of charge, just for testing purposes, but that's no longer available.
The Consolut solution seems to have been a viable solution while it was active:
https://www.outsystems.com/forums/discussion/6598/sap-server-test-account/
Anyway, my question is: Is there any way for an independent developer to test an SAP integration without spending money to access that server? Are there any options out there that would allow me to access an SAP instance for testing purposes?
Here you can find the official list of developer trials that you might access without having any kind of relationship with SAP:
https://www.sap.com/developer/trials-downloads.html.
If you have an SAP S-user, you might have access to more stuff from the SAP Marketplace. From my knowledge, IDES was / is only accessible through the SAP Marketplace (or external sources which use the marketplace themselves).
FI/CO runs on Netweaver AS ABAP (or an older alternative, e.g. R/3), so you could download it here: https://tools.eu1.hana.ondemand.com/#abap. But it will not have FI/CO in it. Based on the discussion here https://archive.sap.com/discussions/thread/2039981 I would say that it is not really possible to get FI/CO up and running on your local Netweaver.
This is a general strategy of SAP. They provide the possibility of trying out their technological platforms (HCP, HANA, NW, etc) but they don't really offer access to their business solutions for free.
If you don't find any other way of getting access to a FI/CO system (e.g. from a third party or customer) then maybe the best thing would be to use the local Netweaver and mock the FI/CO specific RFCs that you are using (assuming that you use NCo for the integration). At least this way, you would know that the integration works at a pure technical level (at some point though, you will need a real system).

Using the workspace in a Eclipse RAP application

I have an Eclipse RCP application which I am planning to write in RAP so that I can allow my users to access it on web. I have just started with RAP and have gone through what RAP can provide and what it can't. Also I have seen the demo workbench application. Seems like a good fit for my use case but I still have some questions around the feasibility and workarounds possible in RAP.
Can RAP allow ports for existing views from eclipse like Package Explorer or Navigator. Also since the workspace would be shared can there be a way around to show different projects to different users.
The short answer is NO!
The Package Explorer or Navigator views itself wouldn't be hard to port to RAP. The Workspace/Resource API is the limiting factor here, as you already guessed. For RAP, a multi-user aware resource API would be desireable that provides a workspace for each seesion.
But until now, nobody put in the effort to implement this feature.

Develop Xbox 360 Apps

I have been asked to develop an Xbox 360 app. Not a game but an application like Netflix, Youtube or Muzu... I find it realy hard to find any information on app development for the Xbox console. Can anybody give me some advice?
I know that the XDK allows game development in native C++ but is it suitable for creating apps as well? Is there any information on the submission process and policies for Xbox 360 apps?
I think you may need to ask the question, "What's the difference between a game and an application?" I'm sure you could use XNA to build an application as well thus develop your app in C#, using the libraries Microsoft provides. Good luck!
I am not sure if what you want is possible with XNA. If you are registered xbox developer, you should talk to your developer account manager.
I assume you may get detailed explanation from theese links
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/developers
http://www.xboxmb.com/forum/15-xbox-360-tutorials/67430-how-create-xbox360-applications-sdk.html

GUI Development - Free Tools

We are looking at building a GUI application having the following attributes -
* approx 100 screens
* approx 200 users
* interfaces with 8 different legacy applications (protocols tbd but we are assuming web services will be exposed)
* has a separate data store for storing authentication and authorisation info along with few other information.
We are trying to avoid spending any money on procurement of physical servers, application servers etc.So we thought instead of building a web application , we could develop a standalone GUI based application that could be deployed on users' desktops considering that the users are less and the access to this application is confined to our organisation.
We were thinking of Java Swing as one of the options to consider. Is it a good choice? Please advice on the other options that we need to think about. We thought MS products would involving licensing costs to buy the product hence we are looking at developing the application using some free software tools.
Thanks a lot!
Regards,
V
I really like Swing and have written many applications with it, but I'm not sure the argument that you will get a cheaper solution because you have to procure less physical servers is a good reason for it.
There are other ways to use computational capacity on the client side. For example you could use SmartGWT. With a browser based solution you get easy deployment and have no problems with client-server communications (i.e. no proxy hell). It's possible to get all of this solved with a standalone GUI, but it requires experience and time (== money).
I think a standalone GUI is a good idea if you need a "rich" user experience and tight integration with the native environment. Web apps are generally less snappy and not so well integrated. If it's just about editing data on a server, the standalone GUI does not really have any advantages.
I won't rehash what we talked about in the comments. It seems you are focused on java gui solutions. With that said there are alternatives for developing gui applications with free tools. Just to name a couple, you could develop your client with Adobe Flex or Adobe Air, use python, php or ruby and GTK, or develop a windows GUI app using c# if your target os is windows. Similar to Air, Microsoft Silverlight is an option. Java is not the only solution.
Many Java gui apps are written using swing. The major competitor to Swing has long been SWT which is used for eclipse and by IBM. Javafx is a newer/alternative platform Sun/Oracle is behind, you should also look at. To be complete, you should also take a look at qt jambi that lets you develop in java against the Qt framework.