Web on JAVAPRO International

Kotlin Multiplatform's Cross-Platform Brilliance at Norway's Nearly 400-Year-Old National Postal Service

Thu, 01 May 2025 08:56:32 +0000

When we think of Norway’s National Postal Service, we think of legacy, tradition, and history – a service that has been delivering letters, packages, parcels, and sometimes even joy, for nearly 400 years.\

But what happens when such an ancient institution faces the modern challenges of software development and cross-platform integration? How does a company like Posten Bring navigate the world of fragmented business logic across multiple platforms and systems?

But before I answer these questions, I want to ask YOU - Have you ever had a complex business rule-set problem? You know the kind where you have business rules (logic) spread across multiple platforms, systems, and applications? Some of them might even be alter egos of the same rule hiding in different apps. You never know which one might turn up where; there is no single source of truth, solving errors takes hours of debugging, and making changes requires (oftentimes) painful coordination across teams and applications (ugh).

We faced this exact challenge at Posten Bring As - Norwegian National Postal Service, founded way back in 1647 - a 378-year-old institution with software spanning more generations than most families! Our business logic was scattered across platforms, some of which were as ancient as the company itself (okay, maybe not that old, but close enough)!

In this article, I’m spilling the tea. We will discover how the team at a century-old Norwegian postal services giant tackled modern challenges with cutting-edge technology.

I’m going to walk you through our journey with Kotlin Multiplatform, including the hurdles we encountered, the lessons we learned, and why KMP is a game-changer for anyone grappling with similar challenges.

This article is for you if troublesome & unruly business logic keeps you up at night & you want that to end NOW. It is also for you if you like to hear a good story.

Unit Testing Web Frontend For Accessibility Aspect

Mon, 21 Oct 2024 14:00:53 +0000

“Apollo 11 Altitude Chamber Test” by Apollo Image Gallery/ pdm 1.0

When we’re talking about unit testing, it is something that developers want to avoid, but what about accessibility?? the same thing, even most developers will say, ‘Nah, I’m good` *kidding

So, what is unit testing?? Isn’t it enough when we test the feature we developed works fine? The short answer may not be! I’ll tell you why…

Unit testing is a way of testing a unit — the smallest piece of code that can be logically isolated in a system. In most programming languages, that is a function, a subroutine, a method, or a property. The isolated part of the definition is important. In his book “Working Effectively with Legacy Code”, author Michael Feathers states that such tests are not unit tests when they rely on external systems: “If it talks to the database, it talks across the network, it touches the file system, it requires system configuration, or it can’t be run at the same time as any other test.”Modern versions of unit testing can be found in frameworks like JUnit, or testing tools like TestComplete. Look a little further and you will find SUnit, the mother of all unit testing frameworks created by Kent Beck, and a reference in chapter 5 of The Art of Software Testing. Before that, it was mostly a mystery. I asked Jerry Weinberg about his experiences with unit testing — “We did unit testing in 1956. As far as I knew, it was always done, as long as there were computers”.Regardless of when and where unit testing began, one thing is for sure. Unit testing is here to stay. Let’s look at some more practical aspects of unit testing. In fact, the traditional test of our application by black box testing, the thing that we talked about earlier manual testing only finds whether the feature that we developed already works or not. Then, when we talk about something important thing that most developers skip or miss is about accessibility (a11y). Accessibility is when we design, and develop products and any application that we put on it our thoughts about how this thing will work for everyone literally everyone, diversity disabilities included. So when we combine both a11y and unit testing it will lead to perfection.

Top 5 UI Web Libraries That Support Accessibility For Your Next Project

Fri, 18 Oct 2024 11:24:59 +0000

image thumbnail building

“Cultural Heritage and Barrier-free Accessibility Project”/ pdm 1.0

What Makes The Best UI Libraries?

When choosing a UI library, consider factors such as your project requirements, the skill set of your team, and the design principles you want to follow. For example, if your project requires some accessibility but lacks resources like budget or team, you can try to use a 3rd party component UI library that will save a lot of your resources. But, before we determine the top 5 best UI libraries for accessibility, it’s essential to establish clear criteria not only from the accessibility aspect. This ensures that our selection process is fair, objective, and accountable, instilling confidence in the validity of our list.