Field Notes From Cyfrania
Chronicles of software developers: sweet successes, bitter failures, and everyday routines shared to inspire, spark thoughts, offer hints, or just for a pleasant read.
Must-Have Features of a Fintech App
What is a fintech app? How to build a fintech app? These questions are popular among modern entrepreneurs who keep up with the times and follow the latest technologies. Fintech is one of the most developed and promising industries in the world today. It includes a huge list of services: payment of bills, money transfers, insurance, investments, management of crypto exchanges, various types of loans, and, of course, banks. The fintech industry was [growing at an extraordinary…
Business People Cannot Tell a Good Developer From a Bad Developer
Business people cannot tell a good software developer from a bad software developer because they look the same from the outside. All developers have the same attributes. We have social profiles, portfolio records, a bunch of technologies we are supposed to be good at. We all have a picture in the profile. Some developers have a beard. I don’t have one, so I may look less experienced. It’s a wonder how different the impact made by different developers can be! Some of us help businesses to grow. Often, my customers start feeling so successful that they forget about problems technologies can…
How to Pitch an App Idea to Investors
Have an idea for an app but no money to kickstart your tech venture? You're not alone. Almost every startup founder faces this, with only a minority reaching profitability without the need for fundraising. In one of the previous articles, my colleague already explained how to get an app idea off the ground. Now, I'll focus on explaining how to get people to invest in your business. I'll outline steps to locate private investors looking for projects to fund and compellingly pitch an app idea. Plus, I'll explain how Cyfrania, as IT partners, have been helping aspiring…
Smart People Make Smart Mistakes
Smart people don't make silly mistakes. That is good. Smart people make smart mistakes that do not destroy their work immediately. Such mistakes have a softened impact and ruin everything later - with accumulated effect. A couple of weeks ago, a developer in my project submitted a pull request with a code that would override the delayed payment flow and charge the user's card instantly. The new code was clean. It did not break any old tests - they all were green. The old payment flow still existed with all its automated tests. However, the good old delayed payment procedure would start…
What Is a Web App?
Several years ago I happened to communicate with potential customers on job posting sites. I noticed that most of the customers used terminology that was a bit different from what I would use. If they said something like, ‘I need an app’, it was about a mobile application. For me, ‘an app’ meant any type of application - a web application, a desktop application, a mobile application - but their use of this word was more particular. Customers would rarely mention a web application. More commonly, they would refer to a…
How to Build a Fintech App in 2024: Step-by-Step Guide
Fintech is the industry that is leading the global growth rate. This is quite logical, as it is characterized by security and convenience when compared to traditional forms of financial services. The major factors that have accelerated the development of this industry are the growing consumer demand for online financial services, increased adoption of innovative technologies among banks and financial institutions, and recent socio-economic changes due to the pandemic. As a result, more and more traditional financial institutions as well as technology startups are looking to develop their own…
Signs That an App Project Is Set Up to Fail
Dating back to the dawn of my career as a developer, this project holds a special place in my professional evolution. It taught me invaluable lessons, helping me identify warning fail signs that indicate when a project is in crisis and needs rescue. Here, I'm going to point out three critical causes of software project failure that I believe one should stay away from when developing an app if they want it to ever have any users. Concurrently, I'll share a story about this project to show just how harmful these new product development pitfalls can be. ## Issue #1. There Is No…
Handing Over the Project to Another Development Team
Being a software consulting company we build apps for our customers. Sometimes our engineers start a completely new project for the customer and build a new app from scratch. Engineers love these rare "greenfield" projects. But most of the time we take over a software project to work on some pre-existing app, a project with history. For a seasoned software engineer working in a software consulting company, joining a new project is a routine event. After a software project takeover the project is not really new - there is some code, the app already has some features. So we…
Monolithic vs Microservices Architecture: Which One to Choose
Often entrepreneurs who want to create some service may hear such strange words as "microservices" or "monolith" from software developers. What is a monolith? What are microservices? Why is it necessary to know them? What is the difference between these architectural approaches in development? Before starting to implement their idea, a product owner should find answers to these questions and decide which approach better fits their business requirements and capacity. Why? Firstly, the product owners are responsible for their project and hope for its success. Secondly,…
The Frustration of Constant Software Updates
The text reflects on the frustration of software updates that disregard user preferences and suggests that developers should prioritize popular features and allow for version reversions. The author encourages users to provide feedback and appreciate reliable software amid the constant struggle of navigating updates. Let me tell you, there are only two things in this world that I despise more than anything else: the dentist and software updates. I mean, seriously, who actually enjoys them? They're like the ultimate buzzkill when you're in the middle of a…
