Happy Friday.
As per my (new) Friday tradition, today I'm working on and talking about the full stack.
And no, this is no pancake.
Today as I sit in front of my machine cracking away at some misbehaving CSS, I thought about how I got here:
Back when I did my computer science degree in (Oh my god 2003) - full stack developers weren't really a thing. We had CSS pages and JavaScript, but it was clunky and there were no frameworks as we know it today. My how the world has changed. I still think about how I missed the opportunity to mine crypto back then - I had a decent GPU as well, I would have been a flipping billionaire. Oh well.
Back to full stack developing and forgetting about the stacks of missing cash.
So this has been a steep learning curve for me, and before I get started talking about it I must give an immediate shout out to Dr Angela Yu at The App Brewery. (Another medical doctor who codes :D) ! I found her complete web development course absolutely brilliant. Whilst I've had experience with backend frameworks like Laravel (PHP) and Django (Python), I'd never explored front end frameworks, nor had I ever got comfortable with bootstrap and REACT ect... Her course took me from rusty amateur to being able to put together a proper site, check it out!
Okay Sam, enough with the nostalgia, why are you telling me about this! I want to build healthcare apps!!
Yes :) So today, it's not so much about making a web page - if you're building an application accessible to a patient, chances are you're going to be using some sort of web based technologies.
There are a lot of technologies bustling around and honestly its a bit of minefield. What comprises your own "stack" is going to have to be something you decide based on your programming skill / languages you know, and what you want your system to do.
Now I know a few languages, but for me and my use cases, I want patients to be able to access the programs I build from their pockets. Which means either full stack development for the web or an app.
Why bother with this Full Shack Business!? , I want to build for peoples phones!!
Now, there is an old argument as to whether we should be building native phone apps or using web based technology accessed via a browser. This is an argument I'm not going to rehash (if you're curious as to the pros and cons just google "web vs native app development".) It can be quite funny to see how polarized people have been about it ;0)
But, what I can say is that I have had my fingers burnt trying to develop two code bases at the same time (one for IOS and the other Android - and that project just fell apart as a result).
If you're bootlegging your company +/- a sole developer, don't do it. It's not worth it!
My personal opinion is that the internet is everywhere these days, and I rarely use my phone apps - but that's just me.
There are hybrid development technologies like .NET MAUI (Previously Xamarin), React Native and Flutter. All of which have their benefits. What language(s) you know already, what your end user interface is going to be, will play a factor in this.
That aside, I'm not a man that hasn't experimented with various technologies. But I know a huge part of what is going to make or break whatever your making is going to be the user interface (UI) and the user experience (UX)
As part of a PhD application I made a couple of weeks ago to develop an NHS based patient system, I had to put serious consideration into the patient participation groups and how to get them to test and use my product.
Without their early input, it's folly. At the end of the day, if its not an enjoyable experience to use your app, the patient or whoever, isn't going to use it.
Some words of wisdom about the User Interface and User Experience
Developing a great user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) involves a combination of understanding your users, designing for simplicity, and testing your designs. Here are some key steps to consider:
Understand who your users are and what they need. This will help you design an interface that meets their needs and expectations
Focus on Simplicity: A key to success is simplicity. The UI should be intuitive, clear, clean, and explanatory to different users with different backgrounds, web habits, and behaviors.
(For example, I sent my mum this blog - she couldn't work out how to open it, but said I drew a nice picture of myself on it... great.)
This is mega, especially today - nothing says I'm a crap application like one whose page is half hanging off the edge of your mobile screen.
So where from here?
The next steps in this blog journey will be me putting together a full stack framework, and hooking this up on the back end to the Haystack for some cool large language model searches. I'll be using Django for the backend, the front end will probably be React, and the rest will be an exciting journey of mistakes and weird results. Look forward to sharing :)
Have a brilliant weekend!
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