https://dsheiko.com/categories/thoughts--opinions/ Recent content in Thoughts & Opinions on Dmitry Sheiko's Web Development Blog Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://dsheiko.com/weblog/thirty-years-of-building-software/ Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://dsheiko.com/weblog/thirty-years-of-building-software/ It probably started when I was very young. My father worked in an industrial automation department that housed a Soviet counterpart of the IBM System/360-370. Sometimes he would lift me through a window into the computer room. I still remember the massive keyboard they let me play with. To a child, it felt like touching something mysterious and almost magical. During my high school years, I spent most evenings in my father’s office. https://dsheiko.com/weblog/cross-platform-desktop-application-development-electron-node-nw-js-and-react-is-out/ Mon, 31 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://dsheiko.com/weblog/cross-platform-desktop-application-development-electron-node-nw-js-and-react-is-out/ I always fancied to write a book that would combine most of my programming experience gathered over two decades. Packtpub gave a chance that I embraced gratefully. And here we are, half a year of efforts paid off and my book is live - https://www.packtpub.com/web-development/cross-platform-desktop-application-development-electron-node-nwjs-and-react I split the book in four tutorials, starting with basics and advancing progressively though more and more complex aspects. So the first part guides on creating a file-explorer application built with pure JavaScript and NW. https://dsheiko.com/weblog/enhancing-user-experience/ Tue, 08 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000 https://dsheiko.com/weblog/enhancing-user-experience/ My book “Unlocked JavaScript” (https://www.packtpub.com/web-development/javascript-unlocked) has been released on December 7, 2015. This book is for developers already familiar with JavaScript who want to level up to get the most out of the language. The book is practice–oriented and would be most helpful for those who is used to learn by doing as the topics are thoroughly covered with real-life examples and tutorials. This is an extract of a chapter not included in the book. https://dsheiko.com/weblog/review-php-application-development-with-netbeans/ Thu, 15 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000 https://dsheiko.com/weblog/review-php-application-development-with-netbeans/ Recently I’ve laid my hands on a copy of [“PHP Application Development with NetBeans” by M A Hossain Tonu](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1849515808 ““PHP Application Development with NetBeans” by M A Hossain Tonu”) (www.PacktPub.com). It appeared to be a really nice reading. One of those where it’s hard to put the book down until the end. It must be valuable as for beginners as for experienced NetBeans users. I, personally, have been using NetBeans for about 4 years and still find in the book the features I wasn’t aware about or unfairly ignored for so long. https://dsheiko.com/weblog/my-lovely-mac-os-x-web-development-environment/ Mon, 15 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000 https://dsheiko.com/weblog/my-lovely-mac-os-x-web-development-environment/ A few months ago I bought a new Macbook. I’m really fond of the development environment I set up on it. The more I work with it, the more I love it. However, while building the environment I couldn’t find any decent step-by-step manual. So, it took me for a while to get what I wanted. Here’s my experience. Front-end environment For the beginning we need a package manager. Here arises the first question: which manager is the best to use Homebrew, MacPorts, Fink or Rudix? https://dsheiko.com/weblog/review-services-getting-consolidated/ Thu, 04 Aug 2011 00:00:00 +0000 https://dsheiko.com/weblog/review-services-getting-consolidated/ I anticipate Google to swallow Review Services market using G+. I hate the idea of somebody having total control on everything, but when I buy a product (any product), I see number of variations from different producers. I want to read some reviews, to see some ratings on products and their producers before picking one. That’s natural. Where to get those? On the site of producer/seller? Oh, please! I would rather not trust them entirely. https://dsheiko.com/weblog/drupal-nice-ideas-and-bad-coding/ Fri, 15 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000 https://dsheiko.com/weblog/drupal-nice-ideas-and-bad-coding/ Related articles: Drupal Meets MVC: A Smarter Way to Build Websites and Beyond the Basics: Enhancing Drupal’s MVC Architecture Working with Drupal for half of year and constantly tuning it for better maintainability, code consistency I came to the idea – Drupal is going to be a toy, a pretty popular but only toy, unless they decide to rewrite everything from the scratch. Studying Drupal 7 I find the CMS wasn’t really refactored. https://dsheiko.com/weblog/phpbb3-customization-driven-by-configurable-feature-list/ Tue, 26 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000 https://dsheiko.com/weblog/phpbb3-customization-driven-by-configurable-feature-list/ Let’s assume you have installed phpBB3 to run forums on the web-project you are working on. It can be a Drupal-based site using phpBBforum Integration module . Anyway, the forum system was re-skinned and your project manager, seems, is pretty happy for the first. But later he requests some changes, e.g. to prevent users from sending emails to each other within the board. This one is easy; you can just direct him to ACP / General / E-mail settings, where board-wide emails can be disabled globally. https://dsheiko.com/weblog/popularly-about-social-networking/ Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://dsheiko.com/weblog/popularly-about-social-networking/ It is common to encounter success stories that begin with the words: “I’ve have been lucky in my life. I’ve made good friends and met like-minded people who have helped me from the beginning. Thanks to them I have achieved my dreams”. It is evident that not everyone reaches their goals and not everyone us is lucky enough to meet people who can direct their life towards success. The Internet epoch has introduced a tremendous new option in the realm of communication. https://dsheiko.com/weblog/tendencies-in-content-management-software-development-or-cms-2-0/ Wed, 21 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://dsheiko.com/weblog/tendencies-in-content-management-software-development-or-cms-2-0/ Opinions on the future of Web 2.0 differ, and sometimes a lot, but no one would argue that this concept in many ways shaped the present-day Internet. That is why we, developers, should follow new tendencies and trends on the market. Web 2.0 brings with it new requirements. Consumers of CMS-based solutions largely fall into three categories: corporate users, internet users and third-party applications. The first two categories include people, and over the time we have developed following preferences: https://dsheiko.com/weblog/communities-2-0-or-the-architecture-of-participation/ Tue, 27 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://dsheiko.com/weblog/communities-2-0-or-the-architecture-of-participation/ Today there’s no lack of reports on successful Web 2.0 community projects(1). This is by no means surprising as the latest community projects provide advanced interactive experience for the audience while attracting impressive investments. This results in rapid growth within the market segment and businessmen rush in to get their share of the deal. The market now offers a huge number of solutions, and some of them seem to be of quite agreeable quality. https://dsheiko.com/weblog/e-business-2-0/ Wed, 21 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000 https://dsheiko.com/weblog/e-business-2-0/ What do we actually know about e-business? Does having a corporate website make you an e-business? What about running an online store? Search any major engine and you’ll find plenty about e-business centers, but surprisingly little about e-business itself. Most web developers still default to the same familiar set of deliverables: a brochure site, a product catalog, an online shop. The question is whether that’s really sufficient to build something that works.