In our first interview, we are inviting Arturs Sosins from Latvia - who has his own website dedicated to web programming and is an active participant in the global Javascript community.

We are all developers at SiteApps - and it's both a profession and a hobby for us.  We love to talk about what we're doing and what is happening out there that get's us excited.  But we are also very interested in what other power developers are thinking - thus we are starting to invite developers and partners to share a little of what's on their mind.

Hi Arturs, please tell us how you got into web coding.

Hello,  well I always was into computers, therefore studying Computer Science at University wasn’t really a hard choice. But why web coding exactly? I have tried many things before, starting from C++ and .NET, but after a course about web technologies, I learned that web coding offers something that other languages and environments don’t, and probably never will: it’s a way to publish your work to millions of people, get instantaneous feedbacks and really see, that what you do means something and maybe even improves someone’s life. For me, it’s mostly about developing something that matters.

What are some personal web projects you've got going on?

As always there’s not enough time to do all things one would like to, but well I’ve managed to get myself involved in couple of projects. My main “hobby”, as you may call it, is exploring different interesting problems/ideas and solving them by creating small classes or packages, which I usually publish on my website http://webcodingeasy.com. This is also where SiteApps come in, because most of apps I published were made using same developed classes and objects.

And another project that recently took almost all of my free time is http://blogalike.com, it’s a service, that will provide users with list of similar articles from their own blogs. And all that user will need to do is to simply insert small javascript snippet into his or her blog and wait till BlogAlike will index it. After proper indexing, this same script will generate links with most similar articles to currently viewed one, thus making visitors to want to read more and stay longer on one’s website. There might be plenty of other features, like generating lists across multiple blogs or maybe even blog traffic exchange, but for now we are concentrating on this main feature and it’s already being tested and will launch, I hope, within a week. And well, I’m sure there would be an app available, to implement BlogAlike service.

What's your favorite development language and why?  What other features (if any) do you wish you could add to this language?

I was and still am a PHP developer, for more than 2 years now (it’s a little time, I know, but I’m still pretty young :) ), only almost a year ago, I’ve started working with a designer, so I needed to do much of front end developing, and that is when I’ve tried javascript and loved it. From syntax, which can be easily shorthanded as you wish, to a concept, where everything can be an object, and it is pretty easy to create complex structures to suit your needs. I’d love to see something similar in PHP, I know there was a proposition to implement shorthanded array definition in PHP, don’t know if it will be accepted, but that would be a start. But for now I tend to explore more of javascript possibilities, like server side javascript, node.js, etc.

Have you experimented with HTML5?  How do you think it's going to change the web?

Yes, of course, I could not imagine a web developer who wouldn’t be aware of HTML5 possibilities. I like the idea of HTML5 to implement more form input types, to ease life not only for web developers, but also for internet users. But what I like the most, it’s a canvas element. I think it’s going to change the way people use Internet browsers. Right now performance of canvas might be even poor, but in time it will change, and with WebGL engine for 3D technology, there won’t be a need to install games, simply open your browser and play, not even talking about standard 2D technology, which could also be used in many aspects, starting from gaming platform and to something so commonly used like Paint. I think that canvas is a big step towards browsers replacing standard PC features and maybe someday it could even grow to something similar of a ChromeOS concept, where Internet browser would be the only thing we need.

Is there any other exciting technology out there you are engaged with?

Well, I wouldn’t call it a technology, but another aspect I’m interested in, is a geo location and its uses in our everyday life. One thing you are taking everywhere with you, is your mobile phone. And some of them have a built in GPS chip, so why not take an advantage of it? Right now I and some other colleagues are trying to learn more about possibilities and limitations of retrieving GPS coordinates from mobile phones and sending them to server and we have a couple of ideas for geo location based games, that people could play using their mobile phones. Games would take them away from their computer, outside, and make them move, which I think would be very valuable for our computer generation.

You have developed some apps for the SiteApps platform - why do you think it's interesting to develop on this platform?

Main reason why developers hesitate trying out new platforms, it’s because they don’t want to learn it from scratch, all options and limitations, etc. I had the same opinion, when I’ve come to SiteApps for the first time. But it took only one video to watch, and I’ve changed mind and decide to try it out. Video showed how simple it is to develop the app for SiteApps. Practically, you use same javascript code from already created app and modify it to match custom settings from SiteApps, which are also pretty easy to create. SiteApps offers everything you need and makes it as simple as possible.

But the main thing I like at SiteApps, is that they really listen to the feedback from developers. I myself have provided some suggestions (mostly of them were already planned for implementation, but still) and I always had quite thorough response about each feature and you can really see that each of suggestions was thought through. And as you develop apps, you can see frequent updates and improvements, all to make it easier for developers.

What's your favorite feature SiteApps offers for developers?

Well, I really have no intention of selling my apps, so why should you I publish them? I think that everybody has their own reasons and yes of course you can monetize your apps or charge users for services, or you have more publicity and thus raise your popularity as developer. But most important thing, in my opinion, is a feedback. As I usually publish different packages, I get a lot of feedback from developers (mostly bug reports and critics :) ). But at SiteApps you’ll have completely different audience. Your apps will probably be used by people who doesn’t understand or have little understanding of web development, so it’s a completely different point of view. Not only you can test your script and put it to real life work, but you also get feedback from actual users, and this is the place where you mostly get suggestions about new features, design improvements and even praises.

Do you have a favorite app on SiteApps?

Yes, there are some. Not exactly as much as app, but as idea, I really like IE6Update app. I’m glad that I haven’t been through IE6 times as web developer, so now I can only hear horror stories about it. But I think that development and implementation of new features like HTML5 or CSS3 would be much faster, if simple Internet users would regularly update their browsers. Whole web development would take a great leap if all users would do that. So if someone is still using IE6, I guess he or she should be reminded to update it.

And there is one app that I really like, it’s called Keyboard Shortcut, and what it does, it enhances your website with more advanced user interface by allowing binding different events to keyboard shortcuts. That’s pretty innovative thought, so if there would be a voting for best app, I would vote for it.

What's your favorite website or web app and why?

It’s hard to tell, mostly because it’s hard to choose. I like websites where users share new ideas, innovative ideas about web development, share their work etc. One of these kinds of websites of course is SiteApps. There are other two that I usually check on everyday basis are:

• http://www.phpclasses.org
• http://www.jsclasses.org

These are the websites for web developers, where you can not only share your work, but also learn, improve and gather new ideas and inspiration to improve your web development skills.

Thank you, Arturs.  Is there anything else you'd like to say to the SiteApps community?

It doesn’t matter if you are a developer or SiteApps service user, I would like to wish all SiteApps community members to try to combine your work with your hobby, if you succeed, you will never have to work again :) . Express your curiosity as attempts to explore and learn more and make your work matter, even if only for one person - yourself.