Toptal Blog

Genome data is one of the most widely analyzed datasets in the realm of Bioinformatics. The SciPy stack offers a suite of popular Python packages designed for numerical computing, data transformation, analysis and visualization, which is ideal for many bioinformatic analysis needs.

In this tutorial, Toptal Software Engineer Zhuyi Xue walks us through some of the capabilities of the SciPy stack. He also answers some interesting questions about the human genome, including: How much of the genome is incomplete? How long is a typical gene?

Swift is the new programming language created to be a modern replacement for Objective-C in iOS and OS X application development. In general, a skilled Swift developer is usually someone who is already experienced with Objective-C, and that, among other things, might lead them to write Swift code using Objective-C best practices, which can cause some bad mistakes.

In this article, Toptal Freelance Software Engineer Nilson Souto outlines the most common mistakes Swift developers should be aware of.

Any experienced developer will tell you that their best code isn’t code they wrote. It’s code they took from someone else’s work. Many of the problems we encounter have already been solved—and the remedies packaged into libraries available to anyone. Why reinvent the wheel when free wheels are everywhere?

In this guide, Senior Android Engineer Gilad Haimov will take you on a quick tour of some the most powerful Android libraries out there. Robust as a hammer, faster than a drill, and more precise than any scalpel; no Android developer should leave home without these must-have tools.

Instead of envying other designers’ work, aspiring designers should look at it as the key to success. Copying work is an excellent way for new designers to hone their craft and improve their skills.

Google formally announced Android 7.0 a few weeks ago, but as usual, you’ll have to wait for it. Thanks to the Android update model, most users won’t get their Android 7.0 over-the-air (OTA) updates for months. However, this does not mean developers can afford to ignore Android Nougat.

In this article, Toptal Technical Editor Nermin Hajdarbegovic takes a closer look at Android 7.0, outlining new features and changes. While Android 7.0 is by no means revolutionary, the introduction of a new graphics API, a new JIT compiler, and a range of UI and performance tweaks will undoubtedly unlock more potential and generate a few new possibilities.

Apple’s iOS is the second-largest mobile operating system in the world. It also has a very high adoption rate, with more than 85 percent of users on the latest version. These highly engaged users have high expectations: If your app has bugs, you’ll hear about it. And once the one-star reviews start rolling in, it’s hard to recover.

In this article, Toptal Software Engineer Nikita Tuk outlines the 10 most common mistakes that developers make—and how to avoid them.

Gone are the days where front-end developers for web applications could use ad-hoc JavaScript with jQuery and such all in a single JavaScript file. Modern web applications require more effort from the developer to adopt an overall architecture and development process. Building such front-end applications relies on lots of external dependencies and modular source code, and these elements necessitate automation to save developers time and reduce the chances of mistakes.

In this article, Toptal Freelance Software Engineer Eric Grosse shows us how various combinations of the popular tools Webpack, Browserify, Gulp and Npm can benefit us by enhancing our development environment and allowing us to focus on writing the app itself.

Caching is a powerful technique for increasing performance, but the whole idea behind caching works only as long as the result we cached remains valid. And here we get to the hard part of the problem: How do we determine when a cached item has become invalid and needs to be recreated?

In this article, Toptal Freelance Software Engineer Daniel Ivanov provides an ASP.NET-based solution to replace invalid cached items and assure high throughput and performance of web applications designed to handle a high load.

The state of automotive UI design is widely criticized for being unintuitive, outdated, and unappealing. As a result, designers speculate about how those UI designs will improve in the near future.