Toptal Engineering Blog

The Toptal Engineering Blog is a hub for in-depth development tutorials and new technology announcements created by professional software engineers in the Toptal network.

authors are vetted experts in their fields and write on topics in which they have demonstrated experience. All of our content is peer reviewed and validated by Toptal experts in the same field.

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authors are vetted experts in their fields and write on topics in which they have demonstrated experience. All of our content is peer reviewed and validated by Toptal experts in the same field.

A Software Defined Radio Tutorial: Images From the International Space Station and Listening to Hams With an RTL-SDR

Radio has used fundamentally the same technology since Marconi’s experiments in 1895. However, improved circuit design and signal processing techniques have allowed us to transmit much more and much farther out than before.

In this article, with a laptop and less than $30 worth of equipment, we’ll capture images transmitted from the International Space Station and listen to amateur radio conversations at a local repeater.

18 minute readContinue Reading

Amin Shah Gilani

Amin is a Ruby Association certified Gold Ruby Programmer who is passionate about learning new applications for technology.

The Dart Language: When Java and C# Aren't Sharp Enough

Five years after Dart 1.0, Google’s rewritten open-source language is attracting increasing numbers of developers. What do C# and Java developers need to know to get started with it?

13 minute readContinue Reading

Star Ford

Star is an architect and developer with specializations in business processes, requirements writing, databases, C#, and web development.

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How to Create a Swipeable UITabBar From the Ground Up

Apple’s iOS SDK features a bevy of built-in UI components, but what happens when you decide you need a bit more? What if you need to create a swipeable UITabBar?

In this post, Toptal iOS Developer George Vashakidze explains how he tried using a third-party library, and why he chose to create his own solution instead.

9 minute readContinue Reading

George Vashakidze

George is an extremely motivated and hardworking mobile developer with extensive experience working with iOS and Android.

How to Approach Modern WordPress Development (Part 2)

WordPress code, especially back-end PHP code, is often a mess—even in WP core! But legacy code is no excuse. Find out how to develop WP customizations the right way, so your code is readable and maintainable.

13 minute readContinue Reading

Andrey Shalashov

Andrey is a full-stack web developer and WordPress expert. Lately, his focus is on serverless computing and JAMstack.

ELK to AWS: Managing Logs with Less Hassle

The ELK stack boasts a range of impressive capabilities, but in some scenarios, it can be difficult to configure and maintain.

In this article, Toptal DevOps Engineer Fabrice Triboix explains why he decided to shift to a serverless solution that requires less maintenance and allows for superior scaling.

9 minute readContinue Reading

Fabrice Triboix

Fabrice is a cloud architect and software developer with 20+ years of experience who’s worked for Cisco, Samsung, Philips, Alcatel, and Sagem.

Will JS Frameworks Spark a Front-end Revolution?

Are Vue.js, React, and Angular actually delivering a good developer and user experience, or are they used simply because they’re the current de facto standard? Discover some exciting approaches to web development.

< 5 minute readContinue Reading

Kevin Bloch

Kevin has 20+ years among full-stack, desktop, and indie game development. He lately specializes in PostgreSQL, JavaScript, Perl, and Haxe.

A Deep Look at JSON vs. XML, Part 3: XML and the Future of JSON

In Part 1 and 2, we took a closer look at the evolution of the web, how XML and JSON arose, and the differences between the two standards.

In this final part of our series on JSON vs. XML, Toptal Freelance Full-stack Developer Seva Safris looks at XML as a data interchange format and how well it supports complex requirements. And finally, he will discuss the future of JSON as well as explore solutions that bring the strengths of XML to JSON.

17 minute readContinue Reading

Seva Safris

Seva is a veteran of both enterprise and startups and a UC Berkeley graduate in EECS and MSE with 20 years of industry experience.

Toptal Engineering Expert

Gabriel Courtemanche

Gabriel is a highly efficient and reliable professional who possesses a broad skill set for web application development. He's been working on a range of products and clients—from working on scalability problems in production engineering teams at Shopify and Autodesk to launching new applications for startups. Most of his work consists of leading technical teams, by creating an easy development environment, fixing technical debts, providing best practices code examples, and mentoring devs.