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Spiria Montreal is moving into the new Fabrik8 building!
Working environment
Spiria Montreal is moving into the new Fabrik8 building!

In June, Spiria Montreal will move to a new office space. No worries though. We’re staying in the bustling Mile-Ex neighborhood where artificial intelligence, video game studios and other major IT players mingle so well. In fact, we’re not going far…

Laurent  Gloaguen  - 
March 18, 2021
FAX makes a big comeback
Working environment
FAX makes a big comeback

Since the announcement of the Montreal office’s move to the awesome Fabrik8 building, the question on everyone’s lips is How will we mesh telework and in-office work? Let’s see if we can unpack the new telecommuting policy.

Isabelle  Thériault  - 
March 25, 2021
Understanding Open Source Licensing
Free software
Understanding Open Source Licensing

Does “open source” mean “freely available”? Nope. That is important to understand. Code that is freely available without a clearly stated license is implicitly fully protected by copyright in most jurisdictions. Given that they know nothing about…

Laurent  Gloaguen  - 
March 11, 2021
Five design trends for 2021
UX/UI design
Five design trends for 2021

Now that 2020 is finally over and that we’ve made it to 2021, we have high expectations for this long-awaited new year. Among these are five UI trends that we hope will take off in 2021.

Jérémie  Pudlowski  - 
February 25, 2021
Six Misconceptions about Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Six Misconceptions about Artificial Intelligence

Understanding artificial intelligence (AI) is not easy: the myths and inaccuracies about it are rife. However, since AI is bound to become a part of our daily lives, we, as business decision makers, politicians, activists, or consumers, must learn…

Karl  Delagrange  - 
January 21, 2021
Bringing an idea to life through the Discovery process Chloé Garneau, Spiria
Method and best practices
Bringing an idea to life through the Discovery process

The Discovery process is an intense collaboration tailored to find relevant and innovative answers to the digital challenges faced by enterprises.

Laurent  Gloaguen  - 
January 07, 2021
What are the attributes of a good software development manager?
Method and best practices
What are the attributes of a good software development manager?

The term “manager” means different things in different fields. In music, for example, the role of a band manager is to ensure ideal conditions for the artists to create and perform, while making sure things don’t fall apart. This involves suggesting…

Alexandre  Huynh  - 
December 22, 2020
How should I budget for my software development project?
Strategy
How should I budget for my software development project?

One of the most satisfying moments in the life of an entrepreneur is when that Idea comes to you; an Idea that will bridge fractured worlds, win over hearts and minds and take your company and your community to a new level. One of the most deflating…

Alexandre  Huynh  - 
December 03, 2020
MVPs: Your most valuable plan to hit the market swiftly!
Custom development
MVPs: Your most valuable plan to hit the market swiftly!

When creators think up a new product, they often include a thousand and one features to make it engaging and totally unique. Unfortunately, the resulting beast is often huge and unwieldy.

Mélissa  Guay  - 
October 22, 2020

From Our Experts

C++: The Worst of Both Worlds
Desktop application development
C++: The Worst of Both Worlds

C++ is certainly one of the most complex programming languages around. A particularly gnarly aspect of C++ are the templates: as a late addition to the language, they had to fit within the existing syntax. On top of that, using the STL approach, the…

Pierre  Baillargeon  - 
February 11, 2021
Setting a strategy to pay down technical debt
Method and best practices
Setting a strategy to pay down technical debt

When you take over a project that’s at an advanced stage of development, or even in production, you can expect a few surprises. And while refactoring should be an integral part of any normal development cycle, it’s not always easy to consider the…

Stéphane  Milivojevic  - 
January 15, 2021
AWS Lambda emulator
Web development
AWS Lambda emulator

Slow Time … It's well-known that there are time thresholds that affect how we perceive work and affect our flow. If a task takes too long to do, we put it aside or drift to something else. For example, in a recent internal project, we were using AWS…

Pierre  Baillargeon  - 
November 26, 2020
Data Preparation for Machine Learning
Artificial intelligence
Data Preparation for Machine Learning

The first step in our ML process consists in determining what we want to predict. Once this is established, our second step is “data preparation”. Data preparation, together with features engineering, accounts for most of our ML processing time.

Zakia  Messaoudi  - 
November 12, 2020
Easy Swag
Web development
Easy Swag

The swagger / OpenApi documentation standard provides an easy way to help developers use your REST API. Python offers multiple modules to help you generate the swagger doc, and though they already make your life easier, there is always room to make…

Pierre  Baillargeon  - 
November 05, 2020
“Resto”, a Python module to test the web back-end of a RESTful API
Web development
“Resto”, a Python module to test the web back-end of a RESTful API

I strongly believe that if something isn’t tested, then it probably won’t work. On the other hand, since writing tests can be tedious, any tool to help speed up and simplify testing is always welcome. In a recent project, I had to write the back-end…

Pierre  Baillargeon  - 
October 29, 2020
Solving the problems with the “futures” in C++
Desktop application development
Solving the problems with the “futures” in C++

Today’s high core-count processors require parallel algorithms for programs to run fast. To achieve this, asynchronization and future values are not a reliable solution.

Pierre  Baillargeon  - 
October 15, 2020
Multithread Wrap Photo John K Thorne, dp.
Desktop application development
Multithread Wrap

One of the challenges of writing multithreaded code is that it is often necessary to share data that was not designed to be used by multiple threads at the same time. In this blog post, I want to show two approaches to protect such data: duplication…

Pierre  Baillargeon  - 
October 08, 2020

Tech news in brief

Time travel with Google Earth
Tech news in brief
Time travel with Google Earth

Witness urban sprawl, deforestation, glacier shrinkage and coastal erosion in 3D. Google introduced what it says is the “biggest update to Google Earth since 2017” with a new 3D time-lapse feature, which lets you fly around the globe virtually with…

Laurent  Gloaguen  - 
April 15, 2021
Surface Laptop 4
Tech news in brief
Surface Laptop 4

Microsoft unveiled the 4th generation of its Surface Laptop. The design is identical to the previous generation with two touchscreen models (13.5 and 15 inches). Several color options are available, including a new “Ice Blue” finish. The device…

Laurent  Gloaguen  - 
April 13, 2021
Morpheus CPU puzzles hackers
Tech news in brief
Morpheus CPU puzzles hackers

Morpheus is an ultra-secure RISC-V processor that was designed by a group of graduate students and faculty at the University of Michigan. The RISC-V processor turns the computer into a puzzle so tough to piece together that it deters attackers…

Laurent  Gloaguen  - 
April 13, 2021
Microsoft acquires Nuance
Tech news in brief
Microsoft acquires Nuance

Microsoft is buying Nuance, a company specializing in artificial intelligence-based speech recognition technologies, for US$ 19.7 billion. The Redmond tech giant will pay US$ 56 per share for Nuance, a 23% premium over the closing price last Friday.

Laurent  Gloaguen  - 
April 12, 2021
Robots meet pizzas
Tech news in brief
Robots meet pizzas

Expect to see a new kind of traffic in Woodland Heights, Texas: Domino’s will begin delivering pizza with small Nuro driverless vehicles as part of a pilot program at its store in this Houston neighborhood. The company says “selected customers” who…

Laurent  Gloaguen  - 
April 12, 2021
Greener cryptocurrency
Tech news in brief
Greener cryptocurrency

Mining bitcoin and ethereum, the most popular cryptocurrencies, consumes colossal amounts of energy. Producing that energy emits carbon dioxide, which is a greenhouse gas. This business is harming the environment, and dirtying the very image of the…

Laurent  Gloaguen  - 
April 08, 2021
Alienware M15 as a portable AMD
Tech news in brief
Alienware M15 as a portable AMD

Dell has announced delivery of its 5th generation Alienware M15, a 15-inch screen gaming laptop. This new R5 version bids farewell to Intel. The company says it’s the first Alienware laptop since 2007 to feature an AMD processor. The Alienware…

Laurent  Gloaguen  - 
April 07, 2021
Google victorious over Oracle in the Supreme Court
Tech news in brief
Google victorious over Oracle in the Supreme Court

The United States Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Google in the 11-year legal battle between Google and Oracle over the copyright of application programming interfaces (APIs). The ruling means Google won’t have to pay Oracle billions of dollars…

Laurent  Gloaguen  - 
April 06, 2021