Bluemix is IBM's cloud platform to build and host applications which can leverage more than 100 services, for example databases and cognitive services. The services provide APIs which require credentials. Applications which are hosted on Bluemix as Cloud Foundry apps or Docker containers can access these credentials from environment variables. This article describes how to invoke Bluemix services from client-side web applications. (more…)

Many frontend applications require the extensive use of forms to allow users entering information. Angular supports various mechanisms to handle forms, but I've struggled to figure out how to handle validations of data on different pages/routes. Below is a pattern I've used based on Redux which doesn't leverage much of the Angular forms functionality but works very nicely for me. (more…)

My colleague Ansgar Schmidt and I have developed a new tool for developers to simplify building conversational user experiences with IBM Watson Conversation. The tool displays JSON data of REST API requests that is sent between applications and the Watson Conversation service and it allows developers to modify outgoing JSON messages. (more…)

Apache OpenWhisk is an open source cloud platform that executes functions in response to events at any scale. For example OpenWhisk can be used to run business logic in response to invocations from web and mobile apps over HTTP. This article describes how to build web applications where users can log in via their Google accounts and OpenWhisk is used to host protected APIs. (more…)

For a Bluemix DevOps workshop I've prepared a deck that gives an overview of the Continues Delivery functionality in IBM Bluemix. (more…)

I've open sourced a sample that shows how to build Alexa skills via the serverless framework OpenWhisk and IBM Watson Conversation. The sample demonstrates how to define a conversation flow declaratively via Watson Conversation dialogs and it shows how to pass context between different intents. (more…)

Today, IBM announced a new collaborative development initiative with Lightbend, a provider of a reactive application development platform for building distributed apps. When trying to learn more about that platform, I found a great presentation from the Lightbend CTO Jonas Bonér where he describes the concepts behind reactive microservices. (more…)

I've open sourced a simple sample that shows how to leverage IBM Watson Conversation in Slack bots via the open source project Botkit. With Botkit and a Watson middleware text messages defined in Conversation dialogs can easily be used in Slack bots. My sample shows additionally how to use Slack buttons in messages and how to invoke business logic at certain stages of the conversation. (more…)

In my previous role I worked on improvements for tooling for conversational user experiences. One of these improvements was an easy way to gather user input before actions are invoked. These typical conversation scenarios are often referred to as 'slot filling'. (more…)

Earlier this year IBM introduced a new service DevOps Insights (beta) which helps among other things to reduce deployment risks. Policies can be defined to ensure that unit tests, functional tests and other tests pass before new versions of applications are deployed. (more…)