“Huawei officially launched HarmonyOS at the HDC Developer Conference 2019. I have been following HarmonyOS since the launch.” Zhang Rongchao said. Since its release, HarmonyOS has attracted countless developers looking to it to bring new life to the long-dormant operating software market.
As a senior software development engineer, Zhang was one of the first instructors to meet and participate in the training and development of HarmonyOS. Zhang is a true pioneer of HarmonyOS. He has worked for several well-known IT Internet companies and has rich experience in Python, Swift and Kotlin development and training. At the same time, he is also a professional developer lecturer and has taught millions of students. His teaching style is widely praised for being “easy to understand and practical”. He is now preparing to launch a HarmonyOS App hands-on program.
Beginning: First smell known song favorite
Zhang rongchao has been looking forward to HarmonyOS since he first met them. He said it would be great to learn about HarmonyOS and create development courses to bring more developers into the HarmonyOS community. HarmonyOS itself impressed him: first, technically, HarmonyOS’s kernel code was homegrown and state-of-the-art. Second, from the design concept, 1+8+N full scene and distributed design concept for developers to give full play to the imagination and creativity of the broad space.
Specifically, HarmonyOS provides an easy path to embedded development of the Internet of Things. The Internet of Things technology has a long history, but fragmentation has always been a problem. “I think the biggest challenge with iot embedded development is that each device is an isolated island, and they can’t communicate with each other efficiently,” Zhang said.
For example, a typical household may have many appliances, but they are usually made by different manufacturers, with different built-in systems and using different networking and communication protocols, making it difficult to communicate with each other as a whole. According to Zhang, the value and role of HarmonyOS lies in “providing a unified standard for easy, fast and efficient connectivity between devices, which in turn opens up a vast space for smart devices”.
Experience: when deep ploughing is easy or rustic
After studying and developing the HarmonyOS App, Zhang was impressed by the fact that “the development tools for upcoming or existing HarmonyOS eco-products are very well developed and stable, and the experience for developers is very good.”
In just a few months, Zhang has developed two HarmonyOS training courses, one on breathing and the other on 2048 mini-games, each using Java and JavaScript. So that learners can better understand the project in comparison.
According to Zhang, HarmonyOS has two main advantages over other systems: First, HarmonyOS is a full-scene operating system. In the coming years, as more and more devices are owned per person, the all-scene experience is where HarmonyOS is going to win the battle. Second, HarmonyOS supports one development and multiple deployments, making it as easy to develop a distributed App that collaborates with each other as it is to develop a single App. Zhang rongchao said that to implement the same function, if you switch to Android, not only the workload will be much larger, but also the performance and user experience will be worse. “For example, my previous game, 2048 multiplayer, was designed to take three days to complete the main features of multiplayer based on my Android development experience. To my surprise, it only took me one day to complete all the features on HarmonyOS.”
As Zhang learned more about HarmonyOS development skills, he began to think about how to promote HarmonyOS to more developers in a simpler and more practical way. Not only has he developed two HarmonyOS training courses, but he has also worked on his first HarmonyOS App development book, a forthcoming book that covers the development of the HarmonyOS App from scratch and explains every line of code. Learn by doing, learn by doing, and master the practical skills of HarmonyOS development.
Promotion: all rivers run into the sea
Getting as many developers involved as possible is key to building a HarmonyOS smart ecosystem as soon as possible. As one of the first instructors to offer HarmonyOS development courses, Zhang rongchao designed the HarmonyOS curriculum using the Smart Watch GT2 Pro as a starting point.
He chose the smartwatch App for three reasons: First, he wanted to follow HarmonyOS ‘lead in developing the curriculum. The GT2 Pro is the first HarmonyOS 2.0 smartwatch to hit the market; Watch GT2 Pro is a platform with both local Previewer and local simulator. Its development tools are comprehensive and stable, providing developers with the best experience at present. Third, the programming language used for App development on this platform is JavaScript. JavaScript is more suitable for beginners than Java. It turned out to be the right choice, as his sessions were described by participants as “easy to listen to, the most accessible HarmonyOS video course”.
Overall, Zhang believes that the bar for developing HarmonyOS is not high. “Even if you don’t have any development experience, you will be able to quickly develop HarmonyOS in a short time. For experienced developers, the barrier to entry for HarmonyOS is even lower. “DevEco Studio, HarmonyOS’s integrated development environment, is so easy to use that engineers from other development platforms can smoothly transition and migrate to HarmonyOS App development.”
Distance: don’t worry about the road ahead without friends
As a pioneer of HarmonyOS, Mr Cheung is confident about the future of HarmonyOS. “HarmonyOS is an excellent operating system, both technically and conceptually.”
For his part, he is currently doing some new development with HarmonyOS. “It is mainly aimed at the cultivation of talents in colleges and universities and the development of teaching products and practical training products that combine hard and soft and stimulate students’ interest in learning. The development focuses on selecting typical industrial application scenarios. At the same time, HarmonyOS ‘core fundamentals of northbound and southbound development are interwoven into one product that combines hard and soft. “He sincerely hopes to nurture more HarmonyOS full-stack development talent in universities.
He has two pieces of advice for potential HarmonyOS teachers: first, the programme should be customer-focused, rather than “technology-centric”. “The competition between the teachers is their ability to reconstruct knowledge, to see who can present the technology in a way that is easier for students to understand and accept, rather than copying the book. Secondly, students should be able to see and feel, whether it is the visual form or specific logical expansion, to let students feel the intention of the teacher from the details.
He also has great expectations for the developers who will join the HarmonyOS ecosystem. “No one can extinguish the starry sky. Every developer is a spark that Huawei wants to gather. I hope all developers can join us and contribute to building the foundation of software in our country.”