Alpas Updates — 5 Feb2020 Edition
Tags: updates, kotlin, webdev, alpas
Published: 2020-02-14 17:38:39

---
title: Alpas Updates — 5 Feb2020 Edition
published: true
date: 2020-02-05 23:08:22 UTC
tags: updates,kotlin,web-development,alpas
canonical_url: 
---

### Alpas Updates — 5 Feb2020 Edition

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*XNXMegLmNDB8OaQx)<figcaption>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@besluk?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral">Luke Besley</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral">Unsplash</a></figcaption>

Since the previous updates newsletter published last week, we put our heads down and, with laser focus, worked on some important new features that will be available to the public within a couple of days.

These new features will drastically assist in increasing developer productivity by allowing developers to quickly see how updates in code show in a web browser without having to constantly re-build and re-run the project.

We will announce the availability on our [Twitter account](https://twitter.com/alpasdev) — be sure to follow us as these updates provide a major boost in productivity and are sure to excite. 🚀

{% tweet 1225195066240589828 %}

### Weekly Stats 📈

_From 2020–01–29 thru 2020–02–04_

- **265** unique sessions on [alpas.dev](https://alpas.dev/) with representation from **54** countries
- [GitHub](https://github.com/alpas/alpas) totals **:️ 👀 824; ⭐️51**
- **23** total [Slack](https://join.slack.com/t/alpasdev/shared_invite/enQtODcwMjE1MzMxODQ3LTJjZWMzOWE5MzBlYzIzMWQ2MTcxN2M2YjU3MTQ5ZDE4NjBmYjY1YTljOGIwYmJmYWFlYjc4YTcwMDFmZDIzNDE) members

### Achievements and Highlights🏅

- We went heads down and focused on some awesome new features — see Completed and Up Next sections below for details 👨🏾‍💻🔥🚀🎉
- New video on [AlplasCasts](https://alpascasts.com/) that covers [installing IntelliJ IDEA and provides some helpful tips and tricks](https://youtu.be/0yhDcMRW8ro)

### Progress Towards v1.0 🏃🏻‍♀️

Check out the full [to-do list for getting to version 1.0](https://github.com/alpas/alpas/issues/6) on GitHub.

### Completed

Alpas now has a command to link the web folder. This allows you to see the changes you have made in your asset files in an instant without recompiling and switching to the browser. View the documentation at [https://alpas.dev/docs/mixing-assets#auto-reloading](https://alpas.dev/docs/mixing-assets#auto-reloading).

### Up next

The majority of the following are close to being released and should be available within a day or two of this posting (Feb 5th, 2020).

- More rapid development by auto compiling and refreshing your template changes
- Heavily update the docs to cover some important missing topics such as CSRF Protection and Entity Relationships
- Quickly seed a database with the combined power of Database Seeder and Entity Factory features — db:seed and make:factory commands will get you started quickly
- Hook into an HttpCall lifecycle

### Alpas and Kotlin Around the Web 🕸

#### [Ktorm v2.7 released](https://ktorm.liuwj.me/en/about-deprecating-database-global.html)

Ktorm is a super fun ORM library that supercharges the Ozone layer used in Alpas. Version 2.7 includes a major refactoring that makes Ktorm’s API more intuitive and easier to extend.

#### [Why you should totally switch to Kotlin](https://medium.com/@magnus.chatt/why-you-should-totally-switch-to-kotlin-c7bbde9e10d5)

In this oldie but goodie article, Magnus Vinther provides 18 reasons why you should totally switch to Kotlin — especially, if you are currently coding with Java. JetBrains suits of IDEs support and improved data classes, string interpolation, and smart casts are just few of the delights Kotlin offers.

#### [Classes in Kotlin](https://dev.to/magdamiu/classes-in-kotlin-3acm)

[Magda Miu](https://twitter.com/MagdaMiu)’s latest article in her [Learn Kotlin series on Medium](https://medium.com/@magdamiu) goes over classes and objects usage in Kotlin. In this article, you will learn more about constructors, inheritance, abstract classes and interfaces, delegation, data classes, and enum.

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If you’d like to subscribe to our newsletter to keep aware of our progress, sign up at [https://alpas.dev/newsletter](https://alpas.dev/newsletter).

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