What is the easiest way to get started with IBM Bluemix?

Question

I'm a beginning programmer that is interested in IBM Bluemix. What is the easiest way to get started with IBM Bluemix?

Answer 1

You can get started by viewing application architectures built on IBM Bluemix. The IBM Bluemix Architecture Center provides diagrams, walk throughs and whitepapers on how to build web applications, hybrid data storage, CRM business intelligence, and data analtyics with IoT.

The walk through guides show how to manually build an application based on that architecture. A way to learn what services are available and how to connect them to do useful work. Many of the solutions can also be deployed automatically to quickly get a working application that can be used to experiment with.

Once you have seen several sample applications you will have better knowledge of which services you want to learn more about.

Answer 2

It really depends on what is your programming experience and your personal preference. For example if you want to begin programming with the classic Object-Oriented paradigm you should try Liberty runtime to familiarize with Java. Instead if you like the scripting languages maybe you could give a try to Python, Ruby or Go runtimes. All of them provide a sample application that you can extend as you want, and have very detailed documentation. Finally you should take a look at IBM Containers, even if probably this is not a very simple topic for a beginner. They are very interesting and powerful, and they make you able to do potentially anything with the platform.

Answer 3

There are so many applications, database and services there, I think you can try to create the services and play around, to see what kind of application you like and start the development works for you own.

Answer 4

If you are interested in learning more about Bluemix Mobile Services a good place to start would be here:

Creating Mobile Applications Using Bluemix

We cover getting started with multiple environments:

iOS

Android

As well as an introduction to our provided services:

Mobile Client Access

Push Notifications

Cloudant

I would recommend creating a HelloWorld application for the desired environment and then building on from there:

iOS-HelloWorld

Android-HelloWorld

Answer 5

Node-RED is a GUI flow editor built on node.js, which allows users to get started very quickly on Bluemix.

There is a "boilerplate" for the IoT Foundation service which includes a sample Node-RED flow that can be used with an online simulator if you don't have a sensor device.
https://www.ng.bluemix.net/docs/#starters/IoT/iot500.html#iot500

That boilerplate will set up an IoT service, a Node-RED app and a Cloudant database. Once you deploy you can test with the online sensor simulator and you can also customize the flow your own devices.

Answer 6

Don't know if it's the 'easiest way'...

There is a course on developerWorks 'Getting Started with IBM Bluemix'.

Those videos can be watched on Youtube as well if you don't want to register.