October 2022
I am aggregating here some more or less interesting stuff of various IT related materials which I came across this month. Some of them are strictly related to the things I did or am currently doing.
Some thoughts
I made a presentation "GitHub Actions: (opinionated) Tips & Tricks" at Brival software house. It was my second public presentation about this topic. Since then I updated the content and demo repository. I noticed how beneficial it is to give the same presentation multiple times. It went significantly better than the first time. I was not limited with time and had more freedom in going deeper into details.
Articles
Resiliency in Distributed Systems
Understanding the ins and outs of distributed systems is important for both backend engineers and for anyone working with large-scale systems. Large-scale systems can mean systems with high load and high queries per second (QPS), storing a large amount of data, or ones built with low latency and high reliability. These systems are pretty common across both Big Tech and high-growth startups.
What Color is Your Function?
I don’t know about you, but nothing gets me going in the morning quite like a good old fashioned programming language rant. It stirs the blood to see someone skewer one of those “blub” languages the plebians use, muddling through their day with it between furtive visits to StackOverflow.
How to distort Scrum until it no longer works
The problem with Scrum is that it usually works. In tech, we hate that. What we like is to give talks, prepare slide decks, and, most importantly, to invent things ourselves.
You don't need Scrum. You just need to do Kanban right.
Why did you choose Scrum instead of Kanban? If you can’t answer that question, you didn’t choose Scrum. Someone else chose it for you.
Why Disconnecting From Your Phone Is So Good for You—and How to Do It
Research links smartphone overuse to a wide array of physical and mental-health issues, including fatigue and heightened depression and anxiety.
Beating the Averages
Lisp is worth learning for the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it; that experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use Lisp itself a lot.
Eric Raymond
Productivity
Your Work Matters. Build Your Schedule Accordingly.
Your work matters. It’s okay to fight for it in your schedule.
The Most Important Piece of Career Advice You Probably Never Heard
The advice goes like this:
Fix the lifestyle you want. Then work backwards from there.
Python
How I start every new Python backend API project
How to setup everything and focus only on the implementation of our lovely business logic.
Generate a QR Code with Python
In this quick tutorial, we will learn how to create a QR code in Python with qrcode, pillow, and just five lines of code.
Developing RESTful APIs with Python and Flask
TL;DR: Throughout this article, we will use Flask and Python to develop a RESTful API. We will create an endpoint that returns static data (dictionaries). Afterward, we will create a class with two specializations and a few endpoints to insert and retrieve instances of these classes. Finally, we will look at how to run the API on a Docker container.
Want cleaner code? Use the rule of six
A simple and powerful framework for ironing out confusing code.
Decorator shortcuts
When using many decorators in code, there’s a shortcut you can use if you find yourself repeating them. They can be assigned to a variable just like any other Python expression.
Django
Production Tips for Django Apps
A few things I make sure to keep in mind when building an application for real world users with Django:
Tools
Kubernetes Dashboard
Kubernetes Dashboard is a general purpose, web-based UI for Kubernetes clusters. It allows users to manage applications running in the cluster and troubleshoot them, as well as manage the cluster itself.
The Art of Command Line
Master the command line, in one page
terminalizer
Record your terminal and generate animated gif images or share a web player link terminalizer.com.
asciinema
asciinemalets you easily record terminal sessions and replay them in a terminal as well as in a web browser.
JSON Crack
Simple visualization tool for your JSON data. No forced structure, paste your JSON and view it instantly.
tabler.io
A premium and open source dashboard template with a responsive and high-quality UI.
Cloud
loader.io
Simple Cloud-based load testing.
Loader.io is a FREE load testing service that allows you to stress test your web-apps & apis with thousands of concurrent connections.
Why we're leaving the cloud
The savings promised in reduced complexity never materialized. So we're making our plans to leave.
Other stuff
How To Write Unmaintainable Code
Ensure a job for life ;-)
Podcasts
The Stack Overflow Podcast: Don’t let software steal your time (Ep. 491)
While countless apps are competing for your attention, here's some tips on how to fight back.