Let's Debug It!
Bruno is the latest kid on the block when it comes to API testing. Many of us are familiar with API clients such as Postman or Insomnia. Unfortunately, these useful tools weren’t spared from the ongoing enshittification . Insomnia, recently taken over by Kong, suffered in particular. The rewrite is as buggy as Windows 8 on the day of its unfortunate release, and it was stripped of essential…
In 1957 science fiction writer named Theodore Sturgeon famously stated: “90% of everything is cr*p”. This statement became known as “Sturgeon’s Law” and remains applicable to majority of human endeavours. Futurists had hopes that computers might change it for the better (notably, Stanisław Lem disagreed). With headlines like those below, I’m afraid that Lem was…
“Who killed Agile?”, asks Jon Kerry, co-author of the Agile Manifesto, expressing dismay at how ugly his poster child has become. He summarizes the problem here: “Why are we back with these giant diagrams or giant processes? Well, because it gives comfort to those middle managers who don’t actually know what’s going on as much as they might think they do.” The…
A new scheme for versioning software projects is gaining popularity: Calendar Versioning. Instead of arbitrary version numbers of SemVer standard, it suggests using release dates. Maybe a good idea for your project? https://calver.org/ Many of us are familiar with semantic versioning a.k.a. SemVer . In fact, it’s so familiar that we don’t even think about it. When we create a new…
Get your own domain and private email address, if you haven’t already 😅 Another “secure” email provider goes down. Two million users biting their nails as Notion, the company that took over Skiff and then unceremoniously announced it would simply shut it down in six months, closes the news with a tongue-in-cheek “We look forward to continuing to serve you.”…
I needed a function to check if the point belongs to a line between two other points. Doable with a bit of good old Pythagoras. Boring, so I thought I’d save three minutes and ask ChatGPT instead. I had a feeling of things to come, but John Lennon suggested “giving peace a chance,” so I gave it a chance. I’m logging in to https://chat.openai.com , enter the query, the clock is ticking,…
Interesting developments in TypeScript community. Another open source project announces return to plain JavaScript. Another flame war begins. People are angry and upset that JavaScript refuses to die ;-) https://devclass.com/2023/09/07/ruby-on-rails-creator-removes-typescript-from-turbo-framework-upsets-community/ Programmers forget that our art, creative as it is, is not the same as that of…
MSFT told investors late last month that “AI” contributions to revenue will be gradual. AMD said it expects the market for “AI” accelerators to reach more than $150 billion by … 2027. Yes, possibly, maybe, by 2027. In every single case of earnings beat during the ongoing quarterly reporting cycle nobody could, nor even tried, to contribute it to the “AI”…
Introduction Recent years saw growing popularity of modular approach to architecting software. Software systems move away from monolith codebases towards independently deployed and executed modules. In the article, we avoid calling these architectures “microservices” or using “Kubernetes” in every other sentence. Microservice-based architecture is just one of many ways to…
Japan makes online insults punishable. The suicide of a popular TV star who became a victim of online harassment was a pivotal point. Are fears of suppression of free speech justified? https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/14/asia/japan-cyberbullying-law-intl-hnk-scli/index.html Free-speech advocates seem to be telling us that online insult is somehow less harmful than the “real” one.…
If you’re interested in Free and Open Source Software, please check out the Go FOSS initiative. The website provides a curated list of FOSS solutions for all our daily computing needs. It comes with detailed tutorials explaining how to select, install and configure the right software for your needs, such as: Operating System Browsing Communications File Storage Cloud Storage Mobile Phone…
Introduction I’ve been working with Amazon AWS for two years now. During this time I have acquired an instinct of staying alert all the time. Amazon keeps coming up with new ingenious ways of extracting money. And boy, they did it again today! Welcome to AWS Lambda Function URLs! Lambda URL Endpoints The recently added Lambda URL is a great improvement. It makes it much easier to expose Lambda…
Few days ago Google announced that it’s killing the infamous FLoC proposal . The invasive tracking technology, announced in 2021, met with widespread opposition, is finally being dropped, but only to be replaced with the Topics API. This new proposal is technically different, but it still aims at the same goal: Build user tracking functionality straight into the web browser, to facilitate…
Sharing an excellent opinion piece & thorough technical analysis of “Web3” and all the hype around it, by Moxie Marlinspike, the father of Signal messenger. Like we say in Poland, “If you don’t know what’s going on, it’s likely about money” . https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html In all fairness, this supposedly noble goal of building…
Introduction Sometimes it’s useful to get visual feedback from a script. For example when script or cron job completes. Or when long-running build fails. Or when there is urgent problem during script execution. Desktop applications can do this with popup notifications. But it can be done from script too! You can use script commands to send yourself desktop notifications and reminders. The…
How to look busy when you need to sit and think for an hour, but it doesn’t qualify as being useful in your particular work environment? Here’s an idea: https://hackertyper.net/ Log on, keep hitting the keyboard randomly, done. Also useful if you badly need some “wow!” at your preferred coffee joint or in airport lounges. Careful though, as you might get a thorough security…
Introduction My ongoing quest for great terminal utilities has uncovered another gem: Turbo Editor, found at https://github.com/magiblot/turbo . It’s a multi-document text editor with syntax highlighting and natural key bindings. It looks modern, crisp and it’s blazing fast. Interestingly, it’s based on the once-famous Turbo Vision application framework for C++. Back in the 90s I…
What a great coincidence! Just about when Facebook decided to move us all into metaverse while suddenly changing company name to get ahead of federal prosecutors, another billionaire-turned-architect smells money. Charles Munger , the right-hand of the legendary investor Warren Buffet, cannot be wrong when it comes to spotting lifetime business opportunities. Welcome to Meta Penitentiary…
Introduction In my programming work I often need to know memory use by applications. Rough estimate is usually enough, before getting down to details and browser profiling tools. To interrogate memory use on Linux or MacOS we typically use top or htop . I’d love to see a single number: how much RAM did a process take. But statistics shown by these utilities can be hard to understand. With…
Introduction The Verge reports an intriguing and fascinating story. It seems that students all over the world are struggling with basic computing concepts such as file and folder hierarchy . In their minds, the idea of hierarchic file system is fading away, being replaced by laundry basket storage. No more files in folders inside bigger folders, all neatly labeled. Instead, all my stuff is piled…
Introduction Connecting remotely to computers remains a challenge. Industry’s response to that is VPN. ZeroTier is a popular VPN platform for creating secure private networks. It helps safely connect to your machines from anywhere in the world. It helps safely access servers in the cloud. It enables intranet applications for external users. Last-but-not-least, it can be used to provide…
“Why do I need six communicator apps on my phone” ? I hear this frequently, being “That Computer Guy” of my family. “Why can’t you solve that?” , follows next. My answer: “Of course we can, and we even did. Remember XMPP standard? But … Because Money, Markets and Stonks!” Cory Doctorow, insightful as always, explains in his new essay how…
Edward Snowden is explaining today the ins and outs of Apple’s recent privacy-invading initiatives. And for me, the first credible explanation of “why?” https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/all-seeing-i Alltogether the article makes a rather depressing reading. Yet in the end we do have a choice, and can vote with our wallets … Snowden’s brutal conclusion: This is…
Introduction Ubuntu Multipass is used to quicky launch and manage Linux virtual machines on any workstation. It is available for Linux, MacOS and Windows. From developer’s perspective it is an interesting alternative to Docker or VirtualBox. For me, it feels easier and simpler to use. It has become indispensable tool for keeping my workstation clean. It helps with testing and deployment of…
Charles Petzold , Windows Pioneer, Microsoft Most Valuable Professional, the Great Ancient One who has proudly educated millions of Windows developers, has just shared the following succint message, regarding Microsoft Edge and its intrusive advertising practices: “Screw you, Microsoft Edge”. See it for yourself! http://www.charlespetzold.com/blog/2021/08/Screw-You-Microsoft-Edge.html…
What was your first programming language? Few days ago OpenSource.com magazine asked contributors to share our personal stories about how we got into programming. Many entertaining and fascinating responses were submitted. In the article below I’m sharing my own story. One can notice intriguing patterns in the submitted stories. The 70s generation was nostalgic about Fortran, punch cards and…
How to move to FOSS Yesterday I’ve stumbled upon a wonderful initiative named Go FOSS, Today . Many organizations stand for privacy, security and ownership of our computing platforms. But this one goes further. It provides detailed tutorials explaining how to get there, with Free and Open Source Software. “Go FOSS” reminds us that privacy is declared a fundamental human right by…
Nobody likes Mondays, but this Monday started on a different note, with DZone.com awarding me with their “Community Member of the Day” award! Thank you guys!
Introduction Large Hadron Collider is powered by Linux . Laptops on the International Space Station run on Linux . So does Instagram and Nest thermostat . Recently we watched Ingenuity fly over Mars, an amazing robo-copter driven by … Linux ! Yet another proof how flexible and versatile this operating system can be. But now, the really big news. It’s official. Linux can handle Mom and…
Looks like Senior StackOverflow Developer is not a joke after all. As StackOverflow themselves confirms , one of every four visitors copies a piece of code off the website, within 5 minutes of their visit. During mere two weeks between March and April this year, there were over 40 million CTRL+C keystrokes recorded on StackOverflow. We all see this happening all the time. But the scale of this…
Introduction GOTO has been considered harmful ever since E.W.Dijkstra told us so ;-) But there’s one goto which is actually very useful! It’s a shell utility for bookmarking frequently visited folders, which I’ve been using since a long time. It can be found at https://github.com/iridakos/goto . To get the idea, watch goto in action: The problem I spend a lot of time in terminal,…
My ongoing quest for modern text-mode utilities has brought another discovery: gdu , found at https://github.com/dundee/gdu . It’s an interactive text-mode disk usage analyser written with GoLang. gdu is very fast and simple in use. It allows interactive walking through directories and instant deleting of obsolete files and directories. It’s quite similar to ncdu but seems much faster.…
The world of programming languages is as exciting and intriguing as ever. You might have missed that, busy writing another dull enterprise application. Stuck with same old C#, JavaScript, Python or, heavens forbid, Java ;-) But there are rainbows and unicorns all over the place, if you look around. Fierce competition between Go and Rust is particularly interesting. I’ve read this article…
Introduction Today we’d like to present a blueprint for large Vue JS projects. It uses the new and exciting Vite build tool and Lerna monorepo manager. I’ve built large enterprise projects in a similar way, using Angular, Vue JS, webpack and rollup. Vite, created by Vue JS team, looks very promising so I wanted to give it a try. There are plenty Vite tutorials and demos, mostly the usual…
The cow has spoken again, and it’s been very insightful: Cows are a well known and frequent phenomenon in Unix/Linux world. They’ve also been spotted in many other computerized ecosystems. They’re very happy with MacOS. WSL is okay too. Myself I have even managed to put a talking cow on an Android phone. For those still unfamiliar with it, here are the necessary ingredients:…
An interesting report quoted by TechRepublic, regarding the astounding economic costs of poor software quality: https://www.techrepublic.com/index.php/category/10250/4/index.php/article/developers-these-botched-software-rollouts-are-costing-businesses-billions/ There are plenty reasons for that. Our own “contribution” as software engineers is indisputable. Poor understanding of…
Polskojęzyczna wersja artykułu opublikowanego wcześniej po angielsku: WhatsApp Manifesto na temat niedawnych zmian w polityce prywatności i ochrony danych w aplikacji WhatsApp. Kilka dni temu opublikowałem w serwisie LinkedIn wiadomość o nadchodzących zmianach w aplikacji WhatsApp. Już niedługo firma Facebook, właściciel WhatsAppa, zacznie w inwazyjny sposób analizować i udostępniać innym firmom…
When I posted my message regarding the WhatsApp policy changes, there were five people in my Signal contact list. Today it’s eighteen. Looking at the ongoing media coverage, I have hope that it becomes a persistent trend. I’ve decided to share the following manifesto with all my friends, colleagues and contacts, to bring this important topic to their attention. You’re encouraged…
WhatsApp is Facebook is Instagram is No Privacy Whatsoever The just announced WhatsApp EULA update has far reaching consequences for our privacy. It wants us to agree to share our WhatsApp data with other Facebook lines of business as well as third parties, otherwise it will stop working on Feb 8th, 2021. The Next Web has more details:…
Spotify Client for the console Make the bloat go away with return to Terminal! Here’s a fantastic Spotify Premium client for the console, written with the mighty rust : https://github.com/hrkfdn/ncspot Memory use comparison, measured using ps_mem on Linux during playback: Client Private Memory Shared Memory Total ncspot 22.1 MiB 24.1 MiB 46.2 MiB Spotify 407.3 MiB 592.7 MiB 1000.0 MiB To get…
The Man Who Carried Computer Science on His Shoulders An excellent biographic article about E.W.Dijkstra, one of the founding fathers of computer science and laureate of ACM Turing Award. Long, detailed, but highly entertaining piece, recommended for the lunch break! “The Man Who Carried Computer Science on His Shoulders”, by Krzysztof Apt…
Introduction Imagine a web application used by many users at the same time. Sometimes we want to be sure they’re kept in sync. We want to ensure that they look at the same fresh data. We want them to interact with each other. Think about co-editing of documents on Google Drive, chat applications, shared whiteboards etc. We’ve implemented a simple solution for seamless synchronization…
Introduction A simple task: copy a file from one machine to another. Not easy, as it turns out to be. We’re now 20 years into the 21st century and these things are as tedious as ever. I have found and used a few tools which make it much easier. TL;DR Fragmentation of technology and vendor-lock makes it difficult to copy files between machines we legally own. The Challenge Copying a file from…
Introduction At some point in my programming career I’ve been named a Senior Software Developer. Then customers started asking me to help interview their new hires. Many of them applying for a similar senior role. What does this term mean? How did these interrogations go? TL;DR More than often, not very well. Sturgeon’s Law describes exactly how bad. This article is a slightly ironic…
Introduction Not long ago I wrote a brief article describing how to create a simple Vue JS application without any build pipeline. It was received with a lot of interest and feedback. Many readers have asked whether a similar feat would be possible with the upcoming Vue 3 release of the framework. The answer turns out to be positive. Also with Vue 3 one can go quite far and enjoy the powers of the…
Introduction There’s been a lot of discussion about state management in the upcoming Vue 3 framework. Some writers go as far as declaring Vuex dead. Reactivity is all we need, is the claim. Just like blockchain was supposed to cure all problems of modern civilisation ;-) Jokes aside, it does look like an intriguing possibility, so we’ve taken a challenge and explored it in this…
Tomasz Waraksa Software engineer, technology enthusiast, photographer Thanks for visiting my blog! I have been creating software for over 20 years. My experience ranges from private pet projects to mission-critical enterprise applications for clients such as MasterCard, Citibank, Qualcomm, and Bank of America. A diehard programmer, coach and mentor, I appreciate simple, concise, elegant,…
This is a personal blog. Any views or opinions represented in this blog are personal and belong solely to the blog owner and do not represent those of people, institutions or organizations that the owner may or may not be associated with in professional or personal capacity, unless explicitly stated. Any views or opinions are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization,…
Introduction People would often say how Vue JS or React are simple, even trivial. Well… I for one disagree ;-) They’re not simple. After all, they’re widely used to build massive, often mission-critical systems. There’s plenty to learn beyond these wildly optimistic Learn React in a Day courses. Their ecosystems are huge. Tooling is demanding. Documentation is extensive. It takes substantial…