Learn By Doing Newsletter

Here in the US we celebrated our independence and did everything we could to keep all of our appendages attached. While the fireworks were going off and vacations were in full swing, cloud technology, blockchain news, and interesting coding articles continued to flow.

This week is our largest newsletter to date! There is a lot of content around AWS security best practices, deep dives into various programming languages like C#, and continued conversations about the scalability of blockchain technology.

☁️ Cloud

Build a serverless web app in AzureIf you don't have multi factor authentication enabled on your AWS account, shame on you. This article shows just how easy it is to add multi factor authentication to your account with a tool like awless. Bonus points, multi-factor authentication is prime question on any AWS certification exam.

The Bastion Server That Isn’t ThereThis is a very interesting read on implementing "bastion as a service" instead of having that one bastion host in our AWS account that we all use to access resources in our AWS account. This feels a bit more complicated than I think it needs to be in my opinion, but I see the value the author is bringing here. If you are looking to leverage this there is a GitHub repository linked in this post.

AWS Well-Architected FrameworkThe AWS well architected framework, also known as the well architected checklist, is held in high esteem across corporations. It rests on five pillars of excellence surrounding, security, operational excellence, reliability, efficiency, and cost. With all of the news coming out about optimizing AWS costs, this feels worth the 5 minute read.

I was billed for 14k USD on Amazon Web Services 😱When it comes to AWS security best practices, at the top of the list is never ever ever ever, check your AWS credentials into source control. Ignoring this best practice or slipping up just once could cost you ~14,000 dollars.

Get started with Amazon Elasticsearch Service: T-shirt-size your domainAWS Elasticsearch has gone through quite the maturity cycle and seems to be emerging as a full featured offering. That said, there are still a lot of details that you need to get right when it comes to configuring your ES cluster. Consider the index naming and cluster sizing for instance.

Nail Your Kubernetes Admin Exam on the First Try. Tips & Tricks from a Certified AdministratorAs an AWS certified Solutions Architect and DevOps Professional I pay close attention to the various certifications that come relating to new technologies. This post dives into the Certified Kubernetes Administrator exam and what it takes to pass it. I enjoy the idea of favoring practice over theory, so if you are maintaining K8s clusters you might want to check this out.

You don’t need that Bastion hostThe default operating mode for AWS networking basics is private subnets with a bastion host when you need access instances in those subnets. This is often considered the "best practice", but this post challenges that assumption. There is valid points in this post, but I finished reading it and still questioned whether this is actually possible.

The Fast and the PayloadlessThis is quite an interesting read about hey.car leveraged Kubernetes and Thumbor to rapidly develop a performance enhancement for their image resources. They were able to quickly develop a dynamic image resizer using Thumbor and quickly get it into production via a K8s pod.

Control access to your APIs using Amazon API Gateway resource policiesAPI Gateway resource policies are here and the serverless world is better because of it. They allow fine grain access to your endpoints via IAM policies, very similar to how access to S3 buckets is delegated. Check out this quick walk-through to get a better idea of they are implemented.

Azure Service Bus, Azure Functions and Urban Airship at work together for an e-commerce websiteWe often focus on AWS when it comes to serverless architectures. But, with Service Bus and Azure functions, Microsoft is here to play as well. This is a good read on how to leverage Service Bus, Azure Functions, and Urband Airship to build out a notifier.

📣 Blockchain

Blockchain Will Be Fast Enough To Manage Digital Ads: IBM’s RangaiahBlockchain scalability continues to be the hottest topic in the space. On one end of the spectrum are folks that believe the scale issue will be solved as blockchain technology evolves. Others on the spectrum are convinced that the tech has no place outside of cryptocurrencies. It would appear that some within IBM fall into the former rather than the latter.

Code && Languages

N64 VR with JavascriptWhy wait for a virtual reality arcade to pop up in your neighborhood when you can turn your favorite Nintendo 64 games into VR games with a bit of javascript and some emulators? This is non trivial bit of work ad the author clearly demonstrates, but it is fascinating none the less.

Reduce JavaScript Payloads with Tree ShakingTree shaking has been around for quite sometime, but may be better known as the practice of removing unused dependencies. Essentially, don't load in dependencies/code that is not going to be used by your application. Check out this article to see how javascript tree shaking works.

Dirty Code Monday!If you have read any book with the terms 'Clean Code' in the title, this post is likely going to make you feel uncomfortable. Getting things to work in code without thinking about being fancy about it. Buckle up.

Build your own React Framework - Didact FiberI'm not one to go and rewrite a framework like React, but this is an interesting dive into how the popular javascript framework is implemented underneath the hood. This particular post visits the new React 16 features like the underlying Fiber architecture.

Pipelines - a guided tour of the new IO API in .NET, part 1Dive deep into .NET IO Pipelines in this post and compare/contrast with the more traditional Stream we are all use to leveraging in the framework. This is a great read on the internals of the new Pipeline library and how it is going to make asynchronous reading and writing a lot simpler.

Creating an event ticketing service (Laravel API + ReactJS + NextJS + Material UI)I am not an expert in PHP, let alone the Laravel framework but I do appreciate when folks like Ryosuke create in-depth articles walking through a real world example in their language of choice. There is a bit of Docker with PHP, OAuth2, and a deep dive into Laravel migrations.

How Discord Resizes 150 Million Images Every Day with Go and C++Keeping user experiences fast is critical for apps like Discord. Users expect things to load in milliseconds regardless of connections and devices. This is a great read on how Discord optimizes image compression and delivery to reduce bandwidth to users via an intermediary service.

How to Use the Excellent Adapter Pattern and Why You ShouldThis weeks #DevDiscuss Twitter chat was all about coding and design patterns. During the chat I decided to start putting together this practical example of the adapter design pattern, complete with some C# examples.

Three qualities of failed microservicesWith microservices architecture becoming all the rage, it is important to think about the pros and cons. Chris Dodds articulates three qualities that have led to failed microservices in his experience. I suspect these are relatable to just about everyone.

Build Your Own Spotify Playlist of Best Playlist RecommendationsCurate your own Spotify playlist using your own data, an API, and a bit of machine learning in Python.

😎 Cool find of the week

Founder to CEO: How to build a great company from the ground upThe cool find for this week is not cloud, blockchain, or coding related. As an aspiring entrepreneur myself I am always looking for new resources and articles related to launching new ideas and building companies. This is a solid free book that Matt Mochary wrote about how to build a great company from the ground up.