Uber Engineering

FEBRUARY 16, 2018

In distributed systems, retries are inevitable. From network errors to replication issues and even outages in downstream dependencies, services operating at a massive scale must be prepared to encounter, identify, and handle failure as gracefully as possible. Given the scope … The post Building Reliable Reprocessing and Dead Letter Queues with Apache Kafka appeared first on Uber Engineering Blog.

Network 109

Network Engineering Systems Processing 109

The Polyglot Developer

FEBRUARY 7, 2018

As you’ll recall, The Polyglot Developer was once using WordPress. Back when I was using WordPress, I was using a plugin called Icegram, which is similar to SumoMe and OptinMonster, but it allowed me to present popups after a period of time to prompt users to subscribe to my newsletter. I get that not everyone appreciates an annoying popup, but it was great for me because I was getting a lot of new email subscribers very quickly.

Development 80

Development 80

O'Reilly Software

FEBRUARY 7, 2018

Optimize for business value with clear feedback loops and quality standards. We’ve had the privilege to work with many clients from different business sectors. Each client has granted us the opportunity to see how their teams perceive the value of software within their organizations. We’ve also witnessed how the same types of systems (e.g. ERPs) in competing organizations raise completely different problems and challenges.

Software 80

Software Software Software Architecture Architecture 80

Randon ASCII

FEBRUARY 25, 2018

See the end of the post for an October 2018 bug fix update, or read the whole story: Flaky failures are the worst. In this particular investigation, which spanned twenty months, we suspected hardware failure, compiler bugs, linker bugs, and other possibilities. Jumping too quickly to blaming hardware or build tools is a classic mistake, but in this case the mistake was that we weren’t thinking big enough.

Programming 79

Programming Hardware Cache Code 79

Tim Kadlec

FEBRUARY 14, 2018

The day after AMP was launched, I published a post with a bunch of concerns I had —most notably, that of the incentives being put around building AMP content. This promise of improved distribution for pages using AMP HTML shifts the incentive. AMP isn’t encouraging better performance on the web; AMP is encouraging the use of their specific tool to build a version of a web page.

Google 75

Google Mobile Engineering Speed 75

Brendan Gregg

FEBRUARY 9, 2018

The recently revealed [Meltdown and Spectre] bugs are not just extraordinary issues of security, but also performance. The patches that workaround Meltdown introduce the largest kernel performance regressions I've ever seen. Many thanks to the engineers working hard to develop workarounds to these processor bugs. In this post I'll look at the Linux kernel page table isolation (KPTI) patches that workaround Meltdown: what overheads to expect, and ways to tune them.

Performance 72

Performance Benchmarking Cache Tuning 72

Uber Engineering

FEBRUARY 22, 2018

In 2014, Uber Engineering built Schemaless , our fault-tolerant and scalable datastore, to facilitate the rapid growth of our company. For context, we deployed more than 40 Schemaless instances and many thousands of storage nodes in 2016 alone. As our … The post Code Migration in Production: Rewriting the Sharding Layer of Uber’s Schemaless Datastore appeared first on Uber Engineering Blog.

Code 92

Code Storage Scalability Engineering 92

O'Reilly Software

FEBRUARY 28, 2018

A look at the stages of designing an API and service. The growing popularity of microservices and APIs has led developers to automate the repetitive aspects of these technologies, such as defining all the RESTful requests, generating templates for the target code, and scaling out new instances. In this article, I'll explore the tasks in designing a microservice and suggest the parts that can respond to automation.

Development 69

Development Retail Traffic Virtualization 69

Randon ASCII

FEBRUARY 11, 2018

Zombies probably won’t consume 32 GB of your memory like they did to me, but zombie processes do exist, and I can help you find them and make sure that developers fix them. Tool source link is at the bottom. Is it just me, or do Windows machines that have been up for a while seem to lose memory? After a few weeks of use (or a long weekend of building Chrome over 300 times) I kept noticing that Task Manager showed me running low on memory, but it didn’t show the memory being used by anything.

Processing 72

Processing Programming Code Cache 72

The Polyglot Developer

FEBRUARY 26, 2018

Over the past month or so I’ve demonstrated how to generate address information for a variety of cryptocurrency Altcoins using technologies like Node.js, Vue.js, and Angular. The thing about my previous tutorials are that they all used the JavaScript stack in some sense. What if we wanted to adventure into other technologies like Golang? The process for generating key and address information for Bitcoin and popular Altcoins is pretty much the same.

Programming 52

Programming Network Technology Technology 52

Testlodge

FEBRUARY 13, 2018

Test Driven Development (TDD) uses a different approach to that used in traditional software development. In this article, we will find out more about it but firstly, let’s define TDD. What is TDD? TDD is an innovative software development approach where tests are written, before writing the bare minimum of code required for the test to be fulfilled.

Development 56

Development Testing Java Testing Tools 56

Professor Beekums

FEBRUARY 25, 2018

I recently heard of a situation where a team needs to hire someone since they’re understaffed. The reaction from one of the developers was simply: “I don’t want to maintain their code.” I understand this mentality. The worst code is always other people’s code. For most developers, this is simply fact. What is also fact is that very little software of significance gets built by the lone wolf.

Code 56

Code Software Software Development 56

Tim Kadlec

FEBRUARY 21, 2018

In one of the Slack groups I’m in, someone asked a question about running workshops and what folks found that has or hasn’t worked. I dumped my thoughts there but thought I should share them openly as well in case they’re useful to anyone. An important caveat: this is what works for me. As in everything, I think the most important thing is to find a style that suits you.

Network 53

Network Code Performance 53

O'Reilly Software

FEBRUARY 28, 2018

Adrian Cockcroft outlines the architectural principles of chaos engineering and shares methods engineers can use to exercise failure modes in safety and business-critical systems Continue reading Developing a chaos architecture mindset.

Architecture 63

Architecture Development Engineering Systems 63

Randon ASCII

FEBRUARY 4, 2018

Describing performance improvements exists at the intersection of mathematics and linguistics. It is quite common to use incorrect math to describe performance improvements, and it is possible to use incorrect, misleading, or just sub-optimal rhetoric to describe your math. Consider this hypothetical press release: AirTrain Inc. is proud to announce the new AirTrain-8000.

Games 48

Games Performance Speed Education 48

The Polyglot Developer

FEBRUARY 19, 2018

Being able to encrypt and decrypt data within an application is very useful for a lot of circumstances. Let’s not confuse encryption and decryption with hashing like that found in a bcrypt library, where a hash is only meant to transform data in one direction. Not too long ago I wrote about in a previous article how to encrypt and decrypt data using Node.js.

Availability 52

Availability Software Software Development 52

ACM Sigarch

FEBRUARY 23, 2018

Richard Thaler won the 2017 Nobel prize in Economics for his work on Behavioral Economics. He observed that humans are not “rational’ creatures and that our behavior is impacted by how we react to the world. People have a myriad of biases that influence how we think about problems and he developed models to quantify the impact of behavior on economic theories.

Architecture 47

Architecture Cache Hardware Virtualization 47

Professor Beekums

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

All software systems will fail. This is unfortunately a fact of life. Not even the biggest companies talk about 100% uptime. They talk about the number of ‘9’s of uptime a system has (e.g. 3 9s is 99.9% and 5 9s is 99.999%). Being able to claim a large number of 9s is a point of pride. While all software fails, developers can show off their skills by claiming to have a large number of 9s.

Software 56

Software Software Systems Development 56

Tim Kadlec

FEBRUARY 6, 2018

I started using my site to post bookmarks late in 2016, but I didn’t do it often. I never sat down and took the time to create a nice publishing workflow for bookmarks, so the process was clunky and cumbersome. Anytime I needed to save a bookmark I had to: Copy/paste any selected text I wanted to quote. Create a new markdown file for Jekyll. Setup any metdata I needed.

Mobile 49

Mobile Processing 49

O'Reilly Software

FEBRUARY 27, 2018

Watch highlights covering the latest tools and techniques of software architecture. From the O'Reilly Software Architecture Conference in New York 2018. Experts from across the software architecture world came together in New York for the O'Reilly Software Architecture Conference. Below you'll find links to highlights from the event. Defining software architecture.

Software Architecture 62

Software Architecture Architecture Software Software 62

VoltDB

FEBRUARY 28, 2018

It’s just about official—blockchain has taken over the world. Or, to be more accurate, the idea of blockchain has taken over the world. In recent months, we’ve seen Long Island Iced Tea Corp. become Long Blockchain Corp. and Kodak revive itself with blockchain aspirations. These unexpected moves led to some head scratching, but also to significant stock price increases.

Blockchain 45

Blockchain Technology Technology Database 45

The Polyglot Developer

FEBRUARY 9, 2018

With Android and iOS so obtainable and development so easy, people often forget the importance of desktop applications. I have a phone and tablet, but I depend on my desktop applications much more. However, the development of these applications are not difficult. With frameworks like Electron , developers can create cross-platform desktop applications with JavaScript and HTML.

Blockchain 52

Blockchain Internet Internet Development 52

The Agile Manager

FEBRUARY 28, 2018

Firms in industries ranging from financial services to retail pharmacy to fast food aspire to be "platform companies." In the minds of their chief executives, the emergence of Amazon and the evident superiority of platform economics make this necessary for their continued survival. It is also a good story to tell Wall Street as it allows a firm to create the aura of being the technology leader in their space while trafficking in the success of companies like Amazon.

Innovation 40

Innovation Retail Strategy Technology 40

Professor Beekums

FEBRUARY 25, 2018

I recently heard of a situation where a team needs to hire someone since they’re understaffed. The reaction from one of the developers was simply: “I don’t want to maintain their code.” I understand this mentality. The worst code is always other people’s code. For most developers, this is simply fact. What is also fact is that very little software of significance gets built by the lone wolf.

Code 40

Code Software Software Development 40

Tim Kadlec

FEBRUARY 1, 2018

I’ve made a few changes here, but hopefully, most of them went unnoticed. As I mentioned before, I’ve been wanting to invest more in my own site and content again. With so much I want to tackle—implementing WebMentions, syndicating book reviews to Goodreads, building a bookmarklet to make it easier for me to save links here—naturally I had to prioritize and put first things first.

Lambda 45

Lambda Code Efficiency Testing 45

O'Reilly Software

FEBRUARY 27, 2018

Cornelia Davis explains how an event-driven approach addresses the fallacies of distributed computing. Continue reading Turning request-response on its head.

65

65

VoltDB

FEBRUARY 28, 2018

It’s just about official—blockchain has taken over the world. Or, to be more accurate, the idea of blockchain has taken over the world. In recent months, we’ve seen Long Island Iced Tea Corp. become Long Blockchain Corp. and Kodak revive itself with blockchain aspirations. These unexpected moves led to some head scratching, but also to significant stock price increases.

Blockchain 40

Blockchain Technology Technology Database 40

Rigor

FEBRUARY 23, 2018

Palm Springs, CA is the place to be next week for eCommerce professionals with the annual eTail West Conference taking place Feb. 26 – Mar. 1. This event will feature tracks on mobile, innovation, and UX development, so attendees will certainly leave with many ideas for how they can improve their website. These focus areas are integrally linked with website performance, so it’s essential that brands also work to improve their digital experience.

Retail 40

Retail Ecommerce Website Performance Mobile 40

SQL Server According to Bob

FEBRUARY 22, 2018

Prior to SQL Server 2017 CU4 for Linux (Linux only) the generation of a sequential UUID may not function as expected. SQL Server’s NewSequentialId () calls the Windows API UuidCreateSequential , which is limited in SQLPAL, prior to the CU 4 update. SQL Server on Linux – CU4 advances the logic in the SQLPAL, in support of UuidCreateSequential, adding a pseudo-mac, random increment, boot id and persisting the value in the /var/opt/mssql/.secrets/instance_id file.

Servers 40

Servers Software Engineering Database Network 40

The Polyglot Developer

FEBRUARY 20, 2018

I am pleased to announce that the latest episode of The Polyglot Developer Podcast is now available for download. The episode titled, Going FaaS on Serverless with OpenWhisk focuses on the development and deployment of functions to be deployed on a serverless cloud platform. In this episode I’m joined by Carlos Santana who is part of the Cloud Functions team at IBM.

Serverless 40

Serverless Lambda Azure AWS 40

Professor Beekums

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

All software systems will fail. This is unfortunately a fact of life. Not even the biggest companies talk about 100% uptime. They talk about the number of ‘9’s of uptime a system has (e.g. 3 9s is 99.9% and 5 9s is 99.999%). Being able to claim a large number of 9s is a point of pride. While all software fails, developers can show off their skills by claiming to have a large number of 9s.

Software 40

Software Software Systems Development 40

O'Reilly Software

FEBRUARY 27, 2018

Chris Richardson explains why events are a key application integration mechanism and how they're used by applications to communicate with the outside world. Continue reading Events on the outside, on the inside, and at the core.

61

61

Brendan Gregg

FEBRUARY 8, 2018

The recently revealed [Meltdown and Spectre] bugs are not just extraordinary issues of security, but also performance. The patches that workaround Meltdown introduce the largest kernel performance regressions I've ever seen. Many thanks to the engineers working hard to develop workarounds to these processor bugs. In this post I'll look at the Linux kernel page table isolation (KPTI) patches that workaround Meltdown: what overheads to expect, and ways to tune them.

Performance 40

Performance Benchmarking Cache Tuning 40

Rigor

FEBRUARY 15, 2018

As web perfectionists, we have heard every excuse in the book for why teams cannot make web performance a priority. Whether it be time, money, or technical know how, every day we talk to eCommerce and Retail teams who explain why they aren’t monitoring their site’s performance. But with online sales continuing to skyrocket, the truth is this: if your business generates revenue online, there is simply no excuse for ignoring or putting off performance!

Ecommerce 40

Ecommerce Retail Performance Benchmarking 40

SQL Server According to Bob

FEBRUARY 15, 2018

I have the blessed opportunity to speak at many customer events. SQLBits is always one of my favorites because of the great community that attends and the opportunity for me to travel to a great city like London. Well, for SQLBits 2018, it is not just me. Microsoft engineering is actually sending quite a few folks over the Atlantic to come talk about SQL Server 2017, SQL Server on Linux, GDPR, Performance, Security, Azure Data Lake, Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, and Azure CosmosD

Engineering 40

Engineering Azure Best Practices Servers 40

The Polyglot Developer

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

When you’re building a business, the experts all say that you should make your list building strategy a priority. Using social networks like Twitter and Facebook for your marketing is great, but those might not be around forever. Email has been around for a long time and it will likely exist a long time into the future as well. I’ve briefly mentioned this before, but I’m currently using Sendy to manage my email subscribers and send out my monthly newsletter.

Strategy 40

Strategy Network Development 40

Website Optimization

FEBRUARY 5, 2018

In our continuing series on travel photography, this time we tackle a lightweight travel tripod. In this article we optimize a Gitzo GT3542LS "eye-level" systematic tripod to fit within hard-sided carry-on luggage (see Figure 1).

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