HELLO EVERYONE!!! It’s August 9th 2024 and you are reading the 23th edition of the Codeminer42’s tech news report. Let’s check out what the tech world showed us this week!
How You Can Avoid a CrowdStrike Fiasco – by David G. Simmons
David G. Simmons’ article discusses the CrowdStrike IT meltdown due to architectural failures, including simultaneous rollout, mandatory background updates without user consent, and lack of a fallback strategy. He advocates for resiliency in update processes, phased updates, weekday scheduling, and A/B partitioning. The incident could have been mitigated with better planning and resilient update strategies.
How To Serve Your Backends with Nginx: A Comprehensive Guide – by Lucas Pereyra
The article from our friend Lucas Pereyra provides a comprehensive guide on configuring Nginx as a web server for various backend programming languages, including PHP, Python, Node.js, Java, C#, and Go. He highlights Nginx’s versatility as a web server, proxy, and load balancer, and its advantages such as load balancing, security features, static content serving, caching, and centralized configuration management. This article can be a good complement to the "NGINX Tutorial – What is Nginx – by TechWorld with Nana" presented below.
Stop Using .d.ts Files in TypeScript – by Daniel Craciun
Daniel Craciun’s article opposes using .d.ts files in TypeScript, arguing that they are more efficient and reduce type errors. Although they are useful for library code distribution, they can be auto-generated, making manual creation unnecessary.
How to use AI coding tools to learn a new programming language – by Sara Verdi
Sara Verdi, discusses how AI coding tools like GitHub Copilot can improve learning for developers. She highlights the benefits of these tools, including real-time feedback, adaptive learning pathways, time savings, and opportunities for upskilling. The article also provides practical tips for maximizing AI use, emphasizing that AI should complement traditional methods rather than replace them. Sara encourages developers to leverage AI tools to stay competitive in the tech landscape.
Advanced Use Cases of the Node.js Native Test Runner – by Damilola Olatunji
In this article, the focus is on advanced features of Node.js’ built-in test runner. It will cover practical examples of mocking, code coverage analysis, test hooks, and strategies for testing HTTP servers, all aimed at enhancing the reliability and comprehensiveness of tests for Node.js applications.
An Introduction to Nix for Ruby Developers – by Martin Streicher
A stable and predictable environment is crucial for all stages of software development, as inconsistencies can lead to significant failures. However, achieving consistency is challenging due to issues like conflicting libraries on developer machines, unpredictable updates to programming libraries, and more. Nix addresses these challenges by ensuring that packages and environments can be reproduced exactly, generating the same output from a given set of inputs. Check it out!
System Design Interview: Design Twitter (X) – by Hayk Simonyan
The text discusses a system design interview for a Twitter-like application called X. The app is designed to handle significant scale, with 500 million monthly active users and 200 million daily active users, resulting in 20 billion reads and 2 billion writes daily. The design includes core API endpoints, a high-level architecture, caching mechanisms, object storage, and a CDN for improved latency. Cool huh? After reading try to implement your social network.
CrowdStrike Reveals Root Cause of Global System Outages – by Ravie Lakshmanan from The Hacker News
CrowdStrike has analyzed a global system outage caused by a Falcon Sensor software crash, affecting millions of Windows devices. The issue was linked to a content validation issue in a new Template Type. CrowdStrike has implemented corrective measures, including compile-time input validation and runtime checks. The analysis follows Delta Air Lines’ plans to seek damages from CrowdStrike and Microsoft for the outage’s $500 million financial impact.
Exclusive accordions using the HTML details element – by Brian Smith
The article discusses the HTML <details> element, highlighting its new name attribute, which allows for exclusive accordions. This feature is supported across major browsers like Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. The <details> element acts as a disclosure widget and can be styled with CSS for better user interaction. The article also provides CSS styling tips and suggests resources for exclusive accordions.
Video with alpha transparency on the web – by Jake Archibald
Jake Archibald talks about using alpha transparency in web videos for Shopify, highlighting performance issues with AVIF and the need for a custom approach. He introduces an NPM package called "stacked-alpha-video" to simplify playback and encoding in AV1 and HEVC formats. He also highlights the limitations of animated image formats and the need for better browser support.
Automating Databases for Modern DevOps Practices: A Guide to Common Patterns and Anti-Patterns for Database Automation Techniques – by Naga Santhosh Reddy Vootukuri
The article highlights the importance of database automation in enhancing efficiency and reliability in database management. It discusses techniques like Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD integration, and Database as a Service. It warns against common pitfalls and advocates for a balanced approach. Check it out!
Git Squash! The terminal way – by Bhanu Reddy
The article emphasizes the importance of "squashing" in Git, which involves combining multiple commits into a single commit to clean up the commit history before merging a pull request. It outlines four methods for squashing commits: auto squash, branch merge, fine-grained control, and quick fix. The author emphasizes that developers have their own preferred squashing methods, and mastering terminal commands provides a significant advantage. Using these methods can help maintain a clean commit history.
New Android Spyware LianSpy Evades Detection Using Yandex Cloud – by Ravie Lakshmanan
LianSpy is a Russian Android spyware targeting users since 2021. Identified by Kaspersky in March 2024, it uses Yandex Cloud for command-and-control communications, evading detection. It captures screencasts, exfiltrates user files, and harvests call logs and app lists. LianSpy disguises itself as legitimate apps and requests extensive permissions to operate in the background. It uses a modified su binary for root access, indicating potential vulnerabilities.
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And that’s all for this week! Wish you all a great weekend and happy coding!
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