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Category: Development

Stripe Investigates Unexpected DNS Error Spike: A Tale of Complex Network Troubleshooting

2024-12-12

Stripe recently experienced an unexpected spike in DNS errors. This post details how they used tools like Unbound, tcpdump, and iptables to track down the root cause. The investigation revealed that a Hadoop job analyzing network logs was performing numerous reverse DNS lookups (PTR records), leading to traffic amplification due to retries exceeding the AWS VPC resolver's limits. Stripe resolved the issue by adjusting Unbound forwarding configurations to distribute the load across individual Hadoop hosts. The case highlights the importance of robust monitoring, multi-faceted troubleshooting, and strategies for handling traffic surges in high-availability systems.

(stripe.com)
Development Network Monitoring Troubleshooting

The Humble For Loop in Rust: Performance and Readability

2024-12-12

This article explores the trade-offs between the humble `for` loop and functional programming approaches like `map` and `fold` in Rust, considering both performance and readability. Through benchmarks comparing different methods on vector and nested vector operations, the author finds that `map` often outperforms `for` loops in simple transformations, offering better declarative style. However, for more complex scenarios such as flattening nested vectors or handling errors, `for` loops demonstrate a significant performance advantage and maintain greater code clarity. The author advocates for a pragmatic approach, choosing the best tool for the job rather than blindly favoring functional programming.

(blog.startifact.com)
Development performance for loop

WordPress Battles Private Equity: A Fight for the Future of Open Source

2024-12-12

WordPress, the world's leading content management system, is locked in a battle with private equity firm Silver Lake and its investment, WP Engine. After receiving massive investment, WP Engine, a for-profit company built on WordPress, has aggressively exploited the WordPress trademark while contributing minimally back to the open-source community. After repeated attempts at communication failed, Automattic CEO and WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg took action, restricting WP Engine's access to WordPress.org resources to defend the open-source community and the future of WordPress. This conflict highlights the fundamental conflict between open-source communities and profit-maximizing private equity firms, serving as a cautionary tale about the long-term health of open-source projects.

(automattic.com)
Development Private Equity

Unexpected Keyboard: A Lightweight Virtual Keyboard for Android

2024-12-12

Unexpected Keyboard is a lightweight Android virtual keyboard designed for developers. Its key feature is the ability to input more characters by swiping towards the corners of keys. Originally designed for Termux users, it's now suitable for everyday use. The app is ad-free, makes no network requests, and is open-source. Users can access special symbols by swiping to the corners of keys; for example, swiping to the bottom-left corner opens settings. Similar apps include Calculator++.

(github.com)
Development android keyboard virtual keyboard

Unspoken Rules of Terminal Programs: A 20-Year Retrospective

2024-12-12

This article summarizes the author's 20 years of experience with terminal programs, distilling common, albeit unofficial, 'rules' of behavior. These rules cover program responses to Ctrl-C, Ctrl-D, and the 'q' key, color usage, readline keybinding support, and pipe output. The author notes that while not mandatory standards, understanding these rules helps predict terminal program behavior and reduces the learning curve. The article uses examples to analyze the applicability and exceptions to these rules, emphasizing the importance of distinguishing between a program's own responsibility and default OS behavior.

(jvns.ca)
Development terminal programs command line programming tips

Engineer Implements Reversible 1D Cellular Automata Using Bitwise Operations

2024-12-12

Richard Palethorpe, an engineer, created a demo using the GFXPrim library showcasing a one-dimensional binary cellular automaton and its reversible counterpart. The automaton evolves based on rules where each cell's state is determined by its own state and those of its left and right neighbors. The article details bitwise operation optimizations, such as parallel processing of multiple cells using 64-bit integers and bit rotation to simulate neighbor interaction. Reversible implementation is achieved by XORing with the previous state. The author explores compiler optimization and vectorization impacts on performance and ultimately implements an efficient rendering method.

(richiejp.com)
Development cellular automata bitwise operations reversible computing

The Rise and Fall of Ashton-Tate: The dBASE Saga

2024-12-12

Ashton-Tate, a prominent player in the 1980s personal computer revolution, rose to fame with its database software, dBASE. Initially conceived by Wayne Ratliff as Vulcan, the program quickly became a standard for CP/M systems and later flourished with the IBM PC's ascendancy. Its user-friendly interface and powerful features propelled Ashton-Tate to an IPO and significant success. However, the company's later struggles with dBASE III's development, escalating competition, and internal issues ultimately led to its acquisition by Borland. This story details the dBASE legacy, Ashton-Tate's rise and fall, offering valuable insights into the software industry's dynamics.

(www.abortretry.fail)
Development database software

High-Performance Concurrent Iteration Library lfi Launched

2024-12-12

lfi is a lightweight functional programming library focused on synchronous, asynchronous, and concurrent iteration. It significantly outperforms libraries like p-map and p-filter in concurrent iteration by processing each item independently, resulting in substantial performance gains. lfi also features lazy evaluation, performing operations only when needed to save memory, and boasts a small size, making it easily tree-shakeable. Its clean API design, combined with the pipe function, leads to more readable and maintainable code.

(lfi.dev)
Development functional programming concurrent iteration performance optimization

Kubernetes Spec v1.32 Released: Comprehensive Resource Reference Guide

2024-12-12

kubespec.dev has released a reference guide and documentation for Kubernetes Spec v1.32, providing comprehensive documentation for all built-in resources, properties, types, and examples. The guide covers workloads, cluster, networking, configuration, storage, administration, and access control, enabling users to quickly find and understand Kubernetes functionalities. The project is open-source and accepts contributions.

(kubespec.dev)
Development Documentation

Programming Language Memory Models: Challenges and Solutions in Concurrent Programming

2024-12-12

This article delves into programming language memory models, specifically the behavior of shared memory in multithreaded programs. Using a simple C-like program as an example, it illustrates how compiler optimizations can lead to unexpected results, such as race conditions between threads. To address this, modern languages introduce atomic variables and atomic operations to ensure thread synchronization and avoid data races. The article compares the memory models of Java, C++, Rust, and other languages, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses and evolution, and points out the remaining challenges in formally defining memory models.

(research.swtch.com)
Development memory model multithreading concurrent programming

Hanami Core Team Member Peter Solnica Announces Retirement

2024-12-12

Peter Solnica, a core developer of the Hanami framework, recently announced his retirement from the core team. After two years of reflection, he decided to dedicate more time to his family and pursue a better work-life balance. Solnica expressed gratitude to numerous individuals and organizations that significantly impacted his career, including Lunar Logic, the DataMapper team, and Hanami team members. He stated that while no longer a core team member, he will continue to support Hanami's development and maintain contact with the community. Solnica's retirement doesn't reflect a loss of faith in Hanami, but rather a personal adjustment in time management and life priorities, shifting his focus to family and Elixir development.

(solnic.dev)
Development Open Source Retirement

Fermat's Last Theorem Proof: Computers Tackle a Math Challenge

2024-12-12

A team is attempting to prove Fermat's Last Theorem using Lean, encountering unexpected challenges along the way. Instead of relying on the original proof, they're using a modern, more generalized approach. While formalizing crystalline cohomology, they discovered an error in a key lemma, leading to a re-examination of the theory's foundations. They ultimately found a workaround using an alternative proof. This experience highlights potential errors in modern mathematical literature and underscores the need for formalized proofs.

(xenaproject.wordpress.com)
Development Fermat's Last Theorem Formalized Mathematics

Jujutsu: A Game-Changing Version Control System

2024-12-12

The author daily drives Jujutsu, a Git-based version control system, and highly recommends it. Unlike other simplified Git alternatives, Jujutsu focuses on enhancing the workflow of power users, particularly in simplifying history editing. The author recounts a personal experience showcasing Jujutsu's ease in modifying past commits, eliminating complex Git commands. While Jujutsu has some shortcomings, like lacking support for git send-email and the Google CLA requirement, the author still uses it daily for personal projects.

(drewdevault.com)
Development Version Control

Parkinson's Law: Set Deadlines, Boost Efficiency

2024-12-12

Parkinson's Law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. James Stanier, writing from an engineering management perspective, argues for the importance of setting challenging yet achievable deadlines. Using the 'Iron Triangle' (scope, resources, time), he demonstrates how deadlines prevent scope creep, improve efficiency, and spark innovation. He also highlights the implementation of weekly reporting to encourage proactive task completion, ultimately leading to higher efficiency.

(theengineeringmanager.substack.com)
Development Parkinson's Law Project Management Deadlines

Ephemeral Database Access with GitHub Actions and S3

2024-12-12

This article presents a clever method for running a temporary database using GitHub Actions for ephemeral compute and S3 object storage for persistence. Spin up a MySQL-compatible database on demand, store data in S3, and automatically tear it down when finished, eliminating ongoing costs. A secure tunnel allows public access for integration tests, demos, or short-term development. Important: This approach is suitable only for short-term tasks; it's not designed for long-running database services.

(wesql.io)
Development Database

Storing Times for Human Events: Best Practices and Challenges

2024-12-12

This blog post discusses best practices for storing event times on event websites. The author argues that directly storing UTC time loses crucial information, such as the user's original intent and location. A better approach is to store the user's intended time and the event location, then derive the UTC time. Examples like user error, international timezone adjustments, and the 2007 Microsoft Exchange DST update illustrate the importance of storing the user's intended time. The author recommends designing a clear and user-friendly interface to help users accurately set event times and locations, emphasizing the importance of maintaining the user's original intent to avoid errors caused by timezone changes.

(simonwillison.net)
Development time storage timezone user experience event management

Programmer Calls Out OAuth Providers for API Flaws

2024-12-12

A programmer publicly criticized several OAuth providers (GitHub, Facebook, TikTok, Strava, Naver, and others) for various API inconsistencies. Issues included incorrect status codes, non-standard error responses, inconsistent parameter naming, and flawed token expiration formats. The author urged these providers to rectify these problems, expressing particular confusion over Naver's design choices. The post also highlighted the lack of support for HTTP Basic authentication, later clarifying that while optional in OAuth 2.1, most providers' lack of PKCE support renders them non-compliant with either specification.

(pilcrowonpaper.com)
Development API inconsistencies specification developer API flaws

High-Resolution Bitmap Graphics with Commodore 64 BASIC 2.0: A Fast Screen Clearing Routine

2024-12-12

This article demonstrates efficient high-resolution bitmap graphics handling in Commodore 64 BASIC 2.0, focusing on a fast screen clearing routine. The author points out that native BASIC lacks direct bitmap manipulation commands, making conventional clearing slow. A clever solution utilizes the BASIC string storage mechanism: long strings filled with CHR$(0) overwrite the bitmap memory, achieving fast clearing. The technique is illustrated with a cosine function plotting example.

(retro64.altervista.org)
Development Bitmap Graphics

WXT: Next-Gen Web Extension Framework for Accelerated Development

2024-12-12

WXT is an open-source tool revolutionizing web extension development. Supporting Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari, and all Chromium-based browsers, it builds both Manifest V2 and V3 extensions from a single codebase. Boasting lightning-fast HMR, file-based entry points, and default TypeScript support, WXT offers auto-imports and automated publishing. Framework-agnostic and compatible with any Vite plugin, it features a module system and remote code downloading, maximizing development speed and allowing developers to focus on features, not build scripts.

(wxt.dev)
Development web extension development framework

C++ Compiler Errors: Nonsensical Errors from a Function Declaration

2024-12-12

A developer adding XAML support to a C++ application encountered a series of compiler errors simply by including the winrt/Windows.UI.Xaml.h header file. The errors stemmed from what appeared to be a normal function declaration: `template struct consume_Windows_UI_Xaml_IExceptionRoutedEventArgs { [[nodiscard]] auto ErrorMessage() const; };` The root cause was a pre-existing macro named ErrorMessage in the developer's project, conflicting with the function name. This macro created an ErrorMessageString object and returned a pointer to an error message string. The macro's lack of boundaries caused the compiler to misinterpret the function declaration as a macro invocation, resulting in errors like "not enough arguments." The solution involved disabling the macro using #pragma undef before including the header or removing the macro entirely and replacing it with an inline function.

(devblogs.microsoft.com)
Development compiler errors macro conflict Compiler Errors Macro Definition macro

QEMU Gains Vulkan Acceleration with VirtIO GPU Driver Update

2024-12-12

QEMU version 9.2.0 and later now supports Vulkan acceleration for VirtIO-GPU thanks to the Venus patches. This represents a significant advancement in Vulkan graphics rendering for QEMU virtual machines. The article details the setup process, including installing necessary packages (Linux kernel 6.13+, QEMU 9.2.0+, Vulkan drivers, etc.), building QEMU from source, and creating a VM image. While virt-manager currently lacks Vulkan configuration support, command-line parameters offer a workaround. Troubleshooting tips are provided, along with notes on current limitations in virt-manager and libvirt.

(gist.github.com)
Development

Breakthrough in Reachability Analysis of the Domain Name System

2024-12-12

Researchers have presented the first decision procedure for verifying the Domain Name System (DNS), establishing its complexity as 2ExpTime. The study formalizes DNS semantics and uses a novel abstraction based on positive prefix-testable languages, reducing the DNS verification problem to the verification problem for pushdown systems. This approach effectively models attack vectors in DNS, such as amplification attacks and rewrite blackholing, providing a new theoretical foundation for ensuring DNS security and reliability.

(arxiv.org)
Development DNS security formal verification reachability analysis
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