25 Matching Annotations
  1. Jun 2023
    1. Platform engineering is trying to deliver the self-service tools teams want to consume to rapidly deploy all components of software. While it may sound like a TypeScript developer would feel more empowered by writing their infrastructure in TypeScript, the reality is that it’s a significant undertaking to learn to use these tools properly when all one wants to do is create or modify a few resources for their project. This is also a common source of technical debt and fragility. Most users will probably learn the minimal amount they need to in order to make progress in their project, and oftentimes this may not be the best solution for the longevity of a codebase. These tools are straddling an awkward line that is optimized for no-one. Traditional DevOps are not software engineers and software engineers are not DevOps. By making infrastructure a software engineering problem, it puts all parties in an unfamiliar position. I am not saying no-one is capable of using these tools well. The DevOps and software engineers I’ve worked with are more than capable. This is a matter of attention. If you look at what a DevOps engineer has to deal with day-in and day-out, the nuances of TypeScript or Go will take a backseat. And conversely, the nuances of, for example, a VPC will take a backseat to a software engineer delivering a new feature. The gap that the AWS CDK and Pulumi try to bridge is not optimized for anyone and this is how we get bugs, and more dangerously, security holes.
  2. May 2023
  3. Aug 2021
    1. An interesting directory of personal blogs on software and security.

      While it aggregates from various sources and allows people to submit directly to it, it also calculates a quality score/metric by using a total number of Hacker News points earned by the raw URL

      Apparently uses a query like: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=example.com to view all posts from HN.

  4. Jan 2021
    1. I run a fairly ancient RedHat Enterprise 6 on my 32-bit test machine and if I need something requiring Gtk3 (such as a latest Firefox or Chrome), I just make a chroot and use debootstrap (from EPEL) to get me a Debian 9 userland for that program. Easy. No bizarre "app stores", no conflicting packages. Do people use Snap app-stores because they don't know how to use the chroot command? Or are they just lazy? If it is because they want the added security of a container, substitute chroot with lxc... Shouldn't be necessary though; if you avoid non-ethical software (i.e App-stores), you are very unlikely to need the added security.
  5. Sep 2020
    1. These creeping changes help us forget how important our privacy is and miss that it’s being eroded.

      This is important we are normalizing the fact that our privacy is being taken slowly, update after update

  6. Jul 2020
    1. If you have worked with emails before, the idea of placing a script into an email may set off alarm bells in your head! Rest assured, email providers who support AMP emails enforce fierce security checks that only allow vetted AMP scripts to run in their clients. This enables dynamic and interactive features to run directly in the recipients mailboxes with no security vulnerabilities! Read more about the required markup for AMP Emails here.
  7. Jun 2020
  8. May 2020
  9. Jan 2020
  10. Dec 2019
  11. Sep 2013
    1. Much as it is not the criminal defense lawyer's place to judge their client regardless of how guilty they are, it is not the doctor's place to force experimental treatment upon a patient regardless of how badly the research is needed, and it is not the priest's place to pass worldly judgement on their flock, it is not the programmer's place to try and decide whether the user is using the software in a "good" way or not.

      Taking this to heart / putting it on my wall.