Building Async and Cloud Native organizations - Issue #26

GitHub Copilot Chat, Twitter and encryption, GraphQL at LinkedIn and the worst UI interactions

Welcome to my weekly newsletter! Every week, I bring you the latest news, updates, and resources from the world of coding and architecture. I'm so glad you've decided to join me, and I can't wait to share my insights and expertise with you.

I hope you'll find this newsletter to be a valuable resource, and I welcome your feedback and suggestions. If there's something you'd like to see more of, or if you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to reach out to me.

Thank you for joining me, and happy reading!

REST and APIs

Stoplight published their guide to REST API Security. Full of tips and tricks to enhance the security of your APIs:

The Definitive Guide to REST API Security: Best Practices

API security is more important than ever. Read more about REST API Security through this definitive guide of best practices and strategies from Stoplight!

blog.stoplight.io/the-definitive-guide-to-rest-api-security-best-practices-and-advanced-strategies

A detailed article from LinkedIn in which they describe how they used their own custom tooling for fetching data from their numerous amount of microservices. When GraphQL came along, it was possible to replace the custom solution with a more standardized implementation:

How LinkedIn Adopted A GraphQL Architecture for Product Development

With the widespread adoption of Rest.li since its inception in 2013, LinkedIn has built thousands of microservices to enable the exchange of data with our engineers and our external partners. Though this microservice architecture has worked out really well for our API engineers, when our clients need to fetch data they find themselves talking to several of these microservices. Over time, this has become a challenge as every client is faced with a few key issues:

engineering.linkedin.com/blog/2023/how-linkedin-adopted-a-graphql-architecture-for-product-developm

Coding technicalities

You most likely know the azure cli called az, but did you know there is also the azure developer cli? With the AZ cli you interact with the azure resource manager and you can access the various APIs in Azure.

The Azure Developer CLI helps you in your workflow to code, build, deploy and monitor. It builds on top of the az cli and makes use of templates.

With a simple init, up and down command you can spin up an environment based on a selected template. It can also handle the CICD part for you.

What is the Azure Developer CLI (preview)?

Overview of the features and capabilities of the Azure Developer CLI that helps developers be more productive when building and deploying apps to Azure.

learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/azure/developer/azure-developer-cli/overview

GitHub related

GitHub Universe is announced. November 8 and 9, GitHub will organize their developer event in San Fransisco as well as online.

GitHub Universe

Save the date for our global developer event focused on improving efficiency, security, and developer productivity.

githubuniverse.com

I just have been invited to the Copilot Chat. This is a chat interface to the editor that's focused on developer scenarios and natively integrates with VS Code and Visual Studio. It understands what code a developer has typed, what error messages are shown, and it's deeply integrated into the IDE. A developer can get in-depth analysis and explanations of what code blocks are intended to do, generate unit tests, and even get proposed fixes to bugs.

I now need to switch between Copilot and ChatGTP, so if there is a direct integration, then that would be a great plus. I hope to play with it and tell you more next time.

BTW, the below tweet shows once more that we can still outsmart AIs 😀 

Want to try it as well? Make sure to signup at https://github.com/github-copilot/chat_waitlist_signup and have an active Copilot license. You also need Visual Studio Code for insiders as well as the below plugin.

GitHub Copilot Nightly - Visual Studio Marketplace

Extension for Visual Studio Code - Your AI pair programmer

marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=GitHub.copilot-nightly

Computing in general

Remote Teams can be harder to lead than when you are all located in the same room. Josh Tichauer shares his experiences and tactics:

The Art of Leading Remote Software Development Teams: Tips for Thriving in the Virtual World

As a former software engineer turned leader of remote development teams, I've spent countless hours learning and iterating on what it takes to lead effectively. Through trial and error, I've discovered key strategies and tactics that have helped me not only manage my team but also inspire them to do

www.codertoleader.com/the-art-of-leading-remote-software-development-teams-tips-for-thriving-in-the-virtual-world

I would have no clue why you would want to use this, but Twitter released an end-to-end encryption for direct messages. Both the sender and the receiver need to be a verified user and you need to opt-in as well. Oh, and only text is supported. Besides that, encryption with a small leftover workforce, no cryptography experts, and a lot of better alternatives; I pass.

Twitter Rolls Out Encrypted Messaging, Don’t Trust It

Elon Musk managed to deliver the new security feature on his self-imposed deadline, but seemingly at the cost of quality.

gizmodo.com/twitter-encrypted-messaging-elon-musk-1850428049

Did you hear the joke of a crypto company spending $65 million on an error logging SaaS? It looks like it was no joke after all and (CoinBase?) was having no trouble paying that amount. For a lot of companies, the cost of services can get out of hand pretty quickly. DHH wrote about his experiences:

It's not just cloud costs that are out of control

We're letting our yearly commitment to Datadog, a performance and monitoring tool, expire at the end of this month. Not because we don't like the service. It's actually really nice! But because the $88,000/year it was going to cost us to continue is just ridiculous. And it's emblematic of a larger issue: Enterprise SaaS pricing is gett...

world.hey.com/dhh/it-s-not-just-cloud-costs-that-are-out-of-control-efcd098c

Helpers and utilities

The joys of UI design; see some challenges ways to interact with your users:

I hope you've enjoyed this week's issue of my newsletter. If you found it useful, I invite you to share it with your friends and colleagues. And if you're not already a subscriber, be sure to sign up to receive future issues.

Next week, I'll be back with more articles, tutorials, and resources to help you stay up-to-date on the latest developments in coding and architecture. In the meantime, keep learning and growing, and happy coding!

Best regards, Michiel

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