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  Erlang Style Concurrency

Introduction On an evolutionary scale of innovation from one to ten (one being Bloomberg and Citi Group, eight being Google and Cirque Du Soleil, and ten being the company you couldn't imagine in your wildest dreams), the company I work for is about a three1. Being employed by this bastion of ingenuity affords me certain opportunities I can't get elsewhere. For example, every developer gets to interview potential...

   Erlang,Concurrency,Lock,Message,Innovation     2012-01-03 10:44:44

  Should All Web Traffic Be Encrypted?

The prevalence of free, open WiFi has made it rather easy for a WiFi eavesdropper to steal your identity cookie for the websites you visit while you're connected to that WiFi access point. This is something I talked about in Breaking the Web's Cookie Jar. It's difficult to fix without making major changes to the web's infrastructure. In the year since I wrote that, a number of major websites have "solved" the WiFi eavesdropping problem by either making encrypted HTTPS web traffic an accou...

   Web traffic,Security,HTTPS.Encryption,Wifi     2012-02-24 05:02:58

  What programming languages should I learn?

Since I started this blog, I have gotten quite a few emails asking me “What programming languages do you recommend for X?” I often finding myself writing something along the lines ofI would honestly recommend python. Something about me being biased because I know and love it.  Usually say something about the competing technology with a back handed insult. Also if they are starting out I would recommend a language that enforces better OO (Object Orientated) practic...

   programming language,Popularity,Java,Tre     2011-09-23 13:11:57

  Reducing Code Nesting

"This guy’s code sucks!" It’s something we’ve all said or thought when we run into code we don’t like. Sometimes it’s because it’s buggy, sometimes it’s because it conforms to a style we don’t like, and sometimes it’s because it just feels wrong. Recently I found myself thinking this, and automatically jumping to the conclusion that the developer who wrote it was a novice. The code had a distinct property that I dislike: lots of ...

   Code nesting,Readability,Maintainability,Reduction     2012-01-02 08:13:46

  Three Simple Ways to Improve the Security of Your Web App

It seems like web app security has entered the public conscious recently, probably as a result of the press covering the activities of groups like Anonymous and incidents like security breaches at several CAs. Here are a couple of quick security tips to improve the security of your web apps. Think of these as low-hanging fruit, not as a substitute for thorough analysis of your app’s security. If there’s interest in this topic we can do more posts, too - let us know in the com...

   Web app,Security,X-FRAME-OPTIONS,SSL     2011-12-08 10:10:20

  Kualitee: For better Test Management in the year 2020

New IT trends will dominate in 2020. Big data management, customer satisfaction, security concerns, mobile apps, artificial intelligence (AI), test automation, DevOps and agile methodologies are a few of these rising technologies and trends.  With their rise, Quality assurance (QA) has to take the testing game a notch up, especially with using smart test management tools for their testing.  Test Automation Stays A report by Research and Markets estimates the global automation testing ...

   TESTING,KUALITEE     2019-09-04 07:33:25

  Small team? Fix your life with a non-virtual assistant

Like many others, I tried “outsourcing my life” using a digital assistant. A year and a thousand bucks later, I’ve received one department store recommendation and an admittedly adequate spreadsheet of competitive research.I have since cancelled. Why didn’t it work for me?I think I just didn’t trust it/them/him/her (that I even have this ambiguity is indicative of the issues).Most of my mindless time-sinks involve at least a credit card number and are often a con...

   Work,Assistant,Team,Small,Individual,Get an assistant     2011-10-28 10:26:36

  A Solution to CPU-intensive Tasks in IO Loops

Back in October 2011, Ted Dziuba infamously said that Node.js is Cancer.  A provocative title to a provocative article.  The only thing it didn’t really provoke in the commentary was much thought ;)  Zing. My interpretation of the article is that Ted holds up the classic blocking-IO process-per-request (or  thread per request; same difference) model as superior.  Yet we all remember where the blocking-IO forking model got Apache in the early days.  ...

   CPU,Intensive IO loops,Solution,C++     2012-02-06 07:42:40

  Discovery kills distribution: why the web needs a new leader

[Apple and Google have locked application discovery and distribution within their app stores. VisionMobile's Andreas Constantinou explains how Facebook is using the web to disintermediate Apple/Google and why the web needs a new leader].The platform duopoly.In just the space of 3 years, the mobile platforms landscape has changed from an election race to an oligarchy. The network effects at the heart of the Apple and Google business models have created formidable barriers to entry. The growth in ...

   Web,Leader,New era,Google,Apple,Mobile     2011-10-18 02:53:29

  Valid JavaScript variable names

Did you know var π = Math.PI; is syntactically valid JavaScript? I thought this was pretty cool, so I decided to look into which Unicode glyphs are allowed in JavaScript variable names, or identifiers as the ECMAScript specification calls them. Reserved words The ECMAScript 5.1 spec says: An Identifier is an IdentifierName that is not a ReservedWord. The spec describes four groups of reserved words: keywords, future reserved words, null literals and boolean lite...

   JavaScript,Name convention,Standard     2012-02-22 05:16:53