Reading Notes #496

Good Monday, 

time to share my reading notes. Those are a curated list of all the articles, blog posts, podcast episodes, and books that catch my interest during the week and that I found interesting. It's a mix of the actuality and what I consumed. 

You think you may have interesting content, share it!

Cloud

• Is Serverless Just a Stopover for Event-Driven Architecture? (Mark Hinkle) - An interesting post. I'm still using many serverless services as one year ago... Am I marginal? Is there a trend that I did see (that more like it)?

Programming

• A Full-Stack Web App Using Blazor WebAssembly and GraphQL: Part 2 (Ankit Sharma) - This second post is in a series where there build a real-life type of application. Really interesting to see all pieces go together (have you ever noticed are package names are funny?). Nice work.

• Blazor Custom Components (John Peters) - Nice series to learn how to write reusable code.

• Testing ASP.NET Core 6 Apps (Khalid Abuhakmeh) - A nice quick tutorial on how to do unit tests. Wonderful.

• Upgrading an ASP.NET Core Web API Project to .NET 6 (Christian Nagel) - This post is not about changing the version of the package, but how to use all those features to make you more productive with fewer lines of code.

Podcasts

• Modern Code Generation with Jordan Adler (Hanselminutes with Scott Hanselman) - Very interesting discussion about code generation, the different pattern, difficulties, and so much more.

• SPI 551: Why Lying to Yourself Helps You Become More Successful with Marisa Peer (The Smart Passive Income Online Business and Blogging Podcast) - Without falling into the magic thinking, this shows how strong our mind can be. Great episode.

• Make money with open source software (Software Engineering Unlocked) - Open source software is another world: Unknow, different, scary. This week guest shares his experience and story, while transitioning into Open-Source.

• Happiness with Arthur Brooks (A Bit of Optimism) - It's important to love what we do, as in has an huge impact on our level of happiness.

• Greg and Anna McKeown on The Power Of Small Wins (What's Essential) - Lovely episode where Greg's wife Anna joins him to share examples of small wins impact.

~Frank

Reading Notes #489

Suggestion of the week

• How to Use Git and GitHub in a Team like a Pro – Featuring Harry and Hermione (Damian Demasi) - Really good post (story style) to get started with GitHub. There is a little something that makes me think of Project Phenix... And crave Harry Poter.

Cloud

• 5 reasons to attend the Azure Virtual Desktop Master Class (Sue Hartford) - That could be so useful for many now that we are working more from home... A more secure and powerful machine could be easy to reach and maintain.

Programming

• Adventures in Dapr: Episode 1 (James Dawson) - First post of a promising series on Dapr.This one dressed the table, shares the links.....waiting for the next one.

• Compiling sqlcipher (sqlite encrypted) for Windows using Visual Studio 2022 (Dominique St-Amand) - Wow. This post was a big reminder for me of two things: how far we come, and some souvenirs of homework from when I was in school.

• Docker’s Top 10 Most Popular Blogs in 2021 (David Oro) - Nice quick list of great resources.

• Windows, WSL, Docker, and Free Starters (Sm0ke) - Nice quick start tutorial to set up your Django tools on Windows.

Miscellaneous

• Helping team members deal with Imposter Syndrome (Mark Downie) - Interesting post. I think it is really important to talk about it, as it affects us all.

• Tips & Tricks for Query Pagination in Azure Cosmos DB - Azure Cosmos DB Blog (Tim Sander) - This important concept, not only used with Azure Cosmo DB but any database, is very well explained in this post.

• Why Are More Companies Trying Four-Day Workweeks? (David Cassel) - Interesting. I didn't suspect that it was growing so much in popularity.

~frank

Reading Notes #369

Cloud

• Improving Azure Functions Blob Trigger Performance and Reliability - Part 1: Memory Usage (Jason Roberts) - Interesting first post of a series about the Azure Functions.
• Improving Azure Functions Blob Trigger Performance and Reliability - Part 2: Processing Delays and Missed Blobs (Jason Roberts) - Second post of a series. This one focuses on a simple pattern to reduce the chances to have a blob to not be processed.
• Improving Azure Functions Blob Trigger Performance and Reliability - Part 3: Using Event Grid to Respond to New Blobs (Jason Roberts) - Great third post of a series this one introduces the event grid. Love it.
• Should I containerize my cloud app? (Mark Heath) - Excellent reflection on the containers frequently asked questions... A great post.
• How to use Azure DevOps open REST API with Curl (Jessica Deen) - A very cool demo that shows what the API can do.

Programming

• Converting an Excel Worksheet into a JSON document with C# and .NET Core and ExcelDataReader (Scott Hanselman) - That a little tool that we should all have in our toolbox...Who never had to work with Excell documents?! ;)
• Peacock - Late Night Coding FTW (John Papa) - I tried this extension and I cannot work without now...

Miscellaneous

• 3 Things You Can Do to Improve as a Developer (John Papa) - Great ways to improve, and not only as a developer.
• Late Valentine Day Gift: Version 4.0.0 of Microsoft Integration and Azure Stencils Pack (BAPI, AI, Office 365 and much more) for Visio is now available on GitHub (View all posts by Sandro Pereira) - Woot woot! Awesome.

~

Reading Notes #307

Cloud

• Azure WebJobs vs. Azure Functions (Simon Timms) - This post answer a question that is often asked... What's The difference...
• How to Create a Logic App Connector in an ARM Template | Vincent-Philippe Lauzon's on WordPress.com (Vincent-Philippe Lauzon) - Here it is guys, the definition of the CosmoDb connector for ARM.

Programming

• DevOps for Data Science – DevOps Maturity (Buck Woody) - This post is the fist of an interesting series.
• Different code styles for different code blocks in ReSharper and Rider (Maarten Balliauw) - Pretty cool comparison.

Miscellaneous

• Extreme Remote Work: The Pros And Cons Of Teamwork Beyond Borders (Tanya Accone) - Are you working in has remote or does your team has remote member? If yes, you should read this post.
• The Value of Continuous Delivery (DAVE NICOLETTE) - This is a really good post that talk/ question why cd.

Reading Notes #286

Cloud

• Azure Portal: The missing ClearDB MySQL database (Iris Classon) - Wooo! This is an amazing workaround of what could be a major problem. Good catch!
• Azure Site Recovery between Azure regions - Easier than ever.
• Enable client side monitoring in Azure with Application Insights (Beckylin Orooji) - Pretty slick new way to get client side Application Insights running.
• Tutorial: Login with Amazon Integrations - Auth0 - Cool tutorial to add more flexibility in our Amazon web apps.

Programming

• Docker for .NET Developers (Part 3) (Steve Gordon) - Great post that gives all the details on the context of this series. Why Docker, why .Net Core...etc.
• Testing ASP.NET Core MVC Controllers: Getting Started (Jason Roberts) - Nice little tutorial it shows us how to build our first test using moq and .Net Core.

Reading Notes #50

Cloud

• 5 Reasons Why Your Company Is Safer in the Cloud - This is only 5 reasons why your data is safer in the cloud but 5 good one. What do YOU do to make your data safe?
• Simple .NET Database Programming using SQL Azure - Nice tutorial to get started with Azure SQL when developing an application.
• Cool Azure InfoGraphic - See how the cloud is creating job...
• Azure Store XRay - Great tool that improve the simplicity to work with Azure Storage Analytics. Available on CodePlex, a project to follow.
• Windows Azure Multi-Tenant (Hosted) Sample - Another nice Codeplex project that will require our attention.
• Outside-the-Box Pizza, Part 5: Hosting the Front End in the Cloud (David Pallmann) - I like this series about buildind a complete application. This post is focusing on how to structure your front end to be cost efficient and stay scalable.
• Announcing New Windows Azure Services to Deliver “Hybrid Cloud” (blogs.msdn.com) - This is a great news! Joy Joy Joy! (this is me dancing the happy dance) When this note will be posted the Meet Windows Azure event will be past, I hope you didn't miss it.
• New - Programmatic Access to AWS Billing Data - Good idea, this could be very useful for a multi-tenant solution. With this tool you can parse your billing data and breakdown the information to generate some invoices.
• Meet the New Windows Azure - Really nice summary of the keynotes. If you can’t watch the video (or want shorter version) then this post is for you.

Programming

• Site44 Turns Dropbox Folders Into Websites - Really good initiative! It couldn't be easier to build AND maintain a web site than doing it using DropBox.... brilliant.
• Using GitHub for Windows with non-GitHub repositories - Get started with GitHub for Windows. This post is doing step by step everything so be connected with a Codeplex project.
• Marked As Pertinent - The perfect post to read when looking for a NoSql (or a key/value store), because this post compare a lot of them.

Miscellaneous

• How to Speak More Strategically (Peter) - Nice post and nice reflection too.
• You're Not Trying Hard Enough (Dave Jafari) - Nice post that explains working harder is less efficient than working smartly.
• It’s not about them, it’s about you - Easier to say then to do. It's true that the ideas of what other people will think is difficult or forget, but if you succeed you will be free.

~ Frank