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How I solved a distributed queue problem after 15 years

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Tags messaging queues software-architecture distributed web-development app-development

Reddit’s early use of RabbitMQ highlighted the critical need for robust, durable task queues to handle high-volume, asynchronous operations – a lesson that continues to resonate in modern distributed systems. By DBOS.

This article details Reddit’s experience with a distributed queue architecture using RabbitMQ, exposing vulnerabilities related to data loss and workflow interruptions due to system failures. The core problem was the lack of durability within the queue – meaning tasks were lost if workers crashed or queues went down. The solution involved adopting “durable queues” which checkpoint workflows to a persistent store (like Postgres), enabling recovery from failures and improved observability, ultimately leading to more reliable task execution.

Some key points and takeaways:

  • Durable Queues: Employ persistent storage (e.g., Postgres) as both the message broker and backend for task queues.
  • Workflow Checkpointing: Enable recovery from failures by storing and resuming tasks from their last completed state.
  • Improved Observability: Provide detailed logs and metrics for monitoring workflow status in real-time.
  • Tradeoffs: Durable queues offer higher reliability but may have lower throughput compared to traditional key-value stores like Redis.

This article represents a significant evolution in distributed task queueing, moving beyond simple scalability to prioritize resilience and data integrity. While the specific implementation details may vary, the core principles of durable queues – checkpointing, persistence, and observability – are increasingly vital for building robust and reliable systems in today’s complex environments. This isn’t just incremental progress; it addresses a fundamental weakness in earlier architectures, offering a more dependable approach to managing asynchronous workflows. Nice one!

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A gentle introduction to event driven architecture in Python, Flask and Kafka

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Tags cloud messaging queues software-architecture python

A Gentle Introduction to Event Driven Architecture in Python, Flask and Kafka. In today’s fast-paced and scalable application development landscape, event-driven architecture (EDA) has emerged as a powerful pattern for building systems that are decoupled, reactive, and highly extensible. By Sefik Ilkin Serengil.

Event-driven architecture is a pattern for building systems that are flexible, resilient, and highly extensible. By using events to communicate between services, EDA promotes scalability, observability, and maintainability. This article demonstrates how to implement an event-driven system in Python and Flask using Kafka as a message broker.

The article dives into:

  • Key concepts in Event Driven Architecture
    • Event
    • Producer
    • Consumer
    • Broker
  • More reasonable in Python
  • Common tools and technologies
  • Real-life example scenario
  • Traditional approach vs. event-driven approach

The article concludes that event-driven architecture represents a shift towards flexible, scalable, and resilient system designs. By leveraging tools like Kafka, developers can decouple services, enable parallel processing, and gain better visibility into data flow, ultimately leading to improved maintainability and fault tolerance. The source code is available on GitHub, with instructions provided in the Readme file for running the service locally. Nice one!

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Streaming responses via AWS Lambda

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Tags serverless streaming devops messaging app-development

In this blog, we will look at how Lambda function’s Response Streaming would be helpful and identify when it would be ideal to use Response Streaming for your workloads. By Jones Zachariah Noel N.

AWS Lambda launched support for response streaming where this new pattern of API invocation allows the Lambda function to progressively send the response in chunks of data back to the client. Improved time to first byte (TTFB) that improves the performance where the latency of the API requests is reduced and response is received as chunks of data as and when they are available.

This blog post will help you to understand:

  • Lambda Response Streaming
  • What does this pattern bring in?
    • Gotchas of this pattern
  • Building AWS Lambda with Response Streaming
  • Node’s write()
  • Lambda’s pipeline()
    • IaC to publish Lambda Function URL
  • Response Streaming is the best fit in

Lambda functions’ Response Streaming is ideal for web applications and monitoring systems where near real-time data is crucial. However, considering the limitations, you need to use Lambda Function URL with NodeJS runtime and be aware of constraints on cost and network bandwidth. Nice one!

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How to write blog posts that developers read

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Tags programming miscellaneous teams career

Effective blogging for technical audiences: lessons from developer-centric content. By Michael Lynch.

Technical audiences value efficiency. Start with the article’s purpose and relevance to the reader. Example: A Go testing guide immediately clarifies its audience (Go devs) and benefit (30-second technique). Avoid meandering; answer “Who is this for?” and “Why should I read this?” within the first few sentences.

The article highlights these key learnings:

  • Prioritize Clarity: Cut fluff, state the value upfront, and use relatable terminology.
  • Expand Audience Scope: Simplify jargon to appeal to broader technical groups.
  • Map Readability Paths: Ensure articles are discoverable via search, communities, or social shares.
  • Visuals Drive Engagement: Screenshots, graphs, or diagrams improve retention and skimmability.
  • Optimize for Skimmers: Use bold headings and visual cues to guide readers through content.

For CTOs/CIOs, these principles translate to creating content that educates, influences, or markets tech solutions. A well-crafted blog post on cloud migration can position a CIO as a thought leader while guiding engineering teams. Similarly, developer-centric documentation improves onboarding and reduces support costs. The key is aligning content strategy with business goals: whether attracting contributors for an open-source project or training internal teams on AI Ethics frameworks. Good read!

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Practical use cases writing, refactoring, and testing code with GitHub Copilot

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Tags programming app-development code-refactoring teams career web-development

In today’s fast-paced software development environment, efficiency and code quality are paramount. Developers are constantly seeking tools that can accelerate coding tasks without compromising quality. One tool that has rapidly gained popularity among programmers is GitHub Copilot. By John Edward.

The article walks reader though explaining how Copilot can be used to:

  • Productivity Boost: Automates boilerplate code, reducing development time and freeing developers for complex problem-solving.
  • Quality Enhancement: Suggests best practices, modern patterns, and comprehensive tests, minimizing errors and technical debt.
  • Versatility: Supports diverse domains (web, data science, games, DevOps) and languages, adapting to developer style.
  • Best Practices: Maximize via clear comments, critical reviews, and integration with code reviews—not a full replacement.
  • ROI for Teams: Ideal for juniors (learning) and seniors (scale), enabling faster delivery without quality trade-offs.

GitHub Copilot transforms workflows, boosting efficiency 20-50% (implied via examples) while upholding quality—critical for competitive dev cycles. For CTOs/CIOs: Pilot in high-repetition teams, measure via DORA metrics, train on prompt engineering. Implications: Reduced TCO, faster MTTR, scalable talent. Adopt strategically to future-proof engineering. Nice one!

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Is a CIAM Certification Beneficial?

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Tags programming app-development infosec teams career

This article covers the benefits of obtaining a CIAM certification, what it entails, and who it’s most useful for. We’ll walk through the core competencies, career advancement opportunities, and how these certs stack up against other security and development credentials, it also help you decide if it’s the right move for your career in authentication and software development. By Victor Singh.

This blog post outlines:

  • Understanding CIAM and its growing importance
  • CIAM Certifications: An overview
  • Benefits of obtaining a CIAM certification
  • Weighing the costs and alternatives
  • Who should consider a CIAM certification?

Wrapping up, it’s not a simple yes or no, is it? Deciding if a CIAM certification—well, a certification related to CIAM—is right for you really depends on a bunch of factors. Consider if you genuinely need it. Are you looking to climb the ladder, or just beef up your knowledge? Certs are great for showing employers you’re serious, boosting your resume, and potentially landing you more interviews.

Think about the costs. Exam fees, study materials, and your time all adds up. Is that money better spent on, say, a killer online course or a real-world project? It is a valid point.

Don’t forget continuous learning. The tech landscape is always shifting. A cert is cool, but staying updated on the latest trends and getting hands-on experience is even cooler, honestly. Good read!

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Dealing with race conditions in event-driven architecture with read models

Categories

Tags software-architecture programming event-driven app-development

Are you familiar with the term “phantom record” and its benefits? No? Let me explain it to you today. By Oskar Dudycz.

This article tackles race conditions and eventual inconsistency issues common in event-driven systems. It advocates for a pragmatic approach: build read models that proactively “denoise” incoming events, interpreting them based on available data rather than rigidly enforcing order. The core idea is to acknowledge the inherent chaos of distributed systems and create localized consistency within your application’s logic.

Most of these principles are discussed and explained:

  • Embrace Inconsistency: Accept that perfect ordering guarantees are often unattainable in distributed event-driven architectures.
  • Build Read Models as ACLs: Use read models to proactively interpret and “denoise” incoming events.
  • Partial Data is Okay: Don’t require complete data for every decision; prioritize making informed choices with available information.
  • Focus on Local Consistency: Create localized consistency within your application logic rather than relying solely on external ordering guarantees.

Article offers a pragmatic and valuable approach to managing inconsistencies in event-driven systems, particularly for developers working with asynchronous architectures. While not a revolutionary technique, it provides a clear framework for building more resilient applications by acknowledging the inherent chaos of distributed systems and proactively interpreting external events. It represents an incremental but important step towards better handling real-world complexities, rather than chasing unattainable guarantees. Links to further reading and resources are also included. Nice one!

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Optimizing angular signals with smart equality checks

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Tags programming web-development angular css frontend

Signals are a powerful tool in Angular to handle reactivity, but they can easily cause unnecessary updates, wasted requests, and performance issues if not carefully managed. In this article, we’ll explore how Signals emit updates, why equality checks (equal) matter, and how to implement efficient deep comparison strategies to keep your applications smooth and reliable. By Romain Geffrault.

This article deals with:

  • Signal Update Mechanism: Signals emit updates when references change, triggering cascading updates to derived signals, DOM, and effect functions
  • Equality Control: The equal option allows manual definition of comparison logic to prevent unnecessary updates
  • Performance Impact: Deep nested objects can make equality checks expensive, requiring optimized comparison strategies
  • Resource Management: Angular Resource with Signal parameters triggers async calls that cancel previous requests, potentially causing side effects
  • Fast Deep Comparison: JavaScript’s fastest deep equal comparison can be achieved using Function constructor with string-based comparison logic
  • Schema-Based Solutions: Libraries like @traversable provide type-safe deep equality functions that evolve with schema definitions

Optimizing Signal performance requires strategic equality checking to prevent unnecessary updates and resource waste. The most effective approach combines the performance benefits of optimized comparison functions with the type safety of schema-based solutions. Organizations should prioritize libraries like @traversable that provide maintainable, evolving deep equality functions over manual implementations. When dealing with deeply nested objects, consider the trade-offs between performance optimization and type safety, implementing appropriate safeguards where needed. Good read!

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Five talents to help ai-proof your career

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Tags programming career how-to cio

AI career resilience through human-centric skills. By kornferry.com.

Human-centric skills like communication, collaboration, and negotiation are essential for building trust and thriving in AI-integrated environments. As AI transforms routine tasks, the demand for people-focused capabilities will increase significantly.

The blog post also focuses on:

  • AI Integration Over Replacement: Success comes from collaborating with AI rather than competing against it
  • Human Skills Are Critical: Communication, collaboration, and negotiation become more valuable as AI handles routine tasks
  • Subject Matter Expertise Matters: Deep domain knowledge enables effective AI prompting and output evaluation
  • Data Literacy Is Foundational: Understanding data framing and interpretation is more important than AI technical knowledge
  • Cross-Functional Leadership: Organizations need talent who can unite isolated AI initiatives across business units
  • Continuous Learning Mindset: The ability to unlearn and adapt is more valuable than static expertise

For technical leaders, the path to AI-proofing careers lies not in becoming AI engineers but in developing uniquely human capabilities that complement AI’s strengths. The most valuable professionals will be those who combine deep subject matter expertise with strong interpersonal skills and data literacy. Organizations should prioritize hiring and developing talent who can bridge AI initiatives across functional boundaries while maintaining a continuous learning mindset. The future belongs to professionals who embrace AI as a collaborative partner rather than viewing it as a threat, focusing on skills that amplify rather than compete with artificial intelligence capabilities. Nice one!

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Why sudo-rs brings modern memory safety to Ubuntu 26.04

Categories

Tags linux infosec how-to cio

Enhancing Ubuntu security with rust-based sudo: a modern approach to memory safety. By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols.

Some of the key learnings presented in this article:

  • Memory Safety: sudo-rs is a Rust-based version of sudo designed to enhance memory safety, addressing up to 30% of sudo’s historical vulnerabilities.
  • Maintainability: Rust’s expressive type system and smaller codebase make sudo-rs easier to maintain and audit.
  • Collaboration: The project is developed in collaboration with Todd Miller, the original sudo maintainer, ensuring continuity and improvement.
  • Ubuntu Integration: sudo-rs is already available in Ubuntu 25.10 and will be the default in Ubuntu 26.04, with backward compatibility for legacy scripts.
  • Community Involvement: The project encourages community contributions and aims to reduce the risk of single-maintainer dependency.

The introduction of sudo-rs in Ubuntu 26.04 represents a significant step forward in enhancing the security and maintainability of a critical system utility. By leveraging Rust’s memory safety and expressive type system, sudo-rs addresses long-standing vulnerabilities and streamlines the codebase, making it easier for both maintainers and contributors to work with. The collaborative approach with the original sudo maintainer ensures continuity and improvement, while the “less is more” design philosophy focuses on essential features, reducing bloat and enhancing security. For CTOs and CIOs, this transition offers a more secure and maintainable solution for privilege management, with the potential to inspire similar improvements in other distributions. Good read!

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