A Byte of Coding Issue 373

Hey-yo,

Here’s the issue.

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DynamoDB now supports resource-based policies. But is that a good idea?

Published: 16 March 2024

Tags: dynamodb, database, aws

Yan Cui dives into the recent update to dynamodb that “makes cross-account access to DynamoDB tables easier”.

Some highlights:

• “microservice should own its data and shouldn’t share a database with another microservice”

• new update might encourage people to share databases between services (a negative)

• can be useful for ETL / data pipelines

Neural Networks, Pre-Lenses, and Triple Tambara Modules

Published: 22 March 2024

Tags: haskell, ai, machine learning, functional

Bartosz Milewski “present[s] the Haskell implementation of parametric lenses, generalize them to pre-lenses and introduce their profunctor representation”. He then goes on to using the “profunctor representation” to “build a working multi-layer perceptron”.

Some highlights:

• “Every component of a neural network can be thought of as a system that transform input to output, and whose action depends on some parameters”

• the forward pass and the backward pass between layers can be represented as two functions, which combined make up the parametric lens

• “As a rule, all optics that have an existential representation also have some kind of profunctor representation”

A Developer’s Guide to One-Time Passwords (OTPs)

Published: 28 June 2021

Tags: sponsored, auth, web

WorkOS has published an extensive guide on how one-time passwords work and the different types.

Some highlights:

• “OTPs come in three different forms, and each form works differently: time-synchronized OTPs, lockstep synchronized OTPs, or transmission-based OTPs”

• description of how each type of OTP works

• list of pros and cons for OTPs

How web bloat impacts users with slow devices

Published: 24 March 2024

Tags: web, optimization

Dan Luu dives into how modern websites are performing on slower devices.

Some highlights:

• “CPU performance for web apps hasn't scaled nearly as quickly as bandwidth so, while more of the web is becoming accessible to people with low-end connections, more of the web is becoming inaccessible to people with low-end devices even if they have high-end connections”

• includes a table of a variety of modern social media sites and how they perform on devices with varying CPU capabilities

• the “pre-work” many CPU intensive sites are doing isn’t actually helping to decrease time spent on subsequent navigation