A Byte of Coding Issue 407

Hiya,

I finally ordered some spare parts to fix my laptop lid. The plastic casing on the left side broke years ago and for some reason, it took the same thing happening on the other side to finally motivate me to order what I need to fix it. You can see my high-tech temporary fix in the image below (the two clips keep the screen from falling off). The funny thing is I’ve actually been traveling around with the green clip on the left side for 2-3 years now. I could’ve ordered the parts any time before now from China and paid half the price, but I have to go to a conference in several weeks so I paid double to get something shipped quickly. Sigh. I don’t think I’m necessarily stupid, but sometimes I wish I would think more.

Anyway, here’s the issue.

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Residuality Theory

Published: 21 May 2024

Tags: design pattern, architecture, philosophy

Eric Normand dives into “a framework for systems architecture by Barry O’Reilly”, that “attempts to use ideas from complexity sciences to build systems that can better survive the complexities of the real world”.

Some highlights:

• A stressor is an uncontrollable dependency outside of software that can affect the system (DDoS, weather, politics).

• “Residuality Theory suggests that we should mentally simulate the stressors ahead of time to understand how we can engineer the system to exist in the complex real world”

• The objective is to reduce the coupling in the system, while not reducing it to the point of inflexibility.

Stripe's monorepo developer environment

Published: 21 May 2024

Tags: devops

Nelson Elhage shares his experiences working with Stripe's monorepo developer environment, detailing its evolution and key features that contributed to productivity.

Some highlights:

• Stripe used a monorepo primarily written in Ruby, supporting a large codebase with a focus on stability and reliability.

• Development was done using per-developer cloud instances ("devboxes") which facilitated centralized debugging and environment consistency.

• Stripe's developer productivity team invested heavily in tooling, including automatic synchronization and integrated testing commands, enhancing overall developer efficiency.

What is MFA, and why does your app need it?

Published: 13 December 2023

Tags: sponsored, auth, web

WorkOS describes what multi-factor authentication (MFA) is and why it’s useful.

Some highlights:

• “it’s an added layer of security to your app that makes it more difficult for hackers or impersonators to steal and use a user’s credentials”

• describe the different types of MFA

• summarizes the back-end flow for different types of MFAs

A transport protocol’s view of Starlink

Published: 17 May 2024

Tags: tcp, networking

Geoff Huston examines how TCP, the primary transport protocol of the Internet, interacts with the characteristics of the Starlink satellite service, focusing on its performance implications.

Some highlights:

• Geosynchronous satellites provide extensive coverage but suffer from high latency due to their distance from Earth.

• Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, like those used by Starlink, offer reduced latency but require frequent handovers between satellites.

• Starlink’s varying signal-to-noise ratio and dynamic channel rate control impact TCP performance, necessitating protocol adaptations for optimal efficiency.