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9 Clean Code Patterns I wish I knew earlier Do you know the feeling when you look back at code which you wrote early in your career? I always feel a bit horrified. But there is a positive side to it: I learned something new 😄 A core part of good software is readability. Keeping the mental complexity low so … Read More »

Python 3.10 is Released Photo by Vraj Shah from pexels and Mike from pexels, edited by Martin Thoma Python 3.10 was released on the 4th of October 2021 according to PEP 619. Let’s see what’s in store for us. Type Annotations I absolutely love type annotations. Since Python 3.6, they … Read More »

Is it worth changing the Lightbulb? Switching for a more efficient lightbulb for economic reasons A rough estimation how much energy the four different types of lamps use to get a specific brightness. The old incandescent lamps are clearly the worst. Interestingly, LEDs get manufactured also for very low brightness lamps. This image was created by Martin Thoma. The light bulb images were created by … Read More »

Bundestagswahl 2021 Die Bundestagswahl 2021 findet am 26. September 2021 statt. In diesem Artikel ordne ich ein paar Gedanken dazu. Themen Seit März 2020 dominiert die COVID-19-Pandemie das Weltgeschehen. Spätestens seit 2005 mit dem Kyoto-Protokoll muss auch jedem Politiker klar sein, dass die globale Erwärmung ein riesiges Problem ist: 216 Millionen Klima-Flüchtlinge … Read More »

Blockchain 101 Transactions, Blocks, Consensus, Protocols, and Networks Photo by Dmitry Demidko on Unsplash Bitcoin and Ethereum made it to the news in 2021 due to all-time high price records. People know that they somehow are related to “the blockchain”, but very often the knowledge is rather fuzzy. During the onboarding process at my new job at Cashlink … Read More »

Hooks vs Callbacks vs Webhooks How do I use them and where is the difference? Photo by Dan-Cristian Pădureț The Unix programming philosophy is to do (just) one thing but do it well. Focusing on one core task is hard as developers see and feel their users' pain points and desires. To be able to focus on the core product but allow additional functions we … Read More »

Synchronous vs Asynchronous vs Concurrent vs Parallel What is the difference and why does it matter? Photo by Edurne Chopeitia on Unsplash We developers like to throw around terms that feel natural to us, but are technical terms that most non-developers don’t use in the same way. This article is aimed at all the poor souls who have to deal with us, e.g. product … Read More »

10 Robustness and Resiliency Design Patterns to Learn Today Software is correct if it acts as specified. It is robust if it can take a high load until it goes down. Software is resilient if it can go back to normal after a disruption. The disruption could be a power outage, a temporary network outage, a full disk, or … Read More »

How to use GPG Send and receive encrypted messages Having full control over encrypted messages is sometimes just nice and crucial in other situations and/or places in the world. GPG, the Gnu Privacy Guard, is a commonly used tool to encrypt, decrypt, and sign secrets. After reading this article, you will know how to use GPG. Let’s … Read More »

Library vs Service: 7 Arguments to consider Learn what the difference is and when to use which Shared code can be in a library or in a service. Image by Martin Thoma. Preventing code duplication is a software development principle called DRY — Don’t Repeat Yourself. DRY is important because duplicated code usually means way more code that needs to be maintained. If you … Read More »