James Ward @_JamesWard Twitter profile

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

3 years

Goetz’s Law: Every declarative language slowly slides towards being a terrible general purpose language. cc @BrianGoetz

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

5 years

- Enterprise Edition 2.0 - App Server -> Kubernetes EAR/WAR -> Docker Container EJB -> Istio JNDI -> Kubernetes Services JMS -> Kafka JAAS -> IAM / JWT RMI -> gRPC JAXP -> Cloud Events Servlets / JSP -> NodeJS JDBC -> So many data access things JTA -> (nothing, because reasons)

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

4 years

If SQL were built on YAML SELECT: - num - name FROM: - customers WHERE EXISTS: SELECT: - name FROM: - orders WHERE: AND: - EQUALS: - customers.num - orders.customer_num - LT: - price - 50

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

3 years

My builds are 100% reproducible as long as nothing on the internet changes.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

2 years

After 3 years at Google Cloud, I'm moving from one dream job to another. Starting today I'm a Product Manager for Kotlin (still at Google), helping make Kotlin even more awesome. Really looking forward to this new adventure - let me know if there is anything I can do for you.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

4 years

Programming, no matter what level, is mostly trial & error. So before anything else, optimize for the shortest feedback loop possible.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

9 years

Discovered this sign at the W3C headquarters... http://t.co/M9XJ2nW6rW

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

7 years

Based on CPU usage I'm pretty sure the Slack Mac App is mining bitcoin in the background.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

1 year

Upgraded another service to JDK 17 and holy crap these out-of-the-box improvements in GC are 🤯

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

5 years

Best way to kill developer productivity: use docker containers in the local dev cycle.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

3 years

Once you go immutable, you can’t go back.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

5 years

Most underrated thing about Open Source is skill portability. When teams use proprietary frameworks there is a huge cost to on-boarding. Also developers don't want to invest time learning something that has zero transfer to their next job.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

4 years

Code reviews that include code style feedback are a total waste of time. Just add an auto-styler / formatter to the code submission process. If styling can't be automated, it's not worth caring about.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

3 years

Solving hard problems is not necessarily the same as solving important problems.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

5 years

Serverless with Cloud Run is awesome sauce! And you know what makes it better?? Commandless! Add a deploy button to your README so users can deploy a repo in two clicks:

GitHub - jamesward/cloud-run-button: See Other:

See Other:. Contribute to jamesward/cloud-run-button development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

5 years

Thrilled to now be a Developer Advocate on the @GCPcloud team!

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

1 year

Take a guess as to when I upgraded from JDK 1.8 to 17:

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

2 years

Make val not var.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

4 years

A single, relevant, working code example is worth 1000 pages of reference docs.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

3 years

If your developers need to run Kubernetes, you are doing it all wrong. Burn it all to the ground and start over.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

3 years

Writing some actual Java for the first time in a long time.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

1 year

Just replaced 101 Kotlin lines with 1 Bash line.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

5 years

With Scala I've learned many programming language idioms that are now essential for me, including: ADTs, expression-orientedness, parametric polymorphism, parametricity, bifunctor IO, referential transparency, immutable data, type inference, pattern matching, do notation.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

3 years

Woah! What an incredible and unexpected honor! So thankful for all of the amazing people who've been part of my programming journey - now 25 years of working with the Java platform. Looking forward to another 25!

Java Champions

@Java_Champions

3 years

Congratulations to new #Java Champion @_JamesWard !

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

2 years

Apparently people are debating Gradle vs Maven. But let’s be honest, we just want a world where we don’t have to think about build tools. I’ve spent years of my life fighting with Ant, Maven, and Gradle. And despite the challenges, Gradle with the Kotlin DSL is my tool of choice.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

5 years

Thankful for Scala exposing me to many programming concepts being adopted by other languages: - Functions - Pattern Matching - Algebraic Data Types - Expressions (vs Statements) - Type Inference I may not be using Scala in 10 years but I'll likely be using these concepts.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

4 years

JetBrains Mono is everything I've ever wanted in life.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

4 years

If nullability was a billion dollar mistake, mutability is a trillion dollar mistake.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

1 month

Apr 1 is a tricky day to announce big news, but here goes... Today is my first day as a Developer Advocate at Amazon! Having been an AWS user for 15 years, I'm thrilled to join this exceptional team and contribute to improving the service while helping you get the most out of it.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

2 years

I’m annoyed by Twitter threads that should instead be blog posts. Here are all the reasons why… 🧵

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

2 months

YAML finally fulfills Goetz’s Law

James Ward

@_JamesWard

3 years

Goetz’s Law: Every declarative language slowly slides towards being a terrible general purpose language. cc @BrianGoetz

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

1 year

Built my first Kotlin/Wasm app tonight 🤯 Hard not to get super excited about a future without JavaScript!

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

4 years

Remember the time we tried to convert UML to runnable programs?? Remember the time when we used UML??

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

5 years

Things I'm excited about right now: - GraalVM - ZIO - Scala 3 - Knative & Tekton - Spring Cloud Gateway

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

8 months

One of the best things about the Kotlin community is the lack of drama.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

5 years

My Google search rates when working with different programming technologies: Java = 1/hour Scala = 5/hour JavaScript = 20/hour RegEx = 1/minute Bash = Too many to count

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

5 years

Everything that’s wrong with our industry in one photo:

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

3 years

I know very few people who have really used Kotlin or Scala and been happy going back to Java. Not saying people shouldn’t stick with Java, but to say Kotlin and Scala are going away because Java got records isn’t representative of those who have made the switch.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

3 years

Many years ago I switched from Eclipse to IntelliJ IDEA but have never paid for it (thanks @jetbrains ) - until today - because I wanted to express my gratitude for the huge productivity boost it has provided me.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

3 years

I have bad news for y’all… by the time you finish your infra / app modernization, it’s no longer modern.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

3 years

"Dockerfiles are easy" they said. Then I had to handle proper caching, proper security, proper reproducibility, proper config management, proper portability, and proper reusability. Turned out to not be so easy.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

5 years

Buggy software is predominantly caused by “happy path programming” where languages / frameworks make it too easy to ignore the error conditions that can never happen.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

5 years

I've been learning Kubernetes and started with "the hard way" (to learn) using @kelseyhightower 's guide: Now that I've done it the hard way, I wrote down "the easy way" with @GCPcloud :

GitHub - jamesward/kubernetes-the-easy-way: Bootstrap Kubernetes the easy way on Google Cloud...

Bootstrap Kubernetes the easy way on Google Cloud Platform. No scripts. - jamesward/kubernetes-the-easy-way

github.com

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

4 years

Almost 5 years ago, amid numerous claims that Java was dying, I wrote about 10 ways we could use it better to avoid the downfall: Well, Java is not dead and the mainstream has embraced pretty much everything I wrote about. Let's see how...

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

1 year

2023 is the year of Desktop Linux! Because after 29 years of trying, I finally got audio working!

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

5 years

Service Oriented Architecture -> Service Mesh Web Service -> Micro Service XML -> JSON WSDL -> Swagger SOAP -> Protobuf WS-* -> OpenAPI Service Registry / UDDI -> Open Service Broker API Direct Binding -> Sidecars Messages -> Cloud Events ESB -> Data Pipelines / Stream Processing

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

3 years

I don't know who needs to hear this, but it is an anti-pattern to deploy to prod from: an IDE, a command line, or a web UI. Sure, if you are kicking the tires on something / learning, go for it. But for real stuff, setup a CI/CD pipeline.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

3 years

One of the best things about @graalvm is how it's gonna force us all to not use reflection.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

5 years

Goodbye dynamically typed languages. I'm glad we are nearing the end of the programming dark ages.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

5 years

American dev conferences are so boring. Here in India they do impromptu singing competitions!

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

2 years

Think Java starts too slow for Serverless? Well, I gave the new Spring Native 0.11 release a try and in ~5 minutes I went from to a Serverless Java app running on Cloud Run with sub-second startup times. Check it out:

Spring Native for Serverless Java

From start.spring.io to a serverless Spring Boot Java app in ~5 minutes.

www.youtube.com

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

3 years

I really believe that in 10 years the terms “immutability, referential transparency, ADTs, monads, and effects” will be as common as “inheritance, for loops, and exceptions“ are today.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

6 years

Mutable programming creates a multi-dimensional graph of possible states. I've finally realized that I can't grok the number of possible states in most programs. This is why I prefer immutable programming where state is a more comprehensible tree.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

5 years

Maybe we should rename Scala 3 to Python 4. Seems like a win-win for both communities: Python gets a sound type system. Scala doesn’t have to deal with the backlash to major language changes.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

3 years

Just blogged "The Modern Java Platform - 2021 Edition"

The Modern Java Platform - 2021 Edition

Many developers were burned by the overly complex world of Java back in the early 2000s. The Gang of Four patterns and middleware / J2EE / Java EE led to ridiculous levels of alleged decoupling as is...

jamesward.com

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

8 months

Been spending time in the JavaScript / Node pain cave lately to remind myself how good I have it in the JVM ecosystem.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

4 years

The Stateless Motto: Make state someone else’s problem.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

5 years

Serverless users: I don’t want to think about servers and I want scale to zero. Also Serverless users: OMG these cold starts!! Can I get some server instances to avoid this??

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

9 years

Just published: Java Doesn't Suck - You're Just Using it Wrong http://t.co/EvbezvpWcT

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

2 years

Serverside Kotlin is on🔥! Enterprises don't often talk about the tech they use so it is cool to see two Reddit threads where many finserv and other enterprises share about their modernization with Kotlin & Spring Boot:

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

3 years

Servlets & WAR files = the original Serverless

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

8 years

Josie Grace Ward says "hello, world" - Born on 11/11.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

4 years

Ward’s Law: Web programming complexity doubles every 18 months.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

7 years

There is CamelCase, snake_case, and XMLHttpRequest aka WTfCase.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

2 years

What is the most 🤯 programming paradigm you’ve experienced in the past decade? For me it was the Elm architecture.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

4 years

Just blogged "GraalVM Native Image Tips & Tricks" with @QuarkusIO , @micronautfw , and @zioscala examples all with "FROM scratch" containers:

GraalVM Native Image Tips & Tricks

Elastic infrastructure that scales up & down based on demand is not just a “serverless” fad but an operational model which reduces cost and waste. Yet there is a little devil lurking under the...

jamesward.com

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

4 years

Lost a dear friend yesterday. My heart aches and can’t comprehend this. So sad for his family and many other friends. Carl was a gift to so many.

The Java Posse

@javaposse

4 years

Rest In Peace Carl Quinn. COVID-19. Not an April fools joke. :-(

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

4 years

So far this week I've programmed in Scala, Kotlin, Java, Groovy, Python, JavaScript, Go, and Bash. Realized that my enjoyment of a language is based on: 1) how algebraic / lawful it is 2) how good the tooling is (build system & IDE) 3) how quickly I can get to validated bug-free

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

1 year

Q: "Why Kotlin isn't becoming mainstream on server side" A: Well actually, it is:

From the Kotlin community on Reddit

Explore this post and more from the Kotlin community

www.reddit.com

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

3 years

By far the most useful thing to come from the world of docker containers is @testcontainers .

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

4 years

Every.builder(should).just(be).a(constructor).build() // in languages with named params & default values // // Goals: prefer immutability & make illegal states unrepresentable

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

7 months

The best way to update to JDK 21:

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

2 years

PSA: If you open source something and then someone asks you for something more, it is totally within your rights to say no. If someone has a problem with that, it is their problem.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

2 years

Me: What is Infrastructure as Code? Them: It's like code but your infrastructure. Me: Oh cool! So I can test my CI & prod setups just like I test my application code? Them: Well...

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

4 years

Just blogged "Comparing containerization methods: Buildpacks, Jib, and Dockerfile" with some GraalVM thrown in because who doesn't like 11MB container images for Java apps?

Buildpacks, Jib, or Dockerfile: Which method should you choose? | Google Cloud Blog

Container Images can be created using a variety of methods including Buildpacks, Jib, and Dockerfiles. This post compares them.

cloud.google.com

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

2 years

I'm sorry Gradle for all the bad things I've said about you. <- Me after 3 days trying to do trivial things with xcodebuild

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

5 years

Irony: Claiming to be a "blockchain expert" without proof of work.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

23 days

Woah, now that I'm using it... the new Full Line Code Completion in IntelliJ IDEA 2024.1 is nearly everything I've wanted from an LLM! I might now be a 1.0x developer. (up from a 0.63x developer cause I'm very picky about my code) Thank you @jetbrains !

Full Line Code Completion in JetBrains IDEs: All You Need to Know | The JetBrains Blog

Learn more about a new feature in v2024.1 of JetBrains IDEs – full line code completion.

blog.jetbrains.com

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

9 years

The paradox of Microservices is that you don't know what should be a Microservice until you've built a monolith.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

4 years

Play Framework went off the rails when it switched to dependency injection. I feel bad for being part of that. My hope lies in ZIO to fix this.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

3 years

Ah the joys of being on the HN front page.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

9 months

If you want developers to LIKE your library/framework/language/service, have good docs. But if you want developers to LOVE your stuff, have good / directive error messages. This is probably the biggest reason why so many developers love Rust.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

1 year

Hear me out… A GitHub Social Network. I think most of the reason I’m here would evaporate immediately.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

1 year

With your language & library of choice, how hard is it to race two concurrent http requests with loser cancellation, resource management (pool acquire & release), async/non-blocking IO, explicit timeouts, typed error handling, and comprehensive unit tests?

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

1 year

Finally migrated from Scala 2 + http4s to Scala 3 + ZIO 2 with ZIO Direct & ZIO HTTP. GraalVM Native Image static binary = 14MB container. Running on Google Cloud Run, globally load balanced across 37 regions.

ZIO 2 + Scala 3 by jamesward · Pull Request #4 · jamesward/javadoccentral

github.com

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

8 months

In under an hour I went from "I need a little sample data server" to "up-and-running on the cloud with instant startup" using Ktor, Kotlin/Native, GitHub Actions, and Cloud Run. 1. Created the app 2. Added SIGTERM handling with suspendapp-ktor 3. Containerized with Jib 4. Setup…

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

3 years

Just blogged about my journey to a globally distributed, scale-on-demand, edge-cached, webapp; bringing together: GraalVM Native Image, Scala, Buildpacks, GitHub Actions, Cloud Run, and a bunch of other stuff.

The modern web architecture jigsaw puzzle, made easy for you | Google Cloud Blog

Deploying a modern, globally distributed, scale-on-demand web application can be quite a puzzle, or you can take the easy path.

cloud.google.com

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

11 years

Fantastic article about building Reactive apps with Play Framework, Akka, Scala, and AngularJS. http://t.co/UIbilnirDL

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

2 years

Sometimes “over engineering” is really just “better engineering” that makes people feel ignorant.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

4 years

So excited about this: "Announcing Google Cloud buildpacks—container images made easy"

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

4 years

Slowly realizing that most developers don’t really care about delivering software with fewer bugs.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

2 months

Yeah, using Linux on the Desktop has some challenges but I’m sure glad Java has never been broken with an OS update. And I’ve been using these two together for 27 years.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

3 years

So to modernize all I gotta do is rub some Kubernetes and Istio on it?

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

2 years

Everyone is like “you gotta try Rust” and I was almost convinced… Until I read: I’m sticking with Kotlin Coroutines and Scala + ZIO. Both are monumentally better programming models for async. Or maybe now there’s an effect system for Rust?

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

2 years

Quarkus has been driving some pretty amazing innovation in developer experience. Their dev mode console and Testcontainer support is next level. The Kotlin support has also improved quite a bit. Kudos to the team!

QuarkusIO

@QuarkusIO

2 years

Quarkus is here with an interactive terminal for dev mode, an Oracle Reactive SQL Client extension, SmallRye Stork 1.0.0 and a ton of other things.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

1 year

Holy crap! I just made a Kotlin/Native Linux binary that is only 226k (74k compressed)! Yeah, that is still "large" in the native realm but: a) there hasn't been much effort for Kotlin/Native to reduce sizes b) this is a modern, app-level language that works on many platforms

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

2 years

I don't really need Copilot to write code for me, I need it to maintain my code. Dependabot upgrades should come with the code changes. Security & performance issues should have automated patches.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

5 years

Things that should not appear in Java code in 2019: - Anonymous Inner Classes - Getters & Setters - Mutating loops that can be lambda-based collection operations (map, reduce, filter, etc)

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

4 years

99% of mobile app updates being bug fixes provides strong evidence that our mainstream programming models are fundamentally broken.

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James Ward

@_JamesWard

2 years

It continues to amaze me how much more productive I am when I separate data transformations from fetching / updating data. And I get more reliable, composable, and testable pieces.

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