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authorEuAndreh <eu@euandre.org>2025-04-18 02:17:12 -0300
committerEuAndreh <eu@euandre.org>2025-04-18 02:48:42 -0300
commit020c1e77489b772f854bb3288b9c8d2818a6bf9d (patch)
tree142aec725a52162a446ea7d947cb4347c9d573c9 /src/content/blog/2020
parentMakefile: Remove security.txt.gz (diff)
downloadeuandre.org-020c1e77489b772f854bb3288b9c8d2818a6bf9d.tar.gz
euandre.org-020c1e77489b772f854bb3288b9c8d2818a6bf9d.tar.xz
git mv src/content/* src/content/en/
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-rw-r--r--src/content/blog/2020/08/10/guix-srht.adoc128
-rw-r--r--src/content/blog/2020/08/31/database-i-wish-i-had.adoc299
-rw-r--r--src/content/blog/2020/10/05/cargo2nix-demo.tar.gzbin59565 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--src/content/blog/2020/10/05/cargo2nix.adoc72
-rw-r--r--src/content/blog/2020/10/05/cargo2nix.tar.gzbin53327 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--src/content/blog/2020/10/05/swift2nix-demo.tar.gzbin61691 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--src/content/blog/2020/10/05/swift2nix.adoc194
-rw-r--r--src/content/blog/2020/10/05/swift2nix.tar.gzbin57917 -> 0 bytes
-rw-r--r--src/content/blog/2020/10/19/feature-flags.adoc306
-rw-r--r--src/content/blog/2020/10/20/wrong-interviewing.adoc340
-rw-r--r--src/content/blog/2020/11/07/diy-bugs.adoc93
-rw-r--r--src/content/blog/2020/11/08/paradigm-shift-review.adoc154
-rw-r--r--src/content/blog/2020/11/12/database-parsers-trees.adoc226
-rw-r--r--src/content/blog/2020/11/14/local-first-review.adoc305
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diff --git a/src/content/blog/2020/08/10/guix-srht.adoc b/src/content/blog/2020/08/10/guix-srht.adoc
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-= Guix inside sourcehut builds.sr.ht CI
-:updatedat: 2020-08-19
-
-:nixos: https://man.sr.ht/builds.sr.ht/compatibility.md#nixos
-:guix: https://guix.gnu.org/
-:binary-inst: https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/guix.html#Binary-Installation
-:shell-inst: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/plain/etc/guix-install.sh
-
-After the release of the {nixos}[NixOS images in builds.sr.ht] and much usage of
-it, I also started looking at {guix}[Guix] and wondered if I could get it on the
-awesome builds.sr.ht service.
-
-The Guix manual section on the {binary-inst}[binary installation] is very
-thorough, and even a {shell-inst}[shell installer script] is provided, but it is
-built towards someone installing Guix on their personal computer, and relies
-heavily on interactive input.
-
-I developed the following set of scripts that I have been using for some time to
-run Guix tasks inside builds.sr.ht jobs. First, `install-guix.sh`:
-
-[source,sh]
-----
-#!/usr/bin/env bash
-set -x
-set -Eeuo pipefail
-
-VERSION='1.0.1'
-SYSTEM='x86_64-linux'
-BINARY="guix-binary-${VERSION}.${SYSTEM}.tar.xz"
-
-cd /tmp
-wget "https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/guix/${BINARY}"
-tar -xf "${BINARY}"
-
-sudo mv var/guix /var/
-sudo mv gnu /
-sudo mkdir -p ~root/.config/guix
-sudo ln -fs /var/guix/profiles/per-user/root/current-guix ~root/.config/guix/current
-
-GUIX_PROFILE="$(echo ~root)/.config/guix/current"
-source "${GUIX_PROFILE}/etc/profile"
-
-groupadd --system guixbuild
-for i in $(seq -w 1 10);
-do
- useradd -g guixbuild \
- -G guixbuild \
- -d /var/empty \
- -s "$(command -v nologin)" \
- -c "Guix build user ${i}" --system \
- "guixbuilder${i}";
-done
-
-mkdir -p /usr/local/bin
-cd /usr/local/bin
-ln -s /var/guix/profiles/per-user/root/current-guix/bin/guix .
-ln -s /var/guix/profiles/per-user/root/current-guix/bin/guix-daemon .
-
-guix archive --authorize < ~root/.config/guix/current/share/guix/ci.guix.gnu.org.pub
-----
-
-Almost all of it is taken directly from the {binary-inst}[binary installation]
-section from the manual, with the interactive bits stripped out: after
-downloading and extracting the Guix tarball, we create some symlinks, add
-guixbuild users and authorize the `ci.guix.gnu.org.pub` signing key.
-
-After installing Guix, we perform a `guix pull` to update Guix inside
-`start-guix.sh`:
-
-[source,sh]
-----
-#!/usr/bin/env bash
-set -x
-set -Eeuo pipefail
-
-sudo guix-daemon --build-users-group=guixbuild &
-guix pull
-guix package -u
-guix --version
-----
-
-Then we can put it all together in a sample `.build.yml` configuration file I'm
-using myself:
-
-[source,yaml]
-----
-image: debian/stable
-packages:
- - wget
-sources:
- - https://git.sr.ht/~euandreh/songbooks
-tasks:
- - install-guix: |
- cd ./songbooks/
- ./scripts/install-guix.sh
- ./scripts/start-guix.sh
- echo 'sudo guix-daemon --build-users-group=guixbuild &' >> ~/.buildenv
- echo 'export PATH="${HOME}/.config/guix/current/bin${PATH:+:}$PATH"' >> ~/.buildenv
- - tests: |
- cd ./songbooks/
- guix environment -m build-aux/guix.scm -- make check
- - docs: |
- cd ./songbooks/
- guix environment -m build-aux/guix.scm -- make publish-dist
-----
-
-We have to add the `guix-daemon` to `~/.buildenv` so it can be started on every
-following task run. Also, since we used `wget` inside `install-guix.sh`, we had
-to add it to the images package list.
-
-After the `install-guix` task, you can use Guix to build and test your project,
-or run any `guix environment --ad-hoc my-package -- my script` :)
-
-== Improvements
-
-:repository: https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/builds.sr.ht
-
-When I originally created this code I had a reason why to have both a `sudo`
-call for `sudo ./scripts/install-guix.sh` and `sudo` usages inside
-`install-guix.sh` itself. I couldn't figure out why (it feels like my past self
-was a bit smarter 😬), but it feels ugly now. If it is truly required I could
-add an explanation for it, or remove this entirely in favor of a more elegant
-solution.
-
-I could also contribute the Guix image upstream to builds.sr.ht, but there
-wasn't any build or smoke tests in the original {repository}[repository], so I
-wasn't inclined to make something that just ``works on my machine'' or add a
-maintainence burden to the author. I didn't look at it again recently, though.
diff --git a/src/content/blog/2020/08/31/database-i-wish-i-had.adoc b/src/content/blog/2020/08/31/database-i-wish-i-had.adoc
deleted file mode 100644
index 7f010b9..0000000
--- a/src/content/blog/2020/08/31/database-i-wish-i-had.adoc
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,299 +0,0 @@
-= The database I wish I had
-:categories: mediator
-:updatedat: 2020-09-03
-
-:empty:
-:values-talk: https://vimeo.com/230142234
-:haskell-startup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR3Jirqk6W8
-
-I watched the talk "{values-talk}[Platform as a Reflection of Values: Joyent,
-Node.js and beyond]" by Bryan Cantrill, and I think he was able to put into
-words something I already felt for some time: if there's no piece of software
-out there that reflects your values, it's time for you to build that
-software{empty}footnote:talk-time[
- At the very end, at time 29:49. When talking about the draft of this article
- with a friend, he noted that Bryan O'Sullivan (a different Bryan) says a
- similar thing on his talk "{haskell-startup}[Running a startup on Haskell]",
- at time 4:15.
-].
-
-I kind of agree with what he said, because this is already happening to me. I
-long for a database with a certain set of values, and for a few years I was just
-waiting for someone to finally write it. After watching his talk, Bryan is
-saying to me: "time to stop waiting, and start writing it yourself".
-
-So let me try to give an overview of such database, and go over its values.
-
-== Overview
-
-I want a database that allows me to create decentralized client-side
-applications that can sync data.
-
-The best one-line description I can give right now is:
-
-____
-It's sort of like PouchDB, Git, Datomic, SQLite and Mentat.
-____
-
-A more descriptive version could be:
-
-____
-An embedded, immutable, syncable relational database.
-____
-
-Let's go over what I mean by each of those aspects one by one.
-
-=== Embedded
-
-:sqlite: https://sqlite.org/index.html
-:sqlite-whentouse: https://sqlite.org/whentouse.html
-:pouchdb: https://pouchdb.com/
-:couchdb: https://couchdb.apache.org/
-:mentat: https://github.com/mozilla/mentat
-:pouchdb-adapters: https://pouchdb.com/adapters.html
-:datomic-storage-services: https://docs.datomic.com/on-prem/storage.html
-:sqlite-amalgamation: https://www.sqlite.org/amalgamation.html
-:pointed-out: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24338881
-
-I think the server-side database landscape is diverse and mature enough for my
-needs (even though I end up choosing SQLite most of the time), and what I'm
-after is a database to be embedded on client-side applications itself, be it
-desktop, browser, mobile, _etc._
-
-The purpose of such database is not to keep some local cache of data in case of
-lost connectivity: we have good solutions for that already. It should serve as
-the source of truth, and allow the application to work on top of it.
-
-{sqlite}[*SQLite*] is a great example of that: it is a very powerful relational
-database that runs {sqlite-whentouse}[almost anywhere]. What I miss from it
-that SQLite doesn't provide is the ability to run it on the browser: even though
-you could compile it to WebAssembly, [line-through]#it assumes a POSIX
-filesystem that would have to be
-emulated#{empty}footnote:posix-sqlite[
- It was {pointed-out}[pointed out to me] that SQLite doesn't assume the
- existence of a POSIX filesystem, as I wrongly stated. Thanks for the
- correction.
-pass:[</p><p>]
- This makes me consider it as a storage backend all by itself. I initially
- considered having an SQLite storage backend as one implementation of the POSIX
- filesystem storage API that I mentioned. My goal was to rely on it so I could
- validate the correctness of the actual implementation, given SQLite's
- robustness.
-pass:[</p><p>]
- However it may even better to just use SQLite, and get an ACID backend without
- recreating a big part of SQLite from scratch. In fact, both Datomic and
- PouchDB didn't create an storage backend for themselves, they just plugged on
- what already existed and already worked. I'm beginning to think that it would
- be wiser to just do the same, and drop entirely the from scratch
- implementation that I mentioned.
-pass:[</p><p>]
- That's not to say that adding an IndexedDB compatibility layer to SQLite would
- be enough to make it fit the other requirements I mention on this page. SQLite
- still is an implementation of a update-in-place, SQL, table-oriented database.
- It is probably true that cherry-picking the relevant parts of SQLite (like
- storage access, consistency, crash recovery, parser generator, *etc.*) and
- leaving out the unwanted parts (SQL, tables, threading, *etc.*) would be
- better than including the full SQLite stack, that's simply an optimization.
- Both could even coexist, if desired.
-pass:[</p><p>]
- SQLite would have to be treated similarly to how Datomic treats SQL databases:
- instead of having a table for each entities, spread attributes over the
- tables, *etc.*, it treats SQL databases as a key-value storage so it doesn't
- have to re-implement interacting with the disk that other databases do well.
-pass:[</p><p>]
- The tables would contain blocks of binary data, so there isn't a difference on
- how the SQLite storage backend behaves and how the IndexedDB storage backend
- behaves, much like how Datomic works the same regardless of the storage
- backend, same for PouchDB.
-pass:[</p><p>]
- I welcome corrections on what I said above, too.
-].
-
-{pouchdb}[*PouchDB*] is another great example: it's a full reimplementation of
-{couchdb}[CouchDB] that targets JavaScript environments, mainly the browser and
-Node.js. However I want a tool that can be deployed anywhere, and not limit its
-applications to places that already have a JavaScript runtime environment, or
-force the developer to bundle a JavaScript runtime environment with their
-application. This is true for GTK+ applications, command line programs, Android
-apps, _etc._
-
-{mentat}[*Mentat*] was an interesting project, but its reliance on SQLite makes
-it inherit most of the downsides (and benefits too) of SQLite itself.
-
-Having such a requirement imposes a different approach to storage: we have to
-decouple the knowledge about the intricacies of storage from the usage of
-storage itself, so that a module (say query processing) can access storage
-through an API without needing to know about its implementation. This allows
-the database to target a POSIX filesystems storage API and an IndexedDB storage
-API, and make the rest of the code agnostic about storage. PouchDB has such
-mechanism (called {pouchdb-adapters}[adapters]) and Datomic has them too (called
-{datomic-storage-services}[storage services]).
-
-This would allow the database to adapt to where it is embedded: when targeting
-the browser the IndexedDB storage API would provide the persistence layer that
-the database requires, and similarly the POSIX filesystem storage API would
-provide the persistence layer when targeting POSIX systems (like desktops,
-mobile, _etc._).
-
-But there's also an extra restriction that comes from by being embedded: it
-needs to provide and embeddable artifact, most likely a binary library object
-that exposes a C compatible FFI, similar to {sqlite-amalgamation}[how SQLite
-does]. Bundling a full runtime environment is possible, but doesn't make it a
-compelling solution for embedding. This rules out most languages, and leaves
-us with C, Rust, Zig, and similar options that can target POSIX systems and
-WebAssembly.
-
-=== Immutable
-
-:datomic: https://www.datomic.com/
-:day-of-datomic: https://vimeo.com/116315075
-:git: https://git-scm.com/
-:sqlite-limits: https://sqlite.org/limits.html
-:datomic-no-history: https://docs.datomic.com/cloud/best.html#nohistory-for-high-churn
-
-Being immutable means that only new information is added, no in-place update
-ever happens, and nothing is ever deleted.
-
-Having an immutable database presents us with similar trade-offs found in
-persistent data structures, like lack of coordination when doing reads, caches
-being always coherent, and more usage of space.
-
-{datomic}[*Datomic*] is the go to database example of this: it will only add
-information (datoms) and allows you to query them in a multitude of ways.
-Stuart Halloway calls it "accumulate-only" over
-"append-only"{empty}footnote:accumulate-only[
- Video "{day-of-datomic}[Day of Datomic Part 2]" on Datomic's information
- model, at time 12:28.
-]:
-
-____
-It's accumulate-only, it is not append-only. So append-only, most people when
-they say that they're implying something physical about what happens.
-____
-
-Also a database can be append-only and overwrite existing information with new
-information, by doing clean-ups of "stale" data. I prefer to adopt the
-"accumulate-only" naming and approach.
-
-{git}[*Git*] is another example of this: new commits are always added on top of
-the previous data, and it grows by adding commits instead of replacing existing
-ones.
-
-Git repositories can only grow in size, and that is not only an acceptable
-condition, but also one of the reasons to use it.
-
-All this means that no in-place updates happens on data, and the database will
-be much more concerned about how compact and efficiently it stores data than how
-fast it does writes to disk. Being embedded, the storage limitation is either
-a) how much storage the device has or b) how much storage was designed for the
-application to consume. So even though the database could theoretically operate
-with hundreds of TBs, a browser page or mobile application wouldn't have access
-to this amount of storage. SQLite even {sqlite-limits}[says] that it does
-support approximately 280 TBs of data, but those limits are untested.
-
-The upside of keeping everything is that you can have historical views of your
-data, which is very powerful. This also means that applications should turn
-this off when not
-relevant{empty}footnote:no-history[
- Similar to {datomic-no-history}[Datomic's `:db/noHistory`].
-].
-
-=== Syncable
-
-:3-way-merge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merge_(version_control)
-:git-remote-gcrypt: https://spwhitton.name/tech/code/git-remote-gcrypt/
-
-This is a frequent topic when talking about offline-first solutions. When
-building applications that:
-
-* can fully work offline,
-* stores data,
-* propagates that data to other application instances,
-
-then you'll need a conflict resolution strategy to handle all the situations
-where different application instances disagree. Those application instances
-could be a desktop and a browser version of the same application, or the same
-mobile app in different devices.
-
-A three-way merge seems to be the best approach, on top of which you could add
-application specific conflict resolution functions, like:
-
-* pick the change with higher timestamp;
-* if one change is a delete, pick it;
-* present the diff on the screen and allow the user to merge them.
-
-Some databases try to make this "easy", by choosing a strategy for you, but I've
-found that different applications require different conflict resolution
-strategies. Instead, the database should leave this up to the user to decide,
-and provide tools for them to do it.
-
-{3-way-merge}[*Three-way merges in version control*] are the best example,
-performing automatic merges when possible and asking the user to resolve
-conflicts when they appear.
-
-The unit of conflict for a version control system is a line of text. The
-database equivalent would probably be a single attribute, not a full entity or a
-full row.
-
-Making all the conflict resolution logic be local should allow the database to
-have encrypted remotes similar to how {git-remote-gcrypt}[git-remote-gcrypt]
-adds this functionality to Git. This would enable users to sync the application
-data across devices using an untrusted intermediary.
-
-=== Relational
-
-:datomic-datalog: https://docs.datomic.com/on-prem/query.html
-:datomic-model: https://docs.datomic.com/cloud/whatis/data-model.html#datoms
-
-I want the power of relational queries on the client applications.
-
-Most of the arguments against traditional table-oriented relational databases
-are related to write performance, but those don't apply here. The bottlenecks
-for client applications usually aren't write throughput. Nobody is interested
-in differentiating between 1 MB/s or 10 MB/s when you're limited to 500 MB
-total.
-
-The relational model of the database could either be based on SQL and tables
-like in SQLite, or maybe {datomic-datalog}[datalog] and {datomic-model}[datoms]
-like in Datomic.
-
-== From aspects to values
-
-Now let's try to translate the aspects above into values, as suggested by Bryan
-Cantrill.
-
-=== Portability
-
-Being able to target so many different platforms is a bold goal, and the
-embedded nature of the database demands portability to be a core value.
-
-=== Integrity
-
-When the local database becomes the source of truth of the application, it must
-provide consistency guarantees that enables applications to rely on it.
-
-=== Expressiveness
-
-The database should empower applications to slice and dice the data in any way
-it wants to.
-
-== Next steps
-
-Since I can't find any database that fits these requirements, I've finally come
-to terms with doing it myself.
-
-It's probably going to take me a few years to do it, and making it portable
-between POSIX and IndexedDB will probably be the biggest challenge. I got
-myself a few books on databases to start.
-
-I wonder if I'll ever be able to get this done.
-
-== External links
-
-:reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/ijwz5b/the_database_i_wish_i_had/
-:lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/m9vkg4/database_i_wish_i_had
-:hn: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24337244
-:list: https://lists.sr.ht/~euandreh/public-inbox/%3C010101744a592b75-1dce9281-f0b8-4226-9d50-fd2c7901fa72-000000%40us-west-2.amazonses.com%3E
-
-See discussions on {reddit}[Reddit], {lobsters}[lobsters], {hn}[HN] and {list}[a
-lengthy email exchange].
diff --git a/src/content/blog/2020/10/05/cargo2nix-demo.tar.gz b/src/content/blog/2020/10/05/cargo2nix-demo.tar.gz
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diff --git a/src/content/blog/2020/10/05/cargo2nix.adoc b/src/content/blog/2020/10/05/cargo2nix.adoc
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-= cargo2nix: Dramatically simpler Rust in Nix
-:sort: 1
-
-:empty:
-:swift2nix: link:swift2nix.html
-:cargo2nix: link:cargo2nix-demo.tar.gz
-
-In the same vein of my earlier post on {swift2nix}[swift2nix], I was able to
-quickly prototype a Rust and Cargo variation of it: {cargo2nix}[cargo2nix].
-
-The initial prototype is even smaller than swift2nix: it has only 37 lines of
-code.
-
-Here's how to use it (snippet taken from the repo's README):
-
-[source,nix]
-----
-let
- niv-sources = import ./nix/sources.nix;
- mozilla-overlay = import niv-sources.nixpkgs-mozilla;
- pkgs = import niv-sources.nixpkgs { overlays = [ mozilla-overlay ]; };
- src = pkgs.nix-gitignore.gitignoreSource [ ] ./.;
- cargo2nix = pkgs.callPackage niv-sources.cargo2nix {
- lockfile = ./Cargo.lock;
- };
-in pkgs.stdenv.mkDerivation {
- inherit src;
- name = "cargo-test";
- buildInputs = [ pkgs.latest.rustChannels.nightly.rust ];
- phases = [ "unpackPhase" "buildPhase" ];
- buildPhase = ''
- # Setup dependencies path to satisfy Cargo
- mkdir .cargo/
- ln -s ${cargo2nix.env.cargo-config} .cargo/config
- ln -s ${cargo2nix.env.vendor} vendor
-
- # Run the tests
- cargo test
- touch $out
- '';
-}
-----
-
-That `cargo test` part on line 20 is what I have been fighting with every
-"*2nix" available for Rust out there. I don't want to bash any of them. All I
-want is to have full control of what Cargo commands to run, and the "*2nix" tool
-should only setup the environment for me. Let me drive Cargo myself, no need to
-parameterize how the tool runs it for me, or even replicate its internal
-behaviour by calling the Rust compiler directly.
-
-Sure it doesn't support private registries or Git dependencies, but how much
-bigger does it has to be to support them? Also, it doesn't support those *yet*,
-there's no reason it can't be extended. I just haven't needed it yet, so I
-haven't added. Patches welcome.
-
-The layout of the `vendor/` directory is more explicit and public then what
-swift2nix does: it is whatever the command `cargo vendor` returns. However I
-haven't checked if the shape of the `.cargo-checksum.json` is specified, or
-internal to Cargo.
-
-Try out the demo (also taken from the repo's README):
-
-[source,sh]
-----
-pushd "$(mktemp -d)"
-wget -O- https://euandre.org/static/attachments/cargo2nix-demo.tar.gz |
- tar -xv
-cd cargo2nix-demo/
-nix-build
-----
-
-Report back if you wish.
diff --git a/src/content/blog/2020/10/05/cargo2nix.tar.gz b/src/content/blog/2020/10/05/cargo2nix.tar.gz
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diff --git a/src/content/blog/2020/10/05/swift2nix-demo.tar.gz b/src/content/blog/2020/10/05/swift2nix-demo.tar.gz
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diff --git a/src/content/blog/2020/10/05/swift2nix.adoc b/src/content/blog/2020/10/05/swift2nix.adoc
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-= swift2nix: Run Swift inside Nix builds
-:sort: 0
-
-:empty:
-:nix: https://nixos.org/
-:swift2nix: link:swift2nix.tar.gz
-
-While working on a Swift project, I didn't find any tool that would allow Swift
-to run inside {nix}[Nix] builds. Even thought you _can_ run Swift, the real
-problem arises when using the package manager. It has many of the same problems
-that other package managers have when trying to integrate with Nix, more on this
-below.
-
-I wrote a simple little tool called {swift2nix}[swift2nix] that allows you trick
-Swift's package manager into assuming everything is set up. Here's the example
-from swift2nix's README file:
-
-[source,nix]
-----
-let
- niv-sources = import ./nix/sources.nix;
- pkgs = import niv-sources.nixpkgs { };
- src = pkgs.nix-gitignore.gitignoreSource [ ] ./.;
- swift2nix = pkgs.callPackage niv-sources.swift2nix {
- package-resolved = ./Package.resolved;
- };
-in pkgs.stdenv.mkDerivation {
- inherit src;
- name = "swift-test";
- buildInputs = with pkgs; [ swift ];
- phases = [ "unpackPhase" "buildPhase" ];
- buildPhase = ''
- # Setup dependencies path to satisfy SwiftPM
- mkdir .build
- ln -s ${swift2nix.env.dependencies-state-json} .build/dependencies-state.json
- ln -s ${swift2nix.env.checkouts} .build/checkouts
-
- # Run the tests
- swift test
- touch $out
- '';
-}
-----
-
-The key parts are lines 15~17: we just fake enough files inside `.build/` that
-Swift believes it has already downloaded and checked-out all dependencies, and
-just moves on to building them.
-
-I've worked on it just enough to make it usable for myself, so beware of
-unimplemented cases.
-
-== Design
-
-What swift2nix does is just provide you with the bare minimum that Swift
-requires, and readily get out of the way:
-
-. I explicitly did not want to generated a `Package.nix` file, since
- `Package.resolved` already exists and contains the required information;
-. I didn't want to have an "easy" interface right out of the gate, after
- fighting with "*2nix" tools that focus too much on that.
-
-The final actual code was so small (46 lines) that it made me think about
-package managers, "*2nix" tools and some problems with many of them.
-
-== Problems with package managers
-
-I'm going to talk about solely language package managers. Think npm and cargo,
-not apt-get.
-
-Package managers want to do too much, or assume too much, or just want to take
-control of the entire build of the dependencies.
-
-This is a recurrent problem in package managers, but I don't see it as an
-intrinsic one. There's nothing about a "package manager" that prevents it from
-_declaring_ what it expects to encounter and in which format. The _declaring_
-part is important: it should be data, not code, otherwise you're back in the
-same problem, just like lockfiles are just data. Those work in any language,
-and tools can cooperate happily.
-
-There's no need for this declarative expectation to be standardized, or be made
-compatible across languages. That would lead to a poor format that no package
-manager really likes. Instead, If every package manager could say out loud what
-it wants to see exactly, than more tools like swift2nix could exist, and they
-would be more reliable.
-
-This could even work fully offline, and be simply a mapping from the lockfile
-(the `Package.resolved` in Swift's case) to the filesystem representation. For
-Swift, the `.build/dependencies-state.json` comes very close, but it is internal
-to the package manager.
-
-Even though this pain only exists when trying to use Swift inside Nix, it sheds
-light into this common implicit coupling that package managers have. They
-usually have fuzzy boundaries and tight coupling between:
-
-. resolving the dependency tree and using some heuristic to pick a package
- version;
-. generating a lockfile with the exact pinned versions;
-. downloading the dependencies present on the lockfile into some local cache;
-. arranging the dependencies from the cache in a meaningful way for itself
- inside the project;
-. work using the dependencies while _assuming_ that step 4 was done.
-
-When you run `npm install` in a repository with no lockfile, it does 1~4. If
-you do the same with `cargo build`, it does 1~5. That's too much: many of those
-assumptions are implicit and internal to the package manager, and if you ever
-need to rearrange them, you're on your own. Even though you can perform some of
-those steps, you can't compose or rearrange them.
-
-Instead a much saner approach could be:
-
-. this stays the same;
-. this also stays the same;
-. be able to generate some JSON/TOML/edn which represents the local expected
- filesystem layout with dependencies (i.e. exposing what the package manager
- expects to find), let's call it `local-registry.json`;
-. if a `local-registry.json` was provided, do a build using that. Otherwise
- generate its own, by downloading the dependencies, arranging them, _etc._
-
-The point is just making what the package manager requires visible to the
-outside world via some declarative data. If this data wasn't provided, it can
-move on to doing its own automatic things.
-
-By making the expectation explicit and public, one can plug tools _à la carte_
-if desired, but doesn't prevent the default code path of doing things the exact
-same way they are now.
-
-== Problems with "*2nix" tools
-
-:node2nix: https://github.com/svanderburg/node2nix
-
-I have to admit: I'm unhappy with most of they.
-
-They conflate "using Nix" with "replicating every command of the package manager
-inside Nix".
-
-The avoidance of an "easy" interface that I mentioned above comes from me
-fighting with some of the "*2nix" tools much like I have to fight with package
-managers: I don't want to offload all build responsibilities to the "*2nix"
-tool, I just want to let it download some of the dependencies and get out of the
-way. I want to stick with `npm test` or `cargo build`, and Nix should only
-provide the environment.
-
-This is something that {node2nix}[node2nix] does right. It allows you to build
-the Node.js environment to satisfy NPM, and you can keep using NPM for
-everything else:
-
-[source,sh]
-----
-ln -s ${node2nix-package.shell.nodeDependencies}/lib/node_modules ./node_modules
-npm test
-----
-
-Its natural to want to put as much things into Nix as possible to benefit from
-Nix's advantages. Isn't that how NixOS itself was born?
-
-But a "*2nix" tool should leverage Nix, not be coupled with it. The above
-example lets you run any arbitrary NPM command while profiting from isolation
-and reproducibility that Nix provides. It is even less brittle: any changes to
-how NPM runs some things will be future-compatible, since node2nix isn't trying
-to replicate what NPM does, or fiddling with NPM's internal.
-
-**A "*2nix" tool should build the environment, preferably from the lockfile
-directly and offload everything else to the package manager**. The rest is just
-nice-to-have.
-
-swift2nix itself could provide an "easy" interface, something that allows you to
-write:
-
-[source,sh]
-----
-nix-build -A swift2nix.release
-nix-build -A swift2nix.test
-----
-
-The implementation of those would be obvious: create a new
-`pkgs.stdenv.mkDerivation` and call `swift build -c release` and `swift test`
-while using `swift2nix.env` under the hood.
-
-== Conclusion
-
-Package managers should provide exact dependencies via a data representation,
-i.e. lockfiles, and expose via another data representation how they expect those
-dependencies to appear on the filesystem, i.e. `local-registry.json`. This
-allows package managers to provide an API so that external tools can create
-mirrors, offline builds, other registries, isolated builds, _etc._
-
-"*2nix" tools should build simple functions that leverage that
-`local-registry.json`{empty}footnote:local-registry[
- This `local-registry.json` file doesn't have to be checked-in the repository
- at all. It could be always generated on the fly, much like how Swift's
- `dependencies-state.json` is.
-] data and offload all the rest back to the package manager itself. This allows
-the "*2nix" to not keep chasing the package manager evolution, always trying to
-duplicate its behaviour.
diff --git a/src/content/blog/2020/10/05/swift2nix.tar.gz b/src/content/blog/2020/10/05/swift2nix.tar.gz
deleted file mode 100644
index a22aaa0..0000000
--- a/src/content/blog/2020/10/05/swift2nix.tar.gz
+++ /dev/null
Binary files differ
diff --git a/src/content/blog/2020/10/19/feature-flags.adoc b/src/content/blog/2020/10/19/feature-flags.adoc
deleted file mode 100644
index 972f693..0000000
--- a/src/content/blog/2020/10/19/feature-flags.adoc
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,306 +0,0 @@
-= Feature flags: differences between backend, frontend and mobile
-:categories: presentation
-:updatedat: 2020-11-03
-
-:empty:
-:slides: link:../../../../slides/2020/10/19/feature-flags.html FIXME
-:fowler-article: https://martinfowler.com/articles/feature-toggles.html
-
-_This article is derived from a {slides}[presentation] on the same subject._
-
-When discussing about feature flags, I find that their costs and benefits are
-often well exposed and addressed. Online articles like
-"{fowler-article}[Feature Toggle (aka Feature Flags)]" do a great job of
-explaining them in detail, giving great general guidance of how to apply
-techniques to adopt it.
-
-However the weight of those costs and benefits apply differently on backend,
-frontend or mobile, and those differences aren't covered. In fact, many of them
-stop making sense, or the decision of adopting a feature flag or not may change
-depending on the environment.
-
-In this article I try to make the distinction between environments and how
-feature flags apply to them, with some final best practices I've acquired when
-using them in production.
-
-== Why feature flags
-
-:atlassian-cicd: https://www.atlassian.com/continuous-delivery/principles/continuous-integration-vs-delivery-vs-deployment
-
-Feature flags in general tend to be cited on the context of
-{atlassian-cicd}[continuous deployment]:
-
-____
-A: With continuous deployment, you deploy to production automatically
-
-B: But how do I handle deployment failures, partial features, _etc._?
-
-A: With techniques like canary, monitoring and alarms, feature flags, _etc._
-____
-
-Though adopting continuous deployment doesn't force you to use feature flags, it
-creates a demand for it. The inverse is also true: using feature flags on the
-code points you more obviously to continuous deployment. Take the following
-code sample for example, that we will reference later on the article:
-
-[source,javascript]
-----
-function processTransaction() {
- validate();
- persist();
- // TODO: add call to notifyListeners()
-}
-----
-
-While being developed, being tested for suitability or something similar,
-`notifyListeners()` may not be included in the code at once. So instead of
-keeping it on a separate, long-lived branch, a feature flag can decide when the
-new, partially implemented function will be called:
-
-[source,javascript]
-----
-function processTransaction() {
- validate();
- persist();
- if (featureIsEnabled("activate-notify-listeners")) {
- notifyListeners();
- }
-}
-----
-
-This allows your code to include `notifyListeners()`, and decide when to call it
-at runtime. For the price of extra things around the code, you get more
-dynamicity.
-
-So the fundamental question to ask yourself when considering adding a feature
-flag should be:
-
-____
-Am I willing to pay with code complexity to get dynamicity?
-____
-
-It is true that you can make the management of feature flags as straightforward
-as possible, but having no feature flags is simpler than having any. What you
-get in return is the ability to parameterize the behaviour of the application at
-runtime, without doing any code changes.
-
-Sometimes this added complexity may tilt the balance towards not using a feature
-flag, and sometimes the flexibility of changing behaviour at runtime is
-absolutely worth the added complexity. This can vary a lot by code base,
-feature, but fundamentally by environment: its much cheaper to deploy a new
-version of a service than to release a new version of an app.
-
-So the question of which environment is being targeted is key when reasoning
-about costs and benefits of feature flags.
-
-== Control over the environment
-
-:fdroid: https://f-droid.org/
-:bad-apple: https://www.paulgraham.com/apple.html
-
-The key differentiator that makes the trade-offs apply differently is how much
-control you have over the environment.
-
-When running a *backend* service, you usually are paying for the servers
-themselves, and can tweak them as you wish. This means you have full control do
-to code changes as you wish. Not only that, you decide when to do it, and for
-how long the transition will last.
-
-On the *frontend* you have less control: even though you can choose to make a
-new version available any time you wish, you can't
-force{empy}footnote:force[
- Technically you could force a reload with JavaScript using
- `window.location.reload()`, but that not only is invasive and impolite, but
- also gives you the illusion that you have control over the client when you
- actually don't: clients with disabled JavaScript would be immune to such
- tactics.
-] clients to immediately switch to the new version. That means that a) clients
-could skip upgrades at any time and b) you always have to keep backward and
-forward compatibility in mind.
-
-Even though I'm mentioning frontend directly, it applies to other environment
-with similar characteristics: desktop applications, command-line programs,
-_etc_.
-
-On *mobile* you have even less control: app stores need to allow your app to be
-updated, which could bite you when least desired. Theoretically you could make
-you APK available on third party stores like {fdroid}[F-Droid], or even make the
-APK itself available for direct download, which would give you the same
-characteristics of a frontend application, but that happens less often.
-
-On iOS you can't even do that. You have to get Apple's blessing on every single
-update. Even though we already know that is a {bad-apple}[bad idea] for over a
-decade now, there isn't a way around it. This is where you have the least
-control.
-
-In practice, the amount of control you have will change how much you value
-dynamicity: the less control you have, the more valuable it is. In other words,
-having a dynamic flag on the backend may or may not be worth it since you could
-always update the code immediately after, but on iOS it is basically always
-worth it.
-
-== Rollout
-
-:kubernetes-deployment: https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/controllers/deployment/#creating-a-deployment
-:play-store-rollout: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/6346149?hl=en
-:app-store-rolllout: https://help.apple.com/app-store-connect/#/dev3d65fcee1
-
-A rollout is used to _roll out_ a new version of software.
-
-They are usually short-lived, being relevant as long as the new code is being
-deployed. The most common rule is percentages.
-
-On the *backend*, it is common to find it on the deployment infrastructure
-itself, like canary servers, blue/green deployments, {kubernetes-deployment}[a
-kubernetes deployment rollout], _etc_. You could do those manually, by having a
-dynamic control on the code itself, but rollbacks are cheap enough that people
-usually do a normal deployment and just give some extra attention to the metrics
-dashboard.
-
-Any time you see a blue/green deployment, there is a rollout happening: most
-likely a load balancer is starting to direct traffic to the new server, until
-reaching 100% of the traffic. Effectively, that is a rollout.
-
-On the *frontend*, you can selectively pick which user's will be able to
-download the new version of a page. You could use geographical region, IP,
-cookie or something similar to make this decision.
-
-CDN propagation delays and people not refreshing their web pages are also
-rollouts by themselves, since old and new versions of the software will coexist.
-
-On *mobile*, the Play Store allows you to perform fine-grained
-{play-store-rollout}[staged rollouts], and the App Store allows you to perform
-limited {app-store-rollout}[phased releases].
-
-Both for Android and iOS, the user plays the role of making the download.
-
-In summary: since you control the servers on the backend, you can do rollouts at
-will, and those are often found automated away in base infrastructure. On the
-frontend and on mobile, there are ways to make new versions available, but users
-may not download them immediately, and many different versions of the software
-end up coexisting.
-
-== Feature flag
-
-A feature flag is a _flag_ that tells the application on runtime to turn on or
-off a given _feature_. That means that the actual production code will have
-more than one possible code paths to go through, and that a new version of a
-feature coexists with the old version. The feature flag tells which part of the
-code to go through.
-
-They are usually medium-lived, being relevant as long as the new code is being
-developed. The most common rules are percentages, allow/deny lists, A/B groups
-and client version.
-
-On the *backend*, those are useful for things that have a long development
-cycle, or that needs to done by steps. Consider loading the feature flag rules
-in memory when the application starts, so that you avoid querying a database or
-an external service for applying a feature flag rule and avoid flakiness on the
-result due to intermittent network failures.
-
-Since on the *frontend* you don't control when to update the client software,
-you're left with applying the feature flag rule on the server, and exposing the
-value through an API for maximum dynamicity. This could be in the frontend code
-itself, and fallback to a "just refresh the page"/"just update to the latest
-version" strategy for less dynamic scenarios.
-
-On *mobile* you can't even rely on a "just update to the latest version"
-strategy, since the code for the app could be updated to a new feature and be
-blocked on the store. Those cases aren't recurrent, but you should always
-assume the store will deny updates on critical moments so you don't find
-yourself with no cards to play. That means the only control you actually have
-is via the backend, by parameterizing the runtime of the application using the
-API. In practice, you should always have a feature flag to control any relevant
-piece of code. There is no such thing as "too small code change for a feature
-flag". What you should ask yourself is:
-
-____
-If the code I'm writing breaks and stays broken for around a month, do I care?
-____
-
-If you're doing an experimental screen, or something that will have a very small
-impact you might answer "no" to the above question. For everything else, the
-answer will be "yes": bug fixes, layout changes, refactoring, new screen,
-filesystem/database changes, _etc_.
-
-== Experiment
-
-An experiment is a feature flag where you care about analytical value of the
-flag, and how it might impact user's behaviour. A feature flag with analytics.
-
-They are also usually medium-lived, being relevant as long as the new code is
-being developed. The most common rule is A/B test.
-
-On the *backend*, an experiment rely on an analytical environment that will pick
-the A/B test groups and distributions, which means those can't be held in memory
-easily. That also means that you'll need a fallback value in case fetching the
-group for a given customer fails.
-
-On the *frontend* and on *mobile* they are no different from feature flags.
-
-== Operational toggle
-
-An operational toggle is like a system-level manual circuit breaker, where you
-turn on/off a feature, fail over the load to a different server, _etc_. They
-are useful switches to have during an incident.
-
-They are usually long-lived, being relevant as long as the code is in
-production. The most common rule is percentages.
-
-They can be feature flags that are promoted to operational toggles on the
-*backend*, or may be purposefully put in place preventively or after a
-postmortem analysis.
-
-On the *frontend* and on *mobile* they are similar to feature flags, where the
-"feature" is being turned on and off, and the client interprets this value to
-show if the "feature" is available or unavailable.
-
-== Best practices
-
-=== Prefer dynamic content
-
-Even though feature flags give you more dynamicity, they're still somewhat
-manual: you have to create one for a specific feature and change it by hand.
-
-If you find yourself manually updating a feature flags every other day, or
-tweaking the percentages frequently, consider making it fully dynamic. Try
-using a dataset that is generated automatically, or computing the content on the
-fly.
-
-Say you have a configuration screen with a list of options and sub-options, and
-you're trying to find how to better structure this list. Instead of using a
-feature flag for switching between 3 and 5 options, make it fully dynamic. This
-way you'll be able to perform other tests that you didn't plan, and get more
-flexibility out of it.
-
-=== Use the client version to negotiate feature flags
-
-After effectively finishing a feature, the old code that coexisted with the new
-one will be deleted, and all traces of the transition will vanish from the code
-base. However if you just remove the feature flags from the API, all of the old
-versions of clients that relied on that value to show the new feature will go
-downgrade to the old feature.
-
-This means that you should avoid deleting client-facing feature flags, and
-retire them instead: use the client version to decide when the feature is
-stable, and return `true` for every client with a version greater or equal to
-that. This way you can stop thinking about the feature flag, and you don't
-break or downgrade clients that didn't upgrade past the transition.
-
-=== Beware of many nested feature flags
-
-Nested flags combine exponentially.
-
-Pick strategic entry points or transitions eligible for feature flags, and
-beware of their nesting.
-
-=== Include feature flags in the development workflow
-
-Add feature flags to the list of things to think about during whiteboarding, and
-deleting/retiring a feature flags at the end of the development.
-
-=== Always rely on a feature flag on the app
-
-Again, there is no such thing "too small for a feature flag". Too many feature
-flags is a good problem to have, not the opposite. Automate the process of
-creating a feature flag to lower its cost.
diff --git a/src/content/blog/2020/10/20/wrong-interviewing.adoc b/src/content/blog/2020/10/20/wrong-interviewing.adoc
deleted file mode 100644
index 4b8d855..0000000
--- a/src/content/blog/2020/10/20/wrong-interviewing.adoc
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,340 +0,0 @@
-= How not to interview engineers
-:updatedat: 2020-10-24
-
-:bad-article: https://defmacro.substack.com/p/how-to-interview-engineers
-:satire-comment: https://defmacro.substack.com/p/how-to-interview-engineers/comments#comment-599996
-:double-down: https://twitter.com/spakhm/status/1315754730740617216
-:poes-law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
-:hn-comment-1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24757511
-
-This is a response to Slava's "{bad-article}[How to interview engineers]"
-article. I initially thought it was a satire, {satire-comment}[as have others],
-but he has [doubled down on it]:
-
-____
-(...) Some parts are slightly exaggerated for sure, but the essay isn't meant as
-a joke.
-____
-
-That being true, he completely misses the point on how to improve hiring, and
-proposes a worse alternative on many aspects. It doesn't qualify as
-provocative, it is just wrong.
-
-I was comfortable taking it as a satire, and I would just ignore the whole thing
-if it wasn't (except for the technical memo part), but friends of mine
-considered it to be somewhat reasonable. This is a adapted version of parts of
-the discussions we had, risking becoming a gigantic showcase of {poes-law}[Poe's
-law].
-
-In this piece, I will argument against his view, and propose an alternative
-approach to improve hiring.
-
-It is common to find people saying how broken technical hiring is, as well put
-in words by a phrase on {hn-comment-1}[this comment]:
-
-____
-Everyone loves to read and write about how developer interviewing is flawed, but
-no one wants to go out on a limb and make suggestions about how to improve it.
-____
-
-I guess Slava was trying to not fall on this trap, and make a suggestion on how
-to improve instead, which all went terribly wrong.
-
-== What not to do
-
-=== Time candidates
-
-:hammock-driven-talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc
-
-Timing the candidate shows up on the "talent" and "judgment" sections, and they
-are both bad ideas for the same reason: programming is not a performance.
-
-What do e-sports, musicians, actors and athletes have in common: performance
-psychologists.
-
-For a pianist, their state of mind during concerts is crucial: they not only
-must be able to deal with stage anxiety, but to become really successful they
-will have to learn how to exploit it. The time window of the concert is what
-people practice thousands of hours for, and it is what defines one's career,
-since how well all the practice went is irrelevant to the nature of the
-profession. Being able to leverage stage anxiety is an actual goal of them.
-
-That is also applicable to athletes, where the execution during a competition
-makes them sink or swim, regardless of how all the training was.
-
-The same cannot be said about composers, though. They are more like book
-writers, where the value is not on very few moments with high adrenaline, but on
-the aggregate over hours, days, weeks, months and years. A composer may have a
-deadline to finish a song in five weeks, but it doesn't really matter if it is
-done on a single night, every morning between 6 and 9, at the very last week, or
-any other way. No rigid time structure applies, only whatever fits best to the
-composer.
-
-Programming is more like composing than doing a concert, which is another way of
-saying that programming is not a performance. People don't practice algorithms
-for months to keep them at their fingertips, so that finally in a single
-afternoon they can sit down and write everything at once in a rigid 4 hours
-window, and launch it immediately after.
-
-Instead software is built iteratively, by making small additions, than
-refactoring the implementation, fixing bugs, writing a lot at once, _etc_. all
-while they get a firmer grasp of the problem, stop to think about it, come up
-with new ideas, _etc_.
-
-Some specifically plan for including spaced pauses, and call it
-"{hammock-driven-talk}[Hammock Driven Development]", which is just artist's
-"creative idleness" for hackers.
-
-Unless you're hiring for a live coding group, a competitive programming team, or
-a professional live demoer, timing the candidate that way is more harmful than
-useful. This type of timing doesn't find good programmers, it finds performant
-programmers, which isn't the same thing, and you'll end up with people who can
-do great work on small problems but who might be unable to deal with big
-problems, and loose those who can very well handle huge problems, slowly. If
-you are lucky you'll get performant people who can also handle big problems on
-the long term, but maybe not.
-
-An incident is the closest to a "performance" that it gets, and yet it is still
-dramatically different. Surely it is a high stress scenario, but while people
-are trying to find a root cause and solve the problem, only the downtime itself
-is visible to the exterior. It is like being part of the support staff
-backstage during a play: even though execution matters, you're still not on the
-spot. During an incident you're doing debugging in anger rather than live
-coding.
-
-Although giving a candidate the task to write a "technical memo" has potential
-to get a measure of the written communication skills of someone, doing so in a
-hard time window also misses the point for the same reasons.
-
-=== Pay attention to typing speed
-
-:dijkstra-typing: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD05xx/EWD512.html
-:speech-to-text: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz3JeYfBTcY
-:j-lang: https://www.jsoftware.com/#/
-
-Typing is speed in never the bottleneck of a programmer, no matter how great
-they are.
-
-As {dijkstra-typing}[Dijkstra said]:
-
-____
-But programming, when stripped of all its circumstantial irrelevancies, boils
-down to no more and no less than very effective thinking so as to avoid
-unmastered complexity, to very vigorous separation of your many different
-concerns.
-____
-
-In other words, programming is not about typing, it is about thinking.
-
-Otherwise, the way to get those star programmers that can't type fast enough a
-huge productivity boost is to give them a touch typing course. If they are so
-productive with typing speed being a limitation, imagine what they could
-accomplish if they had razor sharp touch typing skills?
-
-Also, why stop there? A good touch typist can do 90 WPM (words per minute), and
-a great one can do 120 WPM, but with a stenography keyboard they get to 200
-WPM+. That is double the productivity! Why not try
-{speech-to-text}[speech-to-text]? Make them all use {j-lang}[J] so they all
-need to type less! How come nobody thought of that?
-
-And if someone couldn't solve the programming puzzle in the given time window,
-but could come back in the following day with an implementation that is not only
-faster, but uses less memory, was simpler to understand and easier to read than
-anybody else? You'd be losing that person too.
-
-=== IQ
-
-:determination-article: https://www.paulgraham.com/determination.html
-:scihub-article: https://sci-hub.do/https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F1076-8971.6.1.33
-
-For "building an extraordinary team at a hard technology startup",
-intelligence is not the most important,
-{determination-article}[determination is].
-
-And talent isn't "IQ specialized for engineers". IQ itself isn't a measure of
-how intelligent someone is. Ever since Alfred Binet with Théodore Simon started
-to formalize what would become IQ tests years later, they already acknowledged
-limitations of the technique for measuring intelligence, which is
-{scihub-article}[still true today].
-
-So having a high IQ tells only how smart people are for a particular aspect of
-intelligence, which is not representative of programming. There are numerous
-aspects of programming that are covered by IQ measurement: how to name variables
-and functions, how to create models which are compatible with schema evolution,
-how to make the system dynamic for runtime parameterization without making it
-fragile, how to measure and observe performance and availability, how to pick
-between acquiring and paying technical debt, _etc_.
-
-Not to say about everything else that a programmer does that is not purely
-programming. Saying high IQ correlates with great programming is a stretch, at
-best.
-
-=== Ditch HR
-
-Slava tangentially picks on HR, and I will digress on that a bit:
-
-____
-A good rule of thumb is that if a question could be asked by an intern in HR,
-it's a non-differential signaling question.
-____
-
-Stretching it, this is a rather snobbish view of HR. Why is it that an intern
-in HR can't make signaling questions? Could the same be said of an intern in
-engineering?
-
-In other words: is the question not signaling because the one asking is from HR,
-or because the one asking is an intern? If the latter, than he's just arguing
-that interns have no place in interviewing, but if the former than he was
-picking on HR.
-
-Extrapolating that, it is common to find people who don't value HR's work, and
-only see them as inferiors doing unpleasant work, and who aren't capable enough
-(or _smart_ enough) to learn programming.
-
-This is equivalent to people who work primarily on backend, and see others
-working on frontend struggling and say: "isn't it just building views and
-showing them on the browser? How could it possibly be that hard? I bet I could
-do it better, with 20% of code". As you already know, the answer to it is
-"well, why don't you go do it, then?".
-
-This sense of superiority ignores the fact that HR have actual professionals
-doing actual hard work, not unlike programmers. If HR is inferior and so easy,
-why not automate everything away and get rid of a whole department?
-
-I don't attribute this world view to Slava, this is only an extrapolation of a
-snippet of the article.
-
-=== Draconian mistreating of candidates
-
-:bad-apple: https://www.paulgraham.com/apple.html
-:be-good: https://www.paulgraham.com/good.html
-
-If I found out that people employed theatrics in my interview so that I could
-feel I've "earned the privilege to work at your company", I would quit.
-
-If your moral compass is so broken that you are comfortable mistreating me while
-I'm a candidate, I immediately assume you will also mistreat me as an employee,
-and that the company is not a good place to work, as {bad-apple}[evil begets
-stupidity]:
-
-____
-But the other reason programmers are fussy, I think, is that evil begets
-stupidity. An organization that wins by exercising power starts to lose the
-ability to win by doing better work. And it's not fun for a smart person to
-work in a place where the best ideas aren't the ones that win. I think the
-reason Google embraced "Don't be evil" so eagerly was not so much to impress the
-outside world as to inoculate themselves against arrogance.
-____
-
-Paul Graham goes beyond "don't be evil" with a better motto:
-"{be-good}[be good]".
-
-Abusing the asymmetric nature of an interview to increase the chance that the
-candidate will accept the offer is, well, abusive. I doubt a solid team can
-actually be built on such poor foundations, surrounded by such evil measures.
-
-And if you really want to give engineers "the measure of whoever they're going
-to be working with", there are plenty of reasonable ways of doing it that don't
-include performing fake interviews.
-
-=== Personality tests
-
-Personality tests around the world need to be a) translated, b) adapted and c)
-validated. Even though a given test may be applicable and useful in a country,
-this doesn't imply it will work for other countries.
-
-Not only tests usually come with translation guidelines, but also its
-applicability needs to be validated again after the translation and adaptation
-is done to see if the test still measures what it is supposed to.
-
-That is also true within the same language. If a test is shown to work in
-England, it may not work in New Zealand, in spite of both speaking english. The
-cultural context difference is influent to the point of invalidating a test and
-making it be no longer valid.
-
-Irregardless of the validity of the proposed "big five" personality test, saying
-"just use attributes x, y and z this test and you'll be fine" is a rough
-simplification, much like saying "just use Raft for distributed systems, after
-all it has been proven to work" shows he throws all of that background away.
-
-So much as applying personality tests themselves is not a trivial task, and
-psychologists do need special training to become able to effectively apply one.
-
-=== More cargo culting
-
-:cult: https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm
-:cult-archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20201003090303/https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm
-
-He calls the ill-defined "industry standard" to be cargo-culting, but his
-proposal isn't sound enough to not become one.
-
-Even if the ideas were good, they aren't solid enough, or based on solid enough
-things to make them stand out by themselves. Why is it that talent, judgment
-and personality are required to determine the fitness of a good candidate? Why
-not 2, 5, or 20 things? Why those specific 3? Why is talent defined like that?
-Is it just because he found talent to be like that?
-
-Isn't that definitionally also
-{cult}[cargo-culting]footnote:cargo-cult[
- {cult-archived}[Archived version].
-]? Isn't he just repeating whatever he found to work form him, without
-understanding why?
-
-What Feynman proposes is actually the opposite:
-
-____
-In summary, the idea is to try to give *all* of the information to help others
-to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to
-judgment in one particular direction or another.
-____
-
-What Slava did was just another form of cargo culting, but this was one that he
-believed to work.
-
-== What to do
-
-I will not give you a list of things that "worked for me, thus they are
-correct". I won't either critique the current "industry standard", nor what
-I've learned from interviewing engineers.
-
-Instead, I'd like to invite you to learn from history, and from what other
-professionals have to teach us.
-
-Programming isn't an odd profession, where everything about it is different from
-anything else. It is just another episode in the "technology" series, which has
-seasons since before recorded history. It may be an episode where things move a
-bit faster, but it is fundamentally the same.
-
-So here is the key idea: what people did _before_ software engineering?
-
-What hiring is like for engineers in other areas? Don't civil, electrical and
-other types of engineering exist for much, much longer than software engineering
-does? What have those centuries of accumulated experience thought the world
-about technical hiring?
-
-What studies were performed on the different success rate of interviewing
-strategies? What have they done right and what have they done wrong?
-
-What is the purpose of HR? Why do they even exist? Do we need them, and if so,
-what for? What is the value they bring, since everybody insist on building an
-HR department in their companies? Is the existence of HR another form of cargo
-culting?
-
-What is industrial and organizational psychology? What is that field of study?
-What do they specialize in? What have they learned since the discipline
-appeared? What have they done right and wrong over history? Is is the current
-academic consensus on that area? What is a hot debate topic in academia on that
-area? What is the current bleeding edge of research? What can they teach us
-about hiring? What can they teach us about technical hiring?
-
-== Conclusion
-
-If all I've said makes me a "no hire" in the proposed framework, I'm really
-glad.
-
-This says less about my programming skills, and more about the employer's world
-view, and I hope not to be fooled into applying for a company that adopts this
-one.
-
-Claiming to be selecting "extraordinary engineers" isn't an excuse to reinvent
-the wheel, poorly.
diff --git a/src/content/blog/2020/11/07/diy-bugs.adoc b/src/content/blog/2020/11/07/diy-bugs.adoc
deleted file mode 100644
index 8ab7953..0000000
--- a/src/content/blog/2020/11/07/diy-bugs.adoc
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,93 +0,0 @@
-= DIY an offline bug tracker with text files, Git and email
-:updatedat: 2021-08-14
-
-:attack-on-ytdl: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/10/2020-10-23-RIAA.md
-:list-discussions: https://sourcehut.org/blog/2020-10-29-how-mailing-lists-prevent-censorship/
-:docs-in-repo: https://podcast.writethedocs.org/2017/01/25/episode-3-trends/
-:ci-in-notes: link:../../../../tils/2020/11/30/git-notes-ci.html
-:todos-mui: https://man.sr.ht/todo.sr.ht/#email-access
-:git-bug-bridges: https://github.com/MichaelMure/git-bug#bridges
-
-When {attack-on-ytdl}[push comes to shove], the operational aspects of
-governance of a software project matter a lot. And everybody likes to chime in
-with their alternative of how to avoid single points of failure in project
-governance, just like I'm doing right now.
-
-The most valuable assets of a project are:
-
-. source code
-. discussions
-. documentation
-. builds
-. tasks and bugs
-
-For *source code*, Git and other DVCS solve that already: everybody gets a full
-copy of the entire source code.
-
-If your code forge is compromised, moving it to a new one takes a couple of
-minutes, if there isn't a secondary remote serving as mirror already. In this
-case, no action is required.
-
-If you're having your *discussions* by email, "{list-discussions}[taking this
-archive somewhere else and carrying on is effortless]".
-
-Besides, make sure to backup archives of past discussions so that the history is
-also preserved when this migration happens.
-
-The *documentation* should {docs-in-repo}[live inside the repository
-itself]footnote:writethedocs-in-repo[
- Described as "the ultimate marriage of the two". Starts at time 31:50.
-], so that not only it gets first class treatment, but also gets distributed to
-everybody too. Migrating the code to a new forge already migrates the
-documentation with it.
-
-As long as you keep the *builds* vendor neutral, the migration should only
-involve adapting how you call your `tests.sh` from the format of
-`provider-1.yml` uses to the format that `provider-2.yml` accepts. It isn't
-valuable to carry the build history with the project, as this data quickly
-decays in value as weeks and months go by, but for simple text logs
-{ci-in-notes}[using Git notes] may be just enough, and they would be replicated
-with the rest of the repository.
-
-But for *tasks and bugs* many rely on a vendor-specific service, where
-you register and manage those issues via a web browser. Some provide an
-{todos-mui}[interface for interacting via email] or an API for
-{git-bug-bridges[bridging local bugs with vendor-specific services]. But
-they're all layers around the service, that disguises it as being a central
-point of failure, which when compromised would lead to data loss. When push
-comes to shove, you'd loose data.
-
-== Alternative: text files, Git and email
-
-:todos-example: https://euandre.org/git/remembering/tree/TODOs.md?id=3f727802cb73ab7aa139ca52e729fd106ea916d0
-:todos-script: https://euandre.org/git/remembering/tree/aux/workflow/TODOs.sh?id=3f727802cb73ab7aa139ca52e729fd106ea916d0
-:todos-html: https://euandreh.xyz/remembering/TODOs.html
-:fossil-tickets: https://fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/bugtheory.wiki
-
-Why not do the same as documentation, and move tasks and bugs into the
-repository itself?
-
-It requires no extra tool to be installed, and fits right in the already
-existing workflow for source code and documentation.
-
-I like to keep a {todos-example}[`TODOs.md`] file at the repository top-level,
-with two relevant sections: "tasks" and "bugs". Then when building the
-documentation I'll just {todos-script}[generate an HTML file from it], and
-{todos-html}[publish] it alongside the static website. All that is done on the
-main branch.
-
-Any issues discussions are done in the mailing list, and a reference to a
-discussion could be added to the ticket itself later on. External contributors
-can file tickets by sending a patch.
-
-The good thing about this solution is that it works for 99% of projects out
-there.
-
-For the other 1%, having Fossil's "{fossil-tickets}[tickets]" could be an
-alternative, but you may not want to migrate your project to Fossil to get those
-niceties.
-
-Even though I keep a `TODOs.md` file on the main branch, you can have a `tasks`
-branch with a `task-n.md` file for each task, or any other way you like.
-
-These tools are familiar enough that you can adjust it to fit your workflow.
diff --git a/src/content/blog/2020/11/08/paradigm-shift-review.adoc b/src/content/blog/2020/11/08/paradigm-shift-review.adoc
deleted file mode 100644
index 1110085..0000000
--- a/src/content/blog/2020/11/08/paradigm-shift-review.adoc
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,154 +0,0 @@
-= The Next Paradigm Shift in Programming - video review
-:categories: video-review
-
-:reviewed-video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YbK8o9rZfI
-
-This is a review with comments of "{reviewed-video}[The Next Paradigm Shift in
-Programming]", by Richard Feldman.
-
-This video was _strongly_ suggested to me by a colleague. I wanted to discuss
-it with her, and when drafting my response I figured I could publish it publicly
-instead.
-
-Before anything else, let me just be clear: I really like the talk, and I think
-Richard is a great public speaker. I've watched several of his talks over the
-years, and I feel I've followed his career at a distance, with much respect.
-This isn't a piece criticizing him personally, and I agree with almost
-everything he said. These are just some comments but also nitpicks on a few
-topics I think he missed, or that I view differently.
-
-== Structured programming
-
-:forgotten-art-video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFv8Wm2HdNM
-
-The historical overview at the beginning is very good. In fact, the very video
-I watched previously was about structured programming!
-
-Kevlin Henney on "{forgotten-art-video}[The Forgotten Art of Structured
-Programming]" does a deep-dive on the topic of structured programming, and how
-on his view it is still hidden in our code, when we do a `continue` or a `break`
-in some ways. Even though it is less common to see an explicit `goto` in code
-these days, many of the original arguments of Dijkstra against explicit `goto`s
-is applicable to other constructs, too.
-
-This is a very mature view, and I like how he goes beyond the "don't use
-`goto`s" heuristic and proposes and a much more nuanced understanding of what
-"structured programming" means.
-
-In a few minutes, Richard is able to condense most of the significant bits of
-Kevlin's talk in a didactical way. Good job.
-
-== OOP like a distributed system
-
-:joe-oop: https://www.infoq.com/interviews/johnson-armstrong-oop/
-:rich-hickey-oop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROor6_NGIWU
-
-Richard extrapolates Alan Kay's original vision of OOP, and he concludes that it
-is more like a distributed system that how people think about OOP these days.
-But he then states that this is a rather bad idea, and we shouldn't pursue it,
-given that distributed systems are known to be hard.
-
-However, his extrapolation isn't really impossible, bad or an absurd. In fact,
-it has been followed through by Erlang. Joe Armstrong used to say that
-"{joe-oop}[Erlang might the only OOP language]", since it actually adopted this
-paradigm.
-
-But Erlang is a functional language. So this "OOP as a distributed system" view
-is more about designing systems in the large than programs in the small.
-
-There is a switch of levels in this comparison I'm making, as can be done with
-any language or paradigm: you can have a functional-like system that is built
-with an OOP language (like a compiler, that given the same input will produce
-the same output), or an OOP-like system that is built with a functional
-language (Rich Hickey calls it "{rich-hickey-oop}[OOP in the
-large]"footnote:langsys[
- From 24:05 to 27:45.
-]).
-
-So this jump from in-process paradigm to distributed paradigm is rather a big
-one, and I don't think you he can argue that OOP has anything to say about
-software distribution across nodes. You can still have Erlang actors that run
-independently and send messages to each other without a network between them.
-Any OTP application deployed on a single node effectively works like that.
-
-I think he went a bit too far with this extrapolation. Even though I agree it
-is a logical a fair one, it isn't evidently bad as he painted. I would be fine
-working with a single-node OTP application and seeing someone call it "a _real_
-OOP program".
-
-== First class immutability
-
-:immer: https://sinusoid.es/immer/
-:immutable-js: https://immutable-js.github.io/immutable-js/
-
-I agree with his view of languages moving towards the functional paradigm. But
-I think you can narrow down the "first-class immutability" feature he points out
-as present on modern functional programming languages to "first-class immutable
-data structures".
-
-I wouldn't categorize a language as "supporting functional programming style"
-without a library for functional data structures it. By discipline you can
-avoid side-effects, write pure functions as much as possible, and pass functions
-as arguments around is almost every language these days, but if when changing an
-element of a vector mutates things in-place, that is still not functional
-programming.
-
-To avoid that, you end-up needing to make clones of objects to pass to a
-function, using freezes or other workarounds. All those cases are when the
-underlying mix of OOP and functional programming fail.
-
-There are some languages with third-party libraries that provide functional data
-structures, like {immer}[immer] for C++, or {immutable-js}[ImmutableJS] for
-JavaScript.
-
-But functional programming is more easily achievable in languages that have them
-built-in, like Erlang, Elm and Clojure.
-
-== Managed side-effects
-
-:redux: https://redux.js.org/
-:re-frame: https://github.com/Day8/re-frame
-
-His proposal of adopting managed side-effects as a first-class language concept
-is really intriguing.
-
-This is something you can achieve with a library, like {redux}[Redux] for
-JavaScript or {re-frame}[re-frame] for Clojure.
-
-I haven't worked with a language with managed side-effects at scale, and I don't
-feel this is a problem with Clojure or Erlang. But is this me finding a flaw in
-his argument or not acknowledging a benefit unknown to me? This is a
-provocative question I ask myself.
-
-Also all FP languages with managed side-effects I know are statically-typed, and
-all dynamically-typed FP languages I know don't have managed side-effects baked
-in.
-
-== What about declarative programming?
-
-:tarpit-article: https://curtclifton.net/papers/MoseleyMarks06a.pdf
-
-In "{tarpit-article}[Out of the Tar Pit]", B. Moseley and P. Marks go beyond his
-view of functional programming as the basis, and name a possible "functional
-relational programming" as an even better solution. They explicitly call out
-some flaws in most of the modern functional programming languages, and instead
-pick declarative programming as an even better starting paradigm.
-
-If the next paradigm shift is towards functional programming, will the following
-shift be towards declarative programming?
-
-== Conclusion
-
-:simple-made-easy: https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy/
-
-Beyond all Richard said, I also hear often bring up functional programming when
-talking about utilizing all cores of a computer, and how FP can help with that.
-
-Rich Hickey makes a great case for single-process FP on his famous talk
-"{simple-made-easy}[Simple Made Easy]".
-
-////
-I find this conclusion too short, and it doesn't revisits the main points
-presented on the body of the article. I won't rewrite it now, but it would be
-an improvement to extend it to do so.
-////
diff --git a/src/content/blog/2020/11/12/database-parsers-trees.adoc b/src/content/blog/2020/11/12/database-parsers-trees.adoc
deleted file mode 100644
index 47595e8..0000000
--- a/src/content/blog/2020/11/12/database-parsers-trees.adoc
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,226 +0,0 @@
-= Durable persistent trees and parser combinators - building a database
-:categories: mediator
-:updatedat: 2021-02-09
-
-:empty:
-:db-article: link:../../08/31/database-i-wish-i-had.html
-
-I've received with certain frequency messages from people wanting to know if
-I've made any progress on the database project {db-article}[I've written about].
-
-There are a few areas where I've made progress, and here's a public post on it.
-
-== Proof-of-concept: DAG log
-
-:mediator-permalink: https://euandre.org/git/mediator/tree/src/core/clojure/src/mediator.clj?id=db4a727bc24b54b50158827b34502de21dbf8948#n1
-
-The main thing I wanted to validate with a concrete implementation was the
-concept of modeling a DAG on a sequence of datoms.
-
-The notion of a _datom_ is a rip-off from Datomic, which models data with time
-aware _facts_, which come from RDF. RDF's fact is a triple of
-subject-predicate-object, and Datomic's datoms add a time component to it:
-subject-predicate-object-time, A.K.A. entity-attribute-value-transaction:
-
-[source,clojure]
-----
-[[person :likes "pizza" 0 true]
- [person :likes "bread" 1 true]
- [person :likes "pizza" 1 false]]
-----
-
-The above datoms say: - at time 0, `person` like pizza; - at time 1, `person`
-stopped liking pizza, and started to like bread.
-
-Datomic ensures total consistency of this ever growing log by having a single
-writer, the transactor, that will enforce it when writing.
-
-In order to support disconnected clients, I needed a way to allow multiple
-writers, and I chose to do it by making the log not a list, but a directed
-acyclic graph (DAG):
-
-[source,clojure]
-----
-[[person :likes "pizza" 0 true]
- [0 :parent :db/root 0 true]
- [person :likes "bread" 1 true]
- [person :likes "pizza" 1 false]
- [1 :parent 0 1 true]]
-----
-
-The extra datoms above add more information to build the directionality to the
-log, and instead of a single consistent log, the DAG could have multiple leaves
-that coexist, much like how different Git branches can have different "latest"
-commits.
-
-In order to validate this idea, I started with a Clojure implementation. The
-goal was not to write the actual final code, but to make a proof-of-concept that
-would allow me to test and stretch the idea itself.
-
-This code {mediator-permalink}[already exists], but is yet fairly incomplete:
-
-:commented-code: https://euandre.org/git/mediator/tree/src/core/clojure/src/mediator.clj?id=db4a727bc24b54b50158827b34502de21dbf8948#n295
-:more: https://euandre.org/git/mediator/tree/src/core/clojure/src/mediator.clj?id=db4a727bc24b54b50158827b34502de21dbf8948#n130
-:than: https://euandre.org/git/mediator/tree/src/core/clojure/src/mediator.clj?id=db4a727bc24b54b50158827b34502de21dbf8948#n146
-:one: https://euandre.org/git/mediator/tree/src/core/clojure/src/mediator.clj?id=db4a727bc24b54b50158827b34502de21dbf8948#n253
-
-* the building of the index isn't done yet (with some {commented-code}[commented
- code] on the next step to be implemented)
-* the indexing is extremely inefficient, with {more}[more] {than}[than]
- {one}[one] occurrence of `O²` functions;
-* no query support yet.
-
-== Top-down _and_ bottom-up
-
-However, as time passed and I started looking at what the final implementation
-would look like, I started to consider keeping the PoC around.
-
-The top-down approach (Clojure PoC) was in fact helping guide me with the
-bottom-up, and I now have "promoted" the Clojure PoC into a "reference
-implementation". It should now be a finished implementation that says what the
-expected behaviour is, and the actual code should match the behaviour.
-
-The good thing about a reference implementation is that it has no performance of
-resources boundary, so if it ends up being 1000× slower and using 500× more
-memory, it should be find. The code can be also 10× or 100× simpler, too.
-
-== Top-down: durable persistent trees
-
-:pavlo-videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSE8ODhjZXjbohkNBWQs_otTrBTrjyohi
-:db-book: https://www.databass.dev/
-
-In promoting the PoC into a reference implementation, this top-down approach now
-needs to go beyond doing everything in memory, and the index data structure now
-needs to be disk-based.
-
-Roughly speaking, most storage engines out there are based either on B-Trees or
-LSM Trees, or some variations of those.
-
-But when building an immutable database, update-in-place B-Trees aren't an
-option, as it doesn't accommodate keeping historical views of the tree. LSM
-Trees may seem a better alternative, but duplication on the files with
-compaction are also ways to delete old data which is indeed useful for a
-historical view.
-
-I think the thing I'm after is a mix of a Copy-on-Write B-Tree, which would keep
-historical versions with the write IO cost amortization of memtables of LSM
-Trees. I don't know of any B-Tree variant out there that resembles this, so
-I'll call it "Flushing Copy-on-Write B-Tree".
-
-I haven't written any code for this yet, so all I have is a high-level view of
-what it will look like:
-
-. like Copy-on-Write B-Trees, changing a leaf involves creating a new leaf and
- building a new path from root to the leaf. The upside is that writes a lock
- free, and no coordination is needed between readers and writers, ever;
-. the downside is that a single leaf update means at least `H` new nodes that
- will have to be flushed to disk, where `H` is the height of the tree. To
- avoid that, the writer creates these nodes exclusively on the in-memory
- memtable, to avoid flushing to disk on every leaf update;
-. a background job will consolidate the memtable data every time it hits X MB,
- and persist it to disk, amortizing the cost of the Copy-on-Write B-Tree;
-. readers than will have the extra job of getting the latest relevant
- disk-resident value and merge it with the memtable data.
-
-The key difference to existing Copy-on-Write B-Trees is that the new trees are
-only periodically written to disk, and the intermediate values are kept in
-memory. Since no node is ever updated, the page utilization is maximum as it
-doesn't need to keep space for future inserts and updates.
-
-And the key difference to existing LSM Trees is that no compaction is run:
-intermediate values are still relevant as the database grows. So this leaves
-out tombstones and value duplication done for write performance.
-
-One can delete intermediate index values to reclaim space, but no data is lost
-on the process, only old B-Tree values. And if the database ever comes back to
-that point (like when doing a historical query), the B-Tree will have to be
-rebuilt from a previous value. After all, the database _is_ a set of datoms,
-and everything else is just derived data.
-
-Right now I'm still reading about other data structures that storage engines
-use, and I'll start implementing the "Flushing Copy-on-Write B-Tree" as I learn
-more{empty}footnote:learn-more-db[
- If you are interested in learning more about this too, the very best two
- resources on this subject are Andy Pavlo's "{pavlo-videos}[Intro to Database
- Systems]" course and Alex Petrov's "{db-book}[Database Internals]" book.
-] and mature it more.
-
-== Bottom-up: parser combinators and FFI
-
-:cbindgen: https://github.com/eqrion/cbindgen
-:cbindgen-next: https://blog.eqrion.net/future-directions-for-cbindgen/
-:syn-crate: https://github.com/dtolnay/syn
-:libedn: https://euandre.org/git/libedn/
-
-I chose Rust as it has the best WebAssembly tooling support.
-
-My goal is not to build a Rust database, but a database that happens to be in
-Rust. In order to reach client platforms, the primary API is the FFI one.
-
-I'm not very happy with current tools for exposing Rust code via FFI to the
-external world: they either mix C with C++, which I don't want to do, or
-provide no access to the intermediate representation of the FFI, which would be
-useful for generating binding for any language that speaks FFI.
-
-I like better the path that the author of {cbindgen}[cbindgen] crate
-{cbindgen-next}[proposes]: emitting an data representation of the Rust C API
-(the author calls is a `ffi.json` file), and than building transformers from the
-data representation to the target language. This way you could generate a C API
-_and_ the node-ffi bindings for JavaScript automatically from the Rust code.
-
-So the first thing to be done before moving on is an FFI exporter that doesn't
-mix C and C++, and generates said `ffi.json`, and than build a few transformers
-that take this `ffi.json` and generate the language bindings, be it C, C++,
-JavaScript, TypeScript, Kotlin, Swift, Dart,
-_etc_footnote:ffi-langs[
- Those are, specifically, the languages I'm more interested on. My goal is
- supporting client applications, and those languages are the most relevant for
- doing so: C for GTK, C++ for Qt, JavaScript and TypeScript for Node.js and
- browser, Kotlin for Android and Swing, Swift for iOS, and Dart for Flutter.
-].
-
-I think the best way to get there is by taking the existing code for cbindgen,
-which uses the {syn-crate}[syn] crate to parse the Rust
-code{empty}footnote:rust-syn[
- The fact that syn is an external crate to the Rust compiler points to a big
- warning: procedural macros are not first class in Rust. They are just like
- Babel plugins in JavaScript land, with the extra shortcoming that there is no
- specification for the Rust syntax, unlike JavaScript.
-pass:[</p><p>]
- As flawed as this may be, it seems to be generally acceptable and adopted,
- which works against building a solid ecosystem for Rust.
-pass:[</p><p>]
- The alternative that rust-ffi implements relies on internals of the Rust
- compiler, which isn't actually worst, just less common and less accepted.
-], and adapt it to emit the metadata.
-
-I've started a fork of cbindgen:
-[line-through]#x-bindgen#{empty}footnote:x-bindgen[
- _EDIT_: now archived, the experimentation was fun. I've started to move more
- towards C, so this effort became deprecated.
-]. Right now it is just a copy of cbindgen verbatim, and I plan to remove all C
-and C++ emitting code from it, and add a IR emitting code instead.
-
-When starting working on x-bindgen, I realized I didn't know what to look for in
-a header file, as I haven't written any C code in many years. So as I was
-writing {libedn}[libedn], I didn't know how to build a good C API to expose. So
-I tried porting the code to C, and right now I'm working on building a _good_ C
-API for a JSON parser using parser combinators:
-[line-through]#ParsecC#{empty}footnote:parsecc[
- _EDIT_: now also archived.
-].
-
-After "finishing" ParsecC I'll have a good notion of what a good C API is, and
-I'll have a better direction towards how to expose code from libedn to other
-languages, and work on x-bindgen then.
-
-What both libedn and ParsecC are missing right now are proper error reporting,
-and property-based testing for libedn.
-
-== Conclusion
-
-I've learned a lot already, and I feel the journey I'm on is worth going
-through.
-
-If any of those topics interest you, message me to discuss more or contribute!
-Patches welcome!
diff --git a/src/content/blog/2020/11/14/local-first-review.adoc b/src/content/blog/2020/11/14/local-first-review.adoc
deleted file mode 100644
index f9dd4b0..0000000
--- a/src/content/blog/2020/11/14/local-first-review.adoc
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,305 +0,0 @@
-= Local-First Software: article review
-:categories: presentation article-review
-
-:empty:
-:presentation: link:../../../../slides/2020/11/14/local-first.html FIXME
-:reviewed-article: https://martin.kleppmann.com/papers/local-first.pdf
-
-_This article is derived from a {presentation}[presentation] given at a Papers
-We Love meetup on the same subject._
-
-This is a review of the article "{reviewed-article}[Local-First Software: You
-Own Your Data, in spite of the Cloud]", by M. Kleppmann, A. Wiggins, P. Van
-Hardenberg and M. F. McGranaghan.
-
-== Offline-first, local-first
-
-The "local-first" term they use isn't new, and I have used it myself in the past
-to refer to this types of application, where the data lives primarily on the
-client, and there are conflict resolution algorithms that reconcile data created
-on different instances.
-
-Sometimes I see confusion with this idea and "client-side", "offline-friendly",
-"syncable", etc. I have myself used this terms, also.
-
-There exists, however, already the "offline-first" term, which conveys almost
-all of that meaning. In my view, "local-first" doesn't extend "offline-first"
-in any aspect, rather it gives a well-defined meaning to it instead. I could
-say that "local-first" is just "offline-first", but with 7 well-defined ideals
-instead of community best practices.
-
-It is a step forward, and given the number of times I've seen the paper shared
-around I think there's a chance people will prefer saying "local-first" in
-_lieu_ of "offline-first" from now on.
-
-== Software licenses
-
-On a footnote of the 7th ideal ("You Retain Ultimate Ownership and Control"),
-the authors say:
-
-____
-In our opinion, maintaining control and ownership of data does not mean that the
-software must necessarily be open source. (...) as long as it does not
-artificially restrict what users can do with their files.
-____
-
-They give examples of artificial restrictions, like this artificial restriction
-I've come up with:
-
-[source,sh]
-----
-#!/bin/sh
-
-TODAY=$(date +%s)
-LICENSE_EXPIRATION=$(date -d 2020-11-15 +%s)
-
-if [ $TODAY -ge $LICENSE_EXPIRATION ]; then
- echo 'License expired!'
- exit 1
-fi
-
-echo $((2 + 2))
-----
-
-Now when using this very useful program:
-
-[source,sh]
-----
-# today
-$ ./useful-adder.sh
-4
-# tomorrow
-$ ./useful-adder.sh
-License expired!
-----
-
-This is obviously an intentional restriction, and it goes against the 5th ideal
-("The Long Now"). This software would only be useful as long as the embedded
-license expiration allowed. Sure you could change the clock on the computer,
-but there are many other ways that this type of intentional restriction is in
-conflict with that ideal.
-
-However, what about unintentional restrictions? What if a software had an equal
-or similar restriction, and stopped working after days pass? Or what if the
-programmer added a constant to make the development simpler, and this led to
-unintentionally restricting the user?
-
-[source,sh]
-----
-# today
-$ useful-program
-# ...useful output...
-
-# tomorrow, with more data
-$ useful-program
-ERROR: Panic! Stack overflow!
-----
-
-Just as easily as I can come up with ways to intentionally restrict users, I can
-do the same for unintentionally restrictions. A program can stop working for a
-variety of reasons.
-
-If it stops working due do, say, data growth, what are the options? Reverting
-to an earlier backup, and making it read-only? That isn't really a "Long Now",
-but rather a "Long Now as long as the software keeps working as expected".
-
-The point is: if the software isn't free, "The Long Now" isn't achievable
-without a lot of wishful thinking. Maybe the authors were trying to be more
-friendly towards business who don't like free software, but in doing so they've
-proposed a contradiction by reconciling "The Long Now" with proprietary
-software.
-
-It isn't the same as saying that any free software achieves that ideal, either.
-The license can still be free, but the source code can become unavailable due to
-cloud rot. Or maybe the build is undocumented, or the build tools had specific
-configuration that one has to guess. A piece of free software can still fail to
-achieve "The Long Now". Being free doesn't guarantee it, just makes it
-possible.
-
-A colleague has challenged my view, arguing that the software doesn't really
-need to be free, as long as there is an specification of the file format. This
-way if the software stops working, the format can still be processed by other
-programs. But this doesn't apply in practice: if you have a document that you
-write to, and software stops working, you still want to write to the document.
-An external tool that navigates the content and shows it to you won't allow you
-to keep writing, and when it does that tool is now starting to re-implement the
-software.
-
-An open specification could serve as a blueprint to other implementations,
-making the data format more friendly to reverse-engineering. But the
-re-implementation still has to exist, at which point the original software
-failed to achieve "The Long Now".
-
-It is less bad, but still not quite there yet.
-
-== Denial of existing solutions
-
-:distgit: https://drewdevault.com/2018/07/23/Git-is-already-distributed.html
-
-When describing "Existing Data Storage and Sharing Models", on a
-footnote{empty}footnote:devil[
- This is the second aspect that I'm picking on the article from a footnote. I
- guess the devil really is on the details.
-] the authors say:
-
-____
-In principle it is possible to collaborate without a repository service, e.g. by
-sending patch files by email, but the majority of Git users rely on GitHub.
-____
-
-The authors go to a great length to talk about usability of cloud apps, and even
-point to research they've done on it, but they've missed learning more from
-local-first solutions that already exist.
-
-Say the automerge CRDT proves to be even more useful than what everybody
-imagined. Say someone builds a local-first repository service using it. How
-will it change anything of the Git/GitHub model? What is different about it
-that prevents people in the future writing a paper saying:
-
-____
-In principle it is possible to collaborate without a repository service, e.g. by
-using automerge and platform X, but the majority of Git users rely on GitHub.
-____
-
-How is this any better?
-
-If it is already {distgit}[possible] to have a local-first development workflow,
-why don't people use it? Is it just fashion, or there's a fundamental problem
-with it? If so, what is it, and how to avoid it?
-
-If sending patches by emails is perfectly possible but out of fashion, why even
-talk about Git/GitHub? Isn't this a problem that people are putting themselves
-in? How can CRDTs possibly prevent people from doing that?
-
-My impression is that the authors envision a better future, where development is
-fully decentralized unlike today, and somehow CRDTs will make that happen. If
-more people think this way, "CRDT" is next in line to the buzzword list that
-solves everything, like "containers", "blockchain" or "machine learning".
-
-Rather than picturing an imaginary service that could be described like
-"GitHub+CRDTs" and people would adopt it, I'd rather better understand why
-people don't do it already, since Git is built to work like that.
-
-== Ditching of web applications
-
-:pouchdb: https://pouchdb.com/
-:instant-apps: https://developer.android.com/topic/google-play-instant
-
-The authors put web application in a worse position for building local-first
-application, claiming that:
-
-____
-(...) the architecture of web apps remains fundamentally server-centric.
-Offline support is an afterthought in most web apps, and the result is
-accordingly fragile.
-____
-
-Well, I disagree.
-
-The problem isn't inherit to the web platform, but instead how people use it.
-
-I have myself built offline-first applications, leveraging IndexedDB, App Cache,
-_etc_. I wanted to build an offline-first application on the web, and so I did.
-
-In fact, many people choose {pouchdb}[PouchDB] _because_ of that, since it is a
-good tool for offline-first web applications. The problem isn't really the
-technology, but how much people want their application to be local-first.
-
-Contrast it with Android {instant-apps}[Instant Apps], where applications are
-sent to the phone in small parts. Since this requires an internet connection to
-move from a part of the app bundle to another, a subset of the app isn't
-local-first, despite being an app.
-
-The point isn't the technology, but how people are using it. Local-first web
-applications are perfectly possible, just like non-local-first native
-applications are possible.
-
-== Costs are underrated
-
-I think the costs of "old-fashioned apps" over "cloud apps" are underrated,
-mainly regarding storage, and that this costs can vary a lot by application.
-
-Say a person writes online articles for their personal website, and puts
-everything into Git. Since there isn't supposed to be any collaboration, all of
-the relevant ideals of local-first are achieved.
-
-Now another person creates videos instead of articles. They could try keeping
-everything local, but after some time the storage usage fills the entire disk.
-This person's local-first setup would be much more complex, and would cost much
-more on maintenance, backup and storage.
-
-Even though both have similar needs, a local-first video repository is much more
-demanding. So the local-first thinking here isn't "just keep everything local",
-but "how much time and money am I willing to spend to keep everything local".
-
-The convenience of "cloud apps" becomes so attractive that many don't even have
-a local copy of their videos, and rely exclusively on service providers to
-maintain, backup and store their content.
-
-The dial measuring "cloud apps" and "old-fashioned apps" needs to be specific to
-use-cases.
-
-== Real-time collaboration is optional
-
-If I were the one making the list of ideals, I wouldn't focus so much on
-real-time collaboration.
-
-Even though seamless collaboration is desired, it being real-time depends on the
-network being available for that. But ideal 3 states that "The Network is
-Optional", so real-time collaboration is also optional.
-
-The fundamentals of a local-first system should enable real-time collaboration
-when network is available, but shouldn't focus on it.
-
-On many places when discussing applications being offline, it is common for me
-to find people saying that their application works "even on a plane, subway or
-elevator". That is a reflection of when said developers have to deal with
-networks being unavailable.
-
-But this leaves out a big chunk of the world where internet connection is
-intermittent, or only works every other day or only once a week, or stops
-working when it rains, _etc_. For this audience, living without network
-connectivity isn't such a discrete moment in time, but part of every day life.
-I like the fact that the authors acknowledge that.
-
-When discussing "working offline", I'd rather keep this type of person in mind,
-then the subset of people who are offline when on the elevator will naturally be
-included.
-
-== On CRDTs and developer experience
-
-:archived-article: https://web.archive.org/web/20130116163535/https://labs.oracle.com/techrep/1994/smli_tr-94-29.pdf
-
-When discussing developer experience, the authors bring up some questions to be
-answered further, like:
-
-____
-For an app developer, how does the use of a CRDT-based data layer compare to
-existing storage layers like a SQL database, a filesystem, or CoreData? Is a
-distributed system harder to write software for?
-____
-
-That is an easy one: yes.
-
-A distributed system _is_ harder to write software for, being a distributed
-system.
-
-Adding a large layer of data structures and algorithms will make it more complex
-to write software for, naturally. And if trying to make this layer transparent
-to the programmer, so they can pretend that layer doesn't exist is a bad idea,
-as RPC frameworks have tried, and failed.
-
-See "{archived-article}[A Note on Distributed Computing]" for a critique on RPC
-frameworks trying to make the network invisible, which I think also applies in
-equivalence for making the CRDTs layer invisible.
-
-== Conclusion
-
-I liked a lot the article, as it took the "offline-first" philosophy and ran
-with it.
-
-But I think the authors' view of adding CRDTs and things becoming local-first is
-a bit too magical.
-
-This particular area is one that I have large interest on, and I wish to see
-more being done on the "local-first" space.