2015--08-30 Sunday - ES6 Notes

This posting is a placeholder for articles and documentation I'm reviewing to deepen my understanding of ES6

https://hacks.mozilla.org/category/es6-in-depth/

2015-08-29 Saturday - JSON Schema

This posting is a placeholder for some research I'm doing related to JSON Schema features/capabilities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON#JSON_Schema

"JSON Schema is an Internet Draft, currently version 4"

"Although JSON is intended solely as a data serialization format, its design as a non-strict subset of the JavaScript scripting language poses several security concerns. These concerns center on the use of a JavaScript interpreter to execute JSON text dynamically as embedded JavaScript. This exposes a program to errant or malicious scripts. This is a serious issue when dealing with data retrieved from the Internet. This easy and popular but risky technique exploits JSON's compatibility with the JavaScript eval() function" 

http://json-schema.org/

https://github.com/json-schema/json-schema

https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-zyp-json-schema-04

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/json-schema

https://www.npmjs.com/package/jsonschema

"JSON schema validator, which is designed to be fast and simple to use. The latest IETF published draft is v4, this library is mostly v4 compatible."

JSON Schema Lint
http://jsonschemalint.com/draft4/


http://crypt.codemancers.com/posts/2014-02-11-An-introduction-to-json-schema/

"The schema is still under development and the progress can be tracked by comparing the versions known as “drafts”. Currently, the schema is in the 4th version."

https://brandur.org/elegant-apis

"Much like the incoming request, Hyper-schema allows us to specify a schema for the outgoing response as well with the targetSchema keyword."

"Generate API documentation with Prmd." 

2015-08-29 Saturday - Suggestions for Developer Continued Self-Education

This week I prepared a list of suggestions for an engineering group - on some free online resources that might be of interest to those who wish to invest some time in their own continuing self-education. Perhaps others might find these of interest as well:

The AWS tutorials are free – and the examples and documentation is quite extensive

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/gettingstarted/latest/awsgsg-intro/gsg-aws-tutorials.html

The Seattle AWS Architects & Engineers meet-up is organized by a friend of mine, Teri Radichel – and most sessions are __very__ informative

http://www.meetup.com/Seattle-AWS-Architects-Engineers/

Thomas Erl’s SOAPatterns.org web site provides a very good (and free) overview of much of his content

http://www.soapatterns.org/

Stanford’s Video Lecture series on Startup Engineering has some very good free content

https://class.coursera.org/startup-001/lecture

This Forbes article from last year has quite a few suggested links to free online courses that are specific to Cloud Computing

http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2014/07/27/roundup-of-free-cloud-computing-online-courses-midyear-update/

The MIT  Open Course Ware series (offered through the Sloan School of Management) has a good course on ‘Management of Services: Concepts, Design, and Delivery’

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of-management/15-768-management-of-services-concepts-design-and-delivery-fall-2010/

One of the best sources of free technical information (in particular, for tracking leading edge developments) is slideshare

http://www.slideshare.net/search/slideshow?searchfrom=header&q=cloud+computing

In particular, I am almost always __very_- impressed by the decks prepared by the folks at Netflix and Etsy

http://www.slideshare.net/search/slideshow?searchfrom=header&q=netflix&ud=any&ft=all&lang=**&sort=

http://www.slideshare.net/search/slideshow?searchfrom=header&q=etsy+&ud=any&ft=all&lang=**&sort=

One of the best values for a professional programmer is a personal professional subscription to Safari ($39/month)

https://www.safaribooksonline.com/pricing/

There is a tremendous amount of valuable knowledge and expertise in the IBM Cloud Computing Redbooks

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/portals/cloud

I also personally find the following YouTube channels to be very informative:

https://www.youtube.com/user/InfoQVideos/videos?sort=dd&shelf_id=3&view=0

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmbAzITOKm4KAhV8FBECfMA

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYiM-C6AQib2RrUL0SetYXw

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd6MoB9NC6uYN2grvUNT-Zg

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqWY-NysmONxfBvA0MyuLPQ

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_x5XG1OV2P6uZZ5FSM9Ttw

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtXKDgv1AVoG88PLl8nGXmw

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKWaEZ-_VweaEx1j62do_vQ

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7Cd5Xo7wN99dMulzV8vLHQ

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiL8Y_wI1wzxWVBjGD7J5VQ

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGqsSnW6V-5lEOvUNETzX8g

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCksTNgiRyQGwi2ODBie8HdA

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeDh9omC_xMKrar2srQZiLg

2015-08-29 Saturday - Language Performance Benchmarks

I've spent some time this week reviewing some language performance benchmarks - notably looking for comparisons between Java, Go, Rust, Python, Groovy, and PHP. This page is a placeholder for links to resources that I find of interest to this topic:

http://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/

http://blog.carlesmateo.com/2014/10/13/performance-of-several-languages/

https://dzone.com/articles/java-7-vs-groovy-21

https://github.com/niwinz/lang-benchmarks

http://joshitech.blogspot.com/2014/11/go-vs-rust-productivity-vs-performance.html

http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/

http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64q/compare.php?lang=java&lang2=go

http://benchmarksgame.alioth.debian.org/u64q/compare.php?lang=rust&lang2=go

http://www.slideshare.net/brian-aerospike/go-meetup-nov142

https://www.reddit.com/r/golang/comments/2r1ybd/speed_of_go_compared_to_java_and_python/

https://code.google.com/p/gbench/

2015-08-23 Sunday - Building PHP Custom Extensions

I'm doing some background reading today on writing custom PHP extensions. This post is a placeholder for information that I find - which may be of interest to others.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/internals2.php

http://files.zend.com/help/Zend-Server/content/home.htm


http://php.webtutor.pl/en/2011/07/07/how-to-create-php-extensions-in-c-part-i-adding-simple-function/

http://php.webtutor.pl/en/2011/08/04/how-to-create-php-extensions-%E2%80%93-part-ii-introduction-to-php-variables/

http://www.swig.org/index.php

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-php-swig/

I also want to spend some time exploring Hip Hop and Hack
https://github.com/facebook/hhvm


http://devzone.zend.com/303/extension-writing-part-i-introduction-to-php-and-zend/

http://www.php-cpp.com/documentation/your-first-extension

2015-08-20 Thursday - Intel Speech System (ACAT) Open Sourced

This posting is a placeholder to the recent news that Intel open sourced their Speech System, Assistive Context-Aware Toolkit (ACAT).

This looks very interesting - and I look forward to spending some time in the near future exploring the SDK.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/cdndevs/archive/2015/08/14/intel-just-open-sourced-stephen-hawking-s-speech-system-and-it-s-a-net-4-5-winforms-app.aspx

https://github.com/01org/acat
https://github.com/01org/acat/releases

http://www.boldlies.com/now-you-can-speak-like-stephen-hawking-too-intel-releases-astrophysicists-speech-synthesiser-software-online/

https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/voice-recognition-and-synthesis-using-the-intel-perceptual-computing-sdk

https://software.intel.com/sites/landingpage/realsense/camera-sdk/v1.1/documentation/html/index.html?docm_introduction.html

2015-08-17 Monday - Interviewing Tool: Candidate Self-Scoring Scale

When interviewing candidates, I like to go through a relevant list of technologies for the given role/position and have the candidate provide a self assessment score of their level of experience / knowledge / depth of technical expertise.

Over the years, I developed the following scale to help facilitate those conversations. The intent is to seek to minimize the variability in the subjective nature of having someone just assign their own weight/interpretation to a 1-10 scale.

10 - Recognized as an industry expert on the given technology, outside of their company.

• Examples: A member of the development team of the given technology, authored books/articles, frequently invited speaker on the given technology at conferences, etc.

 9 - Recognized as one of the key experts on a given technology, within their company.


 8  - Highly Proficient

• You are able to quickly build solutions with the given technology. 
• You may occasionally refer back to documentation, but in general - you are quite familiar with the given technology.
• You have built, deployed, and maintained multiple solutions with the given technology

 7 - Practical Knowledge

• Examples: You've used the given technology on a project somewhere and have actually deployed something to production and maintained it

 6 - Played with it, have at least built a toy app, but may not have been deployed to production.

 5 - Downloaded it, look at the source code

 4 - Took a class, attended a conference session, completed brief online tutorials

 3 - Read a book

 2 - Read about it somewhere

• Examples: Industry journal, an article, someone's blog

 1 - Aware that it exists

Copyright 2015 by Kelvin D. Meeks under the Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License

2015-08-16 Sunday - Signed up for Coursera's Mining of Massive Datasets.

The class, 'Mining of Massive Datasets', starts on Sept 12 and runs through Oct 31

2015-08-16 Sunday - Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 Smart Wifi Router Model R7000

Today I installed a new wifi router in preparation for the Wave G gigabit internet service that will be activated tomorrow for my home office.

I purchased the Nighthawk AC1900 Smart Wifi Router (model R7000) by Netgear, from a local Frys.com for $178.99 (also available on Amazon)

• AC1900 WiFi – 600+1300 Mbps speeds
• 1GHz Dual Core Processor
• Upstream & downstream QoS for best gaming & video streaming experience
• Prioritized bandwidth for streaming videos or music
• Now with NETGEAR genie with remote access
• Easy & automatic installation of the NETGEAR router with current Internet provider gateway to upgrade your WiFi
• Free automatic backup software for Windows PC & Time Machine compatible for Macs
• Beamforming+ improves range & performance
• High powered amplifiers & antennas to extend your WiFi coverage
• Manage your home network with NETGEAR genie
• ReadySHARE USB Access – Wirelessly access & share USB hard drive & printer via 2 USB ports
• ReadySHARE Vault – Free software for automatic PC backup to a connected USB hard drive   
• VPN Support – Secure access to your home network
• Personal FTP service – Cusotmize free URL to create FTP server  
• Open Source Support – Download open source firmware from http://www.myopenrouter.com
• Guest Network Access – Separate & secure access for guests
• -Parental Controls – Website filtering for all your connected devices

2015-08-15 Saturday - VirtualBox 5.0.2

I upgraded today to VirtualBox 5.0.2
https://www.oracle.com/corporate/pressrelease/oracle-vm-virtualbox-5-070915.html
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

In particular, note:

"Disk Image Encryption: Data can be encrypted on virtual hard disk images transparently during runtime, using the industry standard AES algorithm with up to 256 bit data encryption keys (DEK"