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Introduction If you are looking at the state of software development you can see that serverless is starting to go mainstream. As complexity grows in software and more integration is introduced to produce a more dynamic and effective application you are bound to need more tooling. In this article, I want to introduce a serverless framework that might make you think again when looking at going serverless. Architect is an opinionated serverless framework that focuses on reducing the complexity of working with multiple AWS cloud services. It prioritizes speed with fast local dev, smart configurable defaults, and flexible infrastructure as code. Architect When you see the config file you should be able to tell what is going on and what resources are available. Architect supports multiple runtimes, but for the sake of simplicity, we will be using Node.js. In this introduction to Architect, we will be building creating a REST endpoint that takes user data converts it into QR code and sends email out using with my url. SES 💡 Please be sure that the email you use for this is example is authorized with SES Prerequisites AWS account Node.js Some cloud knowledge Step 1 First you will have to create a new architect app with the following command, which should create your boilerplate project with an file. app.arc npm init @architect architect-qr-email-service cd architect-qr-email-service Your app.arc file is your configuration files, which will be used to create your resources such as lambdas, database, queues as you  can see in the code below. There is not much going on but with time this file will grow with time. Architect takes the complexity of cloud formation, AWS's schema language, and refines it down into a declarative specification. When you look at the app.arc file, you are able to determine exactly what is going on and what resources were created. @app
architect-qr-email-service

@http ## http endpoint get
get /

# @aws
# profile default
# region us-west-1 Step 2 Now that we have a starting point let’s start creating some services. First, we will need a POST endpoint that will take some user data so we can store it for record-keeping.  This will not only be your route, but also the name in your directory as that is used by architect to determine what to build for what resource. record-creation Configuration File @app
architect-qr-email-service

@http
post /record-creation ***Folder Structure *** Let’s install some so you can see a bit more tooling from arc, which will help us parse body json and more. architect helper functions npm i @architect/functions -S Now let’s add starter code that will take user data and return a helping message that it is running. let arc = require('@architect/functions')


exports.handler = async function http(req) {

  const body = arc.http.helpers.bodyParser(req)

  if (!body || !body.email, !body.name) {
    return {
      statusCode: 400,
      body: 'Missing user email and or name'
    }
  }


  console.info({ ...body })


  return {
    statusCode: 200,
    headers: {
      'content-type': 'application/json;'
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({
      message: `User Data Received`
    })
  }
} One of the benefits of using architect is the simplicity of running serverless locally as it manages its own sandbox. Just run and if your files and app.arc file is correct should start service running on . Now that that is done just hit the post npm run start http://localhost:3333 The response should look something like this: So let’s take a step back and realize what we just did. We created  API gateway locally that pointed to a directory that holds a lambda function called . record-creation Step 3 Now let’s do a bit more with this. We should take advantage of AWS lambda and utilize one of the best tools serverless echo system has to offer queues, which in the AWS world that resource is called . Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) This we will be doing Creating two queues functions creating a dynamodb table that takes a index combination of (email and name) You app.arc configuration file will have to be updated to add 2 new queues called and . notification-handler record-handler Now that we have updated the configuration file. We will create a similar file structure, but instead of adding an http directory we will be creating under a queues directory. You can do this manually or run this command will read app.arc file and create all new corresponding files. npx arc init If you look at the app.arc file you will notice that each queue has its own corresponding directory. So directory will handle all record-handler queue events that are published to it. record-handler Let’s modify the so it publishes to a queue . record-creation record-handler let arc = require('@architect/functions')

exports.handler = async function http(req) {
  const body = arc.http.helpers.bodyParser(req)

  if (!body || !body.email || !body.name || !body.twitter) {
    console.error(body, 'Missing user email, name, twitter handle')
    return {
      statusCode: 400,
      body: 'Missing user email and or name'
    }
  }


// publish to the record-handler queue based on our config
  await arc.queues.publish({
    name: 'record-handler',
    payload: { ...body },
  })

  console.info('message published to record-handler')

  return {
    statusCode: 200,
    headers: {
      'content-type': 'application/json;'
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({
      message: `User Data Received`
    })
  }
} Now let’s modify the record handler that will save it to dynamo db and push it to a new queue as this function is only responsible for saving the record.  You can see we use  @architect/functions , which allows us to connect to dynamo db instance and save events for more on this see arc.codes docs. let arc = require('@architect/functions')

exports.handler = async function queue(event) {
  console.info('incoming message to queue record-handler', event)

  let client = await arc.tables()
  // handle incoming event, which could come in as a array
  await Promise.all(event.Records.map(async record => {
    //save a record for each one and publish new event

    const parsedBody = JSON.parse(record.body)
    const body = { ...parsedBody, id: Math.random() }

    await client.records.put(body)

    await arc.queues.publish({
      name: 'notification-handler',
      payload: body,
    })
  }))

} Now that we are publishing to queue let’s do a little more let’s handle the event and push out an email using aws-sdk , with a qr of your Twitter handle. notification-handler let QRCode = require('qrcode')
let AWS = require('aws-sdk');

exports.handler = async function queue(event) {
  try {
    console.info('incoming message to queue notification-handler', event)
    const AwsSes = new AWS.SES({ apiVersion: '2010-12-01' })

    // handle incoming event, which could come in as a array
    await Promise.all(event.Records.map(async record => {

      //save a record for each one and publish new event
      const parsedBody = JSON.parse(record.body)
      const qrcodeString = `https://twitter.com/${parsedBody.twitter}`

      const base64qr = await new Promise((resolve, _reject) => {
        QRCode.toString(qrcodeString, { type: 'terminal' },
          function (err, QRcode) {
            if (err) return console.error("error occurred")
            // Printing the generated code for your debugging purposes
            console.info(QRcode)
          })

        QRCode.toDataURL(qrcodeString, function (err, code) {
          if (err) return console.error("error occurred")
          resolve(code)
        })
      })


      const sendPromise = await AwsSes.sendEmail({
        Destination: {
          ToAddresses: [
            parsedBody.email,
          ]
        },
        Message: {
          Body: {
            Html: {
              Charset: "UTF-8",
              Data: `<img src="${base64qr}" alt=${parsedBody.twitter} />`
            },
            Text: {
              Charset: "UTF-8",
              Data: qrcodeString
            }
          },
          Subject: {
            Data: 'Architect QR Email Service ' + parsedBody.twitter
          }
        },
        Source: parsedBody.email,
      }).promise();

      console.info("Email Sent", sendPromise)
    }))


  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Failed to handle notification message', error)
    throw new Error('Failed to handle notification message')
  }
} Step 4 Let’s test what we have now locally by running and triggering the same rest endpoint as before your result should be QR code in your terminal and email. num run start I would like to note that the email you use should be authorized in AWS SES for this to work. So any issues go to get this done. here The result in your email should be something like the following Step 5 One additional thing you will need to do is create a custom AWS policy to give you access to SES service.  Simply go to IAM in your AWS console and create a policy under SES service so you can manually add the JSON policy. Please name the policy as you will need it to match your custom macro later. ArcSESPolicy {
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": "ses:*",
            "Resource": "*"
        }
    ]
} What is a macro ? A macro extends the functionality of your architect app with standard CloudFormation. It allows developers to add any resources or modify existing ones extending Architect into the entire AWS ecosystem supported by CloudFormation So for us, we will add a new field in app.arc and add a new directory called macro. In the macro directory add . add-policies.js Configuration File @app
architect-qr-email-service

@http
post /record-creation ## http endpoint that will listen for our rest call

@queues
record-handler ## handle message that is publish by record-creation endpoint and saves it
notification-handler ## triggers email notification

## configuration to create a dynamo db 
@tables 
records
  email *String
  name **String


@macros 
add-policies ## modify your cloudformation during build timeto add SES policy permission File structure add-policies.js code to be added /**
 * Add Managed Policies
 *
 * @param {object} arc - Parsed `app.arc` value
 * @param {object} sam - Generated CloudFormation template
 * @param {string} stage - Deployment target runtime environment 'staging' or 'production'
 * @returns {object} Modified CloudFormation template
 */

module.exports = async function macro(arc, cfn) {
  if (cfn.Resources.Role) {
    const newPolicies = [
      {
        PolicyName: 'ArcSESPolicy', // remember this should match your ses policy
        PolicyDocument: {
          Statement: [
            {
              Effect: 'Allow',
              Action: ['ses:*'],
              Resource: '*',
            },
          ],
        },
      },
    ]
    cfn.Resources.Role.Properties.Policies = [...cfn.Resources.Role.Properties.Policies, ...newPolicies]
  }
  return cfn
} Step 6 Let’s deploy this baby to AWS for that all you have to do is run , which will deploy a QA stack for you. This deploy command reads your app.arc configuration files and creates your cloudformation file that will be used to create all resources. npx arc deploy Once that is completed you can verify all the resources we're created. SQS queues: Lambdas: Dynamo table: API Gateway: Now that we verified all the resources let’s test the url that your deploy script should have produced. Mine looked something like this . https://ka3ube9vj6.execute-api.us-west-2.amazonaws.com With that, I will just trigger gateway with the same route as before of record-creation curl --request POST \
  --url https://ka3ube9vj6.execute-api.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/record-creation \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
	"email": "martin@gizmodlabs.com",
	"name": "Martin Patino",
	"twitter": "thisguymartin"
}' If everything works correctly you should be getting qrcode email from your aws service same as before. 🛑 If for some reason you do not get a email. This could be do to a error possibly permission reason. I would recommend that you purge your queue with dangling message and debug the issues if not your message will be dangling their until the issue is resolved. . See cloudwatch for logging information Step 7 Once you are done and no longer want the project in your aws account simply run and should delete all resources and dynamodb tables. npx arc destroy --app architect-qr-email-service --force Thank you for joining me on this serverless journey of yours and I hope this gave you a small taste of the power of . Architect Here is the GitHub repo if you require further info: or assistance. https://github.com/thisguymartin/architect-qr-email-service Also published on: https://dev.to/thisguymartin/architect-a-easy-way-to-jump-into-the-serverless-world-285h

How to 'Architect' an Easy Way into the Serverless World

This is Part two of a series wherein we build a “Hello World” application. If you are late to the party, I encourage you to check Part 1 first. _Wherein we try to use the Microsoft Visual C++ Compiler on Linux_hackernoon.com A C++ Hello World And A Glass Of Wine, Oh My ! Hic Sunt Arcūs So, our Boss came in to check on our progress. They were starting to wonder why it takes a whole day to port a 3 lines application to a new system. But the real reason of their visit was to ask for a new feature. While our “Hello world” business is booming, the marketing department thinks the lack of graphical UI is hurting sales. See, nobody escapes software bloat. Still. Eager to make the boss forget the time it takes to setup MSVC on Linux, I went above and beyond and completed a full rewrite of our app. Of course, we also provide a small nifty build file. The Linux version is still building fine. Duh The author likes to pretend all Linux machines are born with Qt And QBS installed. Just play along. In case of nuclear disaster, click “no” Let’s enthusiastically build the Windows version Not so Qt. Yeah, turns out, we need a build of Qt compatible with our compiler. Right now, even QBS doesn’t know about Qt. I went to download Qt on . That site is getting worse by the day. The Qt company tries to dissuade people to get the open source version. But if you go to you have all the tarballs and installers. https://www.qt.io/download https://download.qt.io/ Speaking of installers, they do not offer a 64 bits version for Windows. in 2018. We may have to restrict ourselves to 32 bits builds and extract that with WINE. Except it doesn’t work because the Qt installer framework has no silent mode ( apparently, you can script a silent mode in 100 lines of JavaScript ) and uses some Windows methods unsupported by WINE. Nevermind. I will build Qt myself to prove how awesome my WINE toolchain is. And it will be 64 bits. I’ll get promoted and the intern who has 4 PHD will bring me cappuccinos. Maybe people will even use my name as a verb ( If you don’t yet, you should definitively check it out !). Godbolt Except. Qt still uses to build itself. And exists only to make look cool and modern. There is an to build Qt with and while this is very exciting, it may be a bit too cutting edge, even for this blog. qmake qmake cmake ongoing effort qbs So, we are stuck with . is a build system generator which unfortunately conflates toolchains and build systems. I did attempt to create configuration for my wine toolchain, it was actually rather simple, and it did generates some Makefiles with the proper commands. But they were Makefiles for which is a make-like tool for windows albeit with a format that is not quite compatible with the original make. I tried using (which works fine) but then all the subsequents / calls happen in the wine environment which means it executes the actual cl.exe rather than our wrapper and so our crude slashes-to-backslashes transformation script never gets run and the compilation fails because assumes anything starting with is an option. And we can’t get nmake to call our fake wrapper since nmake is a windows process and windows doesn’t know about ELF. qmake qmake nmake nmake cl.exe link.exe cl.exe / cl.exe It is left as an exercise to the reader to calculate how many millions of dollars Windows using as a path separator and is costing the industry. \ The solution would be to patch . Which even the maintainer of actively avoid to do. So let’s not do that. qmake qmake I’m very sorry, but we will go back to our Windows VM and build Qt from there. That should be simple, right ? Of course, the VC build tools are unable to set up their environment properly. How many Microsoft Engineers does it take to set up a build environment ? Certainly quite a few, since I was able to find about 1900 lines of batch scripts serving that purpose, in 20 or so files. There are probably more. I manage to get my environment sorted in 3 lines. Remember, regardless of how complex your build system is, it boils down to a handful of variables. A compiler doesn’t needs much. set "INCLUDE=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual       Studio\2017\BuildTools\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.12.25827\include;%INCLUDE%"set "LIB=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\BuildTools\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.12.25827\lib\x64\;%LIB%"set "PATH=%PATH%;C:\Users\cor3ntin\Documents\qtbase-everywhere-src-5.10.0\gnuwin32" After that, it was a matter of downloading Qt 5.10 setting up a x64 build environment ( I used + the three lines above, but you can set up manually and not bother with at all). vcvars64.bat PATH vcvars.bat Make sure is installed and in the . perl PATH For the purpose of this article, I only need Qt Base (Core, Gui, Network… ) so that’s what I’m building. Building QtWebEngine - which uses chromium - is a bit more involved. configure -release -opensource -confirm-license -platform win32-msvc -nomake examples -nomake testsnmakenmake install Once Qt has done building, copy the folders back to your linux host. You need at least . put them in a new directory. I called mine . bin, include, lib, plugins qt5_10base-x64 I had issues with the includes referencing . So you can run from the Qt directory on windows and use the include folder generated in . Even then I had to copy a few files manually ( qconfig.h, q{core,gui,widgets,network,xml}-config.h) from the src folder to their respective include folder. Definitively a bit fiddly but eventually you will get there. src perl bin\syncqt.pl -copy -windows -version 5.10.0 -outdir cpy cpy My Linux is slowly morphing into a Windows Box. I expect Clippy to appear at any moment now. So now we have Qt. But how can we tell QBS to actually use it ? The profile system of QBS is one of the things that make it great. You can set up compiler toolchain globally and switch from one to another effortlessly. However to works with Qt, qbs needs a complete set of modules per profile. The gcc profile we used earlier is made of 160 qbs files setting each Qt library and component. Fortunately, all you need to do is to call this handy tool. qbs-setup-qt -hThis tool creates qbs profiles from Qt versions. Usage: qbs-setup-qt \[--settings-dir <settings directory>\] --detect  

qbs-setup-qt \[--settings-dir <settings directory>\] <path to qmake> <profile name>  

qbs-setup-qt -h|--help The first form tries to auto-detect all known Qt versions, looking them up via the PATH environment variable. The second form creates one profile for one Qt version. Except we can’t call that tool from linux because the built qmake is a windows application expected to run on Windows. Hopefully, someday we will get rid of qmake entirely, but for now, back to our Windows machine. We first of qbs and run the tool. install a windows build qbs-windows-x86_64-1.10.0\bin\qbs-setup-qt.exe --settings-dir . bin\qmake.exe msvc14-x64-qt That should create a folder with the proper Qt configuration. Move that folder to your linux machine in the folder created earlier. qbs qt5_10base-x64 If you open on of the file, say , you will notice a reference to a path. For some reason, in mine it’s . I guess I messed up somewhere since we should have a windows path. In any case we need to transform that path to the actual locations of Qt on our Linux machine, which is easy to do, just use . .qbs 1.10.0/profiles/msvc14-x64-qt/modules/Qt/gui/gui.qbs /usr/local/Qt-5.10.0 sed find -name "*.qbs" -exec sed -i -e 's\#/usr/local/Qt-5.10.0\#/home/cor3ntin/dev/cross-compilers/windows/qt-5.10-msvc-x64\#g' {} \; We then need to modify our to use those qt modules. Edit the QBS file created in part one to reference them: qbs.conf qt-project\qbs\profiles\msvc14-x86_64\preferences\qbsSearchPaths=/home/cor3ntin/dev/Qt/qbs-wine-toolchain,/home/cor3ntin/dev/cross-compilers/windows/qt5_10base-x64/qbs/1.10.0/profiles/msvc14-x64-qt I realize it’s all a bit tricky. Eventually though, we can run and it compiles our Qt-based hello world for Windows. qbs It won’t run because it can’t find the Qt dll. You can either copy the dll to the build directory, or make sure they are in the The windows/wine that is. PATH. PATH The only way I found to do that is to run — make sure to do it from the appropriate and add the location of the Qt’s bin directory to which is under . regedit WINEPREFIX Path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment If you know a way to script that away, please let me know. Using regedit on Linux. What would I not do for my readers ? We also need to put a file next to our built helloworld.exe binary to tell Qt where to load the plugins from. In my case qt.conf [Paths]Prefix = /home/cor3ntin/dev/cross-compilers/windows/qt5_10base-x64/Plugins = plugins And that’s it ! It wasn’t too hard, was it ? I made a clicky thing ! And So, Microsoft Studio Visual C++ Compiler is the greatest thing ever ! A recent study conducted on two preschoolers shows that millennials like rainbows. I was immediately asked to made our app more rainbow-y. Ambiguously labeled buttons are apparently the horsemen of the pretend apocalypse so we will also get rid of them. What we need to do is iterate over our string an inject some html markup around each character so that they are render in different colors. Iterating over some container will require us to use . There is no other way. range-v3 literally Making WordArt Great Again. Isn’t that great ? But, and I’m sure you you will be utterly flabbergasted to learn that is not capable of compiling . I know, it’s a total blow, and a complete let down. msvc range-v3 Microsoft Studio Visual C++ Compiler Defeated. There is absolutely nothing we can do. It’s not like there exists a or to transform our string. Please stop saying I purposefully made up a contrived story just so I could use ranges and defeat msvc with rainbows. That would be . msvc-compatible port of [range-v3](https://github.com/Microsoft/Range-V3-VS2015) some other way mean The only reasonable thing is to ditch and replace it by something else. But what ? doesn’t understand the MSVC headers and libs, is quite expensive, is no more maintained. msvc Mingw icc Cfront By now, you certainly know where I’m coming at, don’t you ? ! If you didn’t know about , it’s a drop in replacement for except it’s actually clang, so it will make you all warm and fuzzy inside. clang-cl clang-cl cl.exe Clang was designed properly and it’s an amazing tool for a lot of reasons, but most importantly: It’s runs on all major OSes It doesn’t activate OS-specific features at compile time, but at runtime. Which means it will let you target anything from anywhere. It offers a driver ( a command line interface, if you like ) compatible with that of msvc It’s easy to build ( and if you ever attempted to build GCC, you know how hard building a compiler can be.) It’s open-source and its designed isn’t actively constrained by political motives. So, let’s use Clang ! If you don’t have follow the documentation of your Linux distribution, it should come with clang-cl by default ( it’s merely a symbolic link to clang ). clang Or if you are like me, checkout out and build the trunk, ! it’s full of goodness Beside being a drop in replacement, there are a few things we need to do. The toolchain module we wrote for wine does not quite work since it transforms slashes to backslashes. QBS I did copy the toolchain modules and fixed some other details. That will end up on GitHub soon. Creating a QBS profile for clang-cl is straight forward, copy the one from wine and change the toolchain name from to and point the to somewhere containing and . msvc clang-cl toolchainInstallPath clang-cl lld-link Oh, didn’t I mention ? It’s a drop in replacement for . is also a replacement for on unix, and it’s much, much faster than and so you should ! lld-link link.exe lld ld ld gold check it out and use it We are not quite done yet. Case consistency at Microsoft is a serious matter. Microsoft Windows is designed around case insensitive file systems. Which I’m sure looked like a good idea at the time. However, unless you are masochistic enough to run your Linux machine on , chances are your file-system is case sensitive. And that is an issue for us. FAT How bad it is, really ? Well… cl . ibahadmin.libwdsClientAPI. sapi. ibsensorsapi.lib etup . ib A UI L LIBP L S API L This is just a small selection of files. I don’t suppose there is anything they can do to fix that now, it’s too late. We could attempt to fix the case issues by changing the filename of every library and header. But that will probably not work since third party libraries aren’t consistent either. So even if we attempt to fix our build files sooner or later we will run on a case issue. So, the “proper” (for some definition of proper) solution would be to trick the Linux kernel into being case insensitive. And to that we need to use a case-insensitive system. Fortunately, a file can be a file system, so we will create a file large enough to hold the windows SDK, format it with a case-insensitive filesystem such as EXFAT and put the SDK there. Please note that NTFS is case sensitive, even if the Windows kernel is not. dd if=/dev/zero of=win_sdk_10.fs bs=1024 count=$((1024 * 100 * 3))mkfs.exfat win_sdk_10.fsmv sdk_10 sdk_10.bakmkdir sdk_10sudo mount win_sdk_10.fsmv sdk_10.bak/* sdk_10 You gotta love Linux. And now, compiling with clang-cl works. However, running the program exposes a bug. Our program compiles with clang and runs but it exhibits a nasty bug. And yet, the same executable copied to a virtual machine runs fine. Such greetings. I’m still not sure where the bug actually is. It appears to be either in range-v3 or my use thereof, and yet it seems odd that it would expose a different run-time behavior. But that’s what’s great about having a bigger set of development environments, if you have bugs, the are more likely to get exposed. For one, this nasty graphical glitch made me realized I should handle white spaces as a special case. Oh, and if you want to check what clang is actually doing, you can use Microsoft’s found in . This tool is equivalent of and for unix. dumpbin.exe msvc2017/bin/Hostx64/x64/ ldd nm Interestingly, the clang artifact looks exactly like a msvc-produced one, albeit with few extra sections. Including the CRT and the vcruntime ! Here is the MSVC built binary. Right now is and offers no support for debug info. is except for some exceptions handling. You can mix and match and . ldd-link still experimental clang-cl mostly done cl.exe clang-cl link.exe lld-link I can’t advise you to use in production (yet, it’s getting there ) but it’s an amazing tool to add to your CI and development environment. clang-cl It’s all I have for you today, I hope you’ve learned something! … One more thing … See you in Part 3 ! _This is Part 3 on my series about cross-compilation. You can check out Part 1 and Part 2 first !_medium.com A C++ Hello World And The Rose Gold Walled Garden Of Doom

A C++ Hello World And the Cute Heartless Rainbow

On June 20th, 2017 I launched a color contrast called , a small app that sits in your Mac’s menubar and yells at you if your color contrast isn’t good enough. tool Shade Here’s how things went ( they went okay!) tl;dr C’mon Medium, let’s work on that green. Shaking Things Up I left my role at in April of 2017 — the best job I’ve ever had ( !) — to pursue some side projects and figure out my source of motivation. I packed my bags and headed roughly 1.2 miles north to move apartments in the same town in New Jersey where I had lived for the past few years (Khan Academy ❤s remote, did I mention ?). Khan Academy they’re hiring they’re hiring After spending a few weeks catching up on some old video games, spending time with friends and family, and reorienting myself with a life where I don’t have to worry about a video page breaking, I decided it was time to scratch an itch and get to coding. First order of business: the contrast tool I’ve always wanted. — Contrary to this section’s title, I’m a creature of habit and things generally stayed the same. I still woke up at 7:30. Still made the same cup of mediocre Folgers instant coffee half its weight in creamer. Still wore the same black Calvin Klein T-shirt I wore everyday (don’t worry I have like 20 of them). Still , and still didn’t really know what I wanted to do. made an effort to leave my apartment But I didn’t need a plan, I just wanted to make something. So for the next 4 weeks, I spent roughly an hour a day sitting in front of my text editor, cramming as many technologies as I could into a small menubar app. Tech & Process I’m not big on process, but my rules for this project (or, rather, “experiment”) were as follows: Make something quick and cheap Find out the hard way if people will give you money for it So I spent my first day getting a simple React app and running (shout out to for making this painless) in an electron menubar app (shout out to for this one). nwb menubar About an hour later, it was up and running. I had no idea if the tech would stand the test of time, and quite frankly I didn’t really care (spoiler alert: the setup today is pretty much the same and it works fine). . Momentum was my priority I had a billion unknowns for this “experiment,” and cataloged them in a Trello board inspired by Rich Hickey’s . I categorized my board into and , and my process went as follows: Hammock Driven Development Things I Don’t Know Things I Know If an idea popped in my head (i.e. “How to remove dev dependencies from the build”) I would add it to More conceptual things, such as “Can this be a menubar app?” also went in this column. Things I Don’t Know. I would then continue my for the hour, then take a long break (usually a walk — again, ). work get out of your apartment When the current task at hand, whatever it was, was done — I would reorganize my and I’d either have an answer to questions from earlier (maybe through thinking or through code), or I would have uncovered more unknowns. Things I Don’t Know Things I Know. Over time grew, and gradually shrunk. This was a good feeling, and I made sure to relish in it. Things I Know Things I Don’t Know This went on for about three weeks, during which I had solicited some beta testers on twitter and sent out two waves of invites to try out the app. I also settled on a name and logo, but that stuff isn’t really important. Beta feedback went to, you guessed it, the column**.** Things I Don’t Know This work was generally very relaxed. A couple gnarly bugs popped up here and there, but for the most part (my #1 priority) at my desk or on the couch watching — a cowboy from Arizona who streams himself attempting to beat NES games as quickly as possible (I’m not kidding, Arcus’s stream is amazing and so very relaxing). In total I worked in front of a computer for about 20 hours, but in reality I spent double or triple that if you take into account the times I “took my work home with me.” I worked sustainably Arcus87 on Twitch7 Release Eventually I got to a point where I felt I knew everything I needed to know, with the exception of “Would people actually pay me for this thing?” A card titled just that sat alone in , and it was time to find out. Things I Don’t Know I spent the next week filling out some tax forms for Apple, put on some finishing touches, , designed some screenshots for the app store, and a couple dozen other things I hadn’t considered. I didn’t use Trello for this, but that wasn’t important. Momentum momentum momentum. made a landing page On the morning of June 20th, 2017, I got the email from Apple that Shade was ready for sale (I priced the app at $4.99 USD), and sent out the following tweet before hopping in my parents’ pool with my older brother. Response, Reflections, and Beyond Compared to previous projects I’ve “released,” the response for Shade has been…okay. Hacker News and Reddit didn’t take the bait, Product Hunt offered only a mild presence near the top, and word has spread primarily through my network (thanks to a few wonderful folks who shared it beyond my initial tweet ❤). Sales-wise, nothing extraordinary, but something I’m still very much proud of. I’m no growth expert, but I believe this is what’s known as “Great Potential For Hockey-Stick Growth.” To my nonexistent investors, sales for Shade have “increased in total at a promising yet declining rate” and “Q4 projections put us in the 8 or 9 figures.” After one week I’ve moved $258 worth of product, which amounts to $170 for me after you take out Apple’s cut. Enough to cover the fees I paid to establish my LLC, but not enough to cover Apple’s license or any of my other expenses. But this is money that I made. Not money I was given for showing up at work, money that people gave to me for a thing I created. That’s a very cool feeling, and I’m trying my best to not forget that. — On an additional personal note, it just feels good to have a thing out there that people are using. Answering support emails, prioritizing bugs and features for my next version of Shade, and figuring out ways to get this in front of more people are all exciting challenges that I haven’t a damn clue how to solve. There were plenty of moments where I wasn’t sure if Shade would sell, or if I even had the to charge money for this thing instead of selling it for GitHub stars, but I tried to keep true to my word: . Turns out at least 50 people would. guts Make something quick and find out the hard way if people would pay for it Above all else, I’m having a lot of fun. If at some point I can use this app or some other to help cover some of my expenses, even better. For now, I’ll just keep playing around with ideas, and try repeating and refining this process on a couple other tricks I have up my sleeve. — Feel free to follow me on twitter where I mostly tweet bad jokes and complain about technology. Please consider buying Shade , my rent is very expensive.

20 Hours of Work, $258 in Sales — The First Week of Shade

United States v. Apple INC Court Filing, retrieved on March 21, 2024 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This part is 24 of 25. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here F. Sixth Claim for Relief: Violations of Wisconsin State Law 229. Plaintiff State of Wisconsin repeats and re-alleges and incorporates by reference every paragraph and allegation in this Complaint as if fully set forth herein. 230. The aforementioned practices by Apple violate Wisconsin’s Antitrust Act, Wis. Stat. Ch. § 133.03 et seq. These violations substantially affect the people of Wisconsin and have impacts within the State of Wisconsin. 231. Plaintiff State of Wisconsin, through its Attorney General and under its antitrust enforcement authority in Wis. Stat. Ch. 133, is entitled to all remedies available under Wis. Stat. §§ 133.03, 133.16, 133.17, and 133.18. Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case retrieved on March 21, 2024, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. justice.gov

Apple Faces Allegations in Wisconsin: Accused of Antitrust Violations Impacting Consumers

United States v. Apple INC Court Filing, retrieved on March 21, 2024 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This part is 20 of 25. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here B. Second Claim for Relief, in the Alternative: Attempted Monopolization of the Performance Smartphone Market in the United States in Violation of Sherman Act § 2 205. Plaintiffs incorporate the allegations of paragraphs 1 through 204 above. 206. Performance smartphones in the United States is a relevant antitrust market, and Apple has attempted to monopolize that market. 207. Apple has attempted to monopolize the performance smartphone market in the United States through an exclusionary course of conduct and the anticompetitive acts described herein. Each of Apple’s actions individually and collectively increased Apple’s market power in the performance smartphone market. 208. Apple’s anticompetitive acts include, but are not limited to, its contractual restrictions against app creation, distribution, and access to APIs that have impeded apps and technologies including, but not limited to, super apps, cloud streaming, messaging, wearables, and digital wallets. The areas identified in this complaint reflect a non-exhaustive list of recent anticompetitive acts but as technology advances, both the technologies impeded and the specific manner of impediment may shift in response to technological and regulatory change consistent with Apple’s past conduct. 209. While each of Apple’s acts is anticompetitive in its own right, Apple’s interrelated and interdependent actions have had a cumulative and self-reinforcing effect that has harmed competition and the competitive process. 210. In undertaking this course of conduct, Apple has acted with specific intent to monopolize, and to destroy effective competition in, the performance smartphone market in the United States. There is a dangerous probability that, unless restrained, Apple will succeed in monopolizing the performance smartphone market in the United States, in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act. Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case retrieved on March 21, 2024, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. justice.gov

DOJ Accuses Apple of Anticompetitive Conduct in the Smartphone Market

The United States v Meta Platforms Court Filing October 24, 2023 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This is part 94 of 100. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here COUNT XLIX: VIOLATIONS OF RHODE ISLAND DECEPTIVE TRADE PRACTICES ACT, R.I. GEN. L. §§ 6-13.1-1 TO 6-13.1-10 1133. The State of Rhode Island incorporates and realleges each of the paragraphs 1 through 850 as if fully set forth herein. 1134. The Rhode Island Deceptive Trade Practices Act (RI DTPA) makes unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce unlawful. R.I. Gen. Laws § 6-13.1-2. 1135. The RI DTPA defines “unfair methods of competition and unfair and deceptive acts or practices” as, among other things, “conduct that . . . creates a likelihood of confusion or of misunderstanding,” “any other methods, acts, or practices that mislead or deceive members of the public in a material respect,” and “any act or practice that is unfair or deceptive to the consumer.” R.I. Gen. Laws § 6-13.1-1(6)(xii), (xiv), (xiii). 1136. Any person, firm, or corporation who violates the RI DTPA is liable for a civil penalty up to $10,000 for each violation. R.I. Gen. Laws § 6-13.1-8. 1137. Meta’s acts or practices enumerated in the foregoing paragraphs have been in the conduct of trade or commerce, directly or indirectly, in Rhode Island. 1138. As alleged herein, Meta made representations including that Meta’s Social Media Platforms are not designed to harm young users or to induce compulsive use, that Meta’s Social Media Platforms are less addictive than they actually are, that the incidence of negative user experiences was lower than it actually was, that Meta was not prioritizing profit maximization over young users’ well-being when it was, that Meta effectively excluded under-13 users when its safeguards were insufficient, that Meta complied with federal laws and regulations related to the exclusion of under-13 users when it did not, and that Meta did not collect user data for the purpose of causing addiction to its Social Media Platforms when it had such a purpose. These representations constitute conduct that creates a likelihood of confusion or misunderstanding and that deceive and mislead members of the public regarding Meta’s Social Media Platforms. R.I. Gen. Laws § 6-13.1-1(6)(xii), (xiii), (xiv). 1139. Similarly, as alleged herein, Meta is engaging in unfair acts to consumers, including implementing psychologically manipulative, engagement-inducing features that harm consumers and targeting young users despite knowing their specific vulnerability to compulsive and unhealthy platform use. These unfair acts constitute conduct that is especially unfair to younger users. R.I. Gen. Laws § 6-13.1-1(6)(xiii). 1140. Meta’s acts or practices, both past and continuing, are immoral, unethical, oppressive, unscrupulous, and substantially injurious to Rhode Island consumers. Pursuant to R.I. Gen. Laws § 6-13.1-2 and § 6-13.1-5, the acts, practices, representations, and omissions of Meta described herein are unlawful, violate the prohibition against unfair or deceptive acts or practices found in RI DTPA, and restraint of these practices is in the public interest. Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case 4:23-cv-05448 retrieved on October 25, 2023, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. Washingtonpost.com Lead image by Dima Solomin on Unsplash

Meta Accused of Violating Rhode Island Deceptive Trade Practices Act

The United States v Meta Platforms Court Filing October 24, 2023 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This is part 93 of 100. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here COUNT XLVIII: UNFAIR ACTS OR PRACTICES BY META IN VIOLATION OF THE PENNSYLVANIA UNFAIR TRADE PRACTICES AND CONSUMER PROTECTION LAW (UTPCPL) 1127. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania realleges and incorporates herein by reference each of the paragraphs 1 through 850 as if fully set forth herein. 1128. At all relevant times set forth herein, Meta has engaged in trade and commerce pursuant to 73 P.S. § 201-2(3) of the UTPCPL, in connection with its sale and advertisement of merchandise. 1129. Unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of trade or commerce as defined by subclauses (i) through (xxi) of section 201-2(4) of the UTPCPL are declared unlawful, and whenever the Attorney General has reason to believe that any person is using or is about to use any method, act, or practice declared unlawful, section 201- 4 of the UTPCPL authorizes the Attorney General to bring an action against such person to restrain these methods, acts, or practices. 1130. The acts and practices described in paragraphs 1 through 850 constitute unfair methods of competition or unfair or deceptive acts or practices, as prohibited by section 201-3 of the UTPCPL as defined by subclause 201-2(4)(xxi) of section 201-2(4) as follows: Engaging in any other fraudulent or deceptive conduct which creates a likelihood of confusion or of misunderstanding, 73 P.S. § 201-2(4)(xxi). 1131. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania alleges that all of the practices described above were performed willfully. Accordingly, and pursuant to section 201-8 of the UTPCPL, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania seeks the imposition of civil penalties of One Thousand and 00/100 Dollars ($1,000.00) for each violation of the UTPCPL in addition to other relief sought, as appropriate. 1132. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania believes that the public interest is served by seeking before this Court a permanent injunction to restrain the methods, acts and practices described herein, as well as seeking restitution and civil penalties for violation of the law. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania believes that citizens of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania are suffering and will continue to suffer harm unless the acts and practices complained of herein are permanently enjoined. Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case 4:23-cv-05448 retrieved on October 25, 2023, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. Washingtonpost.com

Meta Accused of Unfair Trade Practices by Pennsylvania Attorney General

The United States v Meta Platforms Court Filing October 24, 2023 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This is part 77 of 100. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here COUNT XXXII: UNCONSCIONABLE ACTS OR PRACTICES BY META IN VIOLATION OF THE NEBRASKA UNIFORM DECEPTIVE TRADE PRACTICES ACT 1041. The State of Nebraska realleges and incorporates herein each of the allegations contained in paragraphs 1 through 850 as though fully alleged in this cause of action. 1042. The NE UDTPA prohibits unconscionable acts or practices by a supplier in connection with a consumer transaction. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 87-303.01. 1043. As described in preceding paragraphs and summarized in Section XI.B, Meta is a supplier and has engaged in unconscionable trade practices in connection with a consumer transaction in violation of Neb. Rev. Stat. § 87-303.01. 1044. Each unconscionable act or practice, as alleged herein, constitutes a separate violation of the NE CPA and the NE UDTPA. Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case 4:23-cv-05448 retrieved on October 25, 2023, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. Washingtonpost.com

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