Zippyis in the Fitness-Wellness Tech Industry

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The Hidden Pitfalls of APIs: XSS Attacks in Single Page Applications (SPA)

We’ve all been there: very politely asking the internet for a video of a cat engaging in some wacky antics. And then … the internet pauses, seeming to consider the request. What’s the problem here? It might be you (sorry). It might be the infrastructure you’re working with. It might be your internet provider. Let’s explore some causes and solutions together. What Is a “Good” Internet Speed? Step one is to conduct a so-called speed test. Jonathan Schwantes, senior policy counsel at Consumer Reports, who works on the organization’s , which is collecting consumers’ internet bills and speed test results as part of its advocacy work, suggests using a pair of tests, one from and another from . Fight for Fair Internet initiative Ookla MLab Each uses slightly different methods, so Schwantes recommends trying both to make sure they’re consistent. The tests show two important results: download speed (how quickly you’re receiving data from the internet) and upload speed (how quickly you’re sending data out to the internet), measured in megabits per second. A bit of data is a single unit of information, expressed in the binary code that computers can understand as either a one or a zero. A megabit is one million bits of data. If a speed test says your download speed is 100 megabits per second, your connection is pumping 100,000,000 ones and zeros into your device each second, and short kitty antics videos . should stream fine What qualifies as a “good” internet speed depends on what you’re using it for, however. If you have multiple users and need stable connections (think kids doing online schooling while you work in the next room), education advocacy group Common Sense Media recommends speeds of 200 mbps download and 10 mbps upload. Those recommended speeds can be high relative to available levels across much of the United States. For February of this year, Ookla median speeds in the U.S. for wired broadband connections at 146 mbps download and 20 mbps upload; speeds on mobile internet—63 mbps download and 9 upload—were far slower. pegged Amina Fazlullah, the organization’s director of equity policy, insists that stable video conferencing connections are crucial for things like virtual school. “What does it mean when a 7-year-old has an interruption?” Fazlullah said, noting that 25 mbps download and 3 mbps upload will technically work but likely with frequent service disruptions. “How long can you wait for them to get back up to speed? Will they be able to get back on track after those interruptions?” Netflix, on the other hand, a mere 15 mbps download speed for streaming content in 4K/Ultra HD. recommends What speed is available to you at home depends on the infrastructure available: the tubes through which your desired digital data flows. That infrastructure may seem intangible, but it exists both inside the walls of your home and in a corporeal series of tubes transmitting data across the globe. Understanding those factors, and how they work together, is crucial to understanding how the modern internet works—and how to get that cat video faster. Is the Slowdown Coming from Inside the House? When Schwantes gets a slow speed test result, his first suspicion is usually along the lines of “Something is up with my router.” If you’re reading this on a device connected to Wi-Fi, the first connection you have to the larger internet are your modem and wireless router or your modem/wireless router combo beaming out Wi-Fi to the immediate area. The first two things to try if your internet is slow are restart the router and get your device closer to the router. Like a computer, routers store information in their memory, and sometimes an error gets saved mistakenly. Restarting is a way to shake out the cobwebs. And Wi-Fi signals degrade the farther they travel. If distance is slowing your speed, consider your options: Your Wi-Fi router may offer the choice between a 2.4 GHz connection and a 5 GHz connection; 5 GHz offers faster speeds over shorter distances, and 2.4 GHz provides slower speeds over longer distances. The 2.4 GHz frequency can also get congested with traffic from other wireless networks in the area, so sometimes switching to 5 GHz will provide a less obstructed path for your cat video. If your device has an ethernet port, you can also plug directly into the router and avoid the Wi-Fi issue altogether. Around the start of the pandemic, Schwantes noticed his internet slowing down. In this case, the problem was him. He was using a decade-old wireless router. After replacing it, he said, his speeds improved dramatically. What’s Happening on the Other Side of the Wall? The biggest speed variances come from the different ways data flows through the tubes directly outside your home. Data can travel on different types of tubes—fiber optic, coaxial cable, and copper wire, and even on wireless cellular networks—each providing very different speeds for uploading and downloading. Sometimes the technology that leads to your home is too out of date to support faster speeds. The effects of this fall more on communities of color and poorer residents, an . AT&T, Verizon, Earthlink, and CenturyLink charged customers in 38 cities the same price for sluggish DSL connections as they did for zippy fiber connections. investigation by The Markup found In 36 of those cities, the worst deals tended to go to households located in neighborhoods that were lower-income, less-White, or historically redlined. Fiber optic cables consist of a core of ultra-thin glass surrounded by a reflective coating that transmits information as pulses of light at the speed of, well, light traveling through glass. The fastest internet connections available today are termed “fiber to the home” because the fiber optic cables begin where you live and run all the way to where they join the larger maze of fiber optic tubes making up the internet. (There are also systems called “fiber to the node” or “fiber to the curb,” where fiber runs to a connection hub somewhere in your neighborhood, and then the signal moves to slower wires the rest of the way.) If the internet is a road, fiber is like an expressway with five lanes in each direction and a 75 mph speed limit. Not everyone in the United States even has access to fiber internet. According to a study released in January by the Fiber Broadband Association, of U.S. homes have that option. less than half At the other end of the spectrum, copper wire is like a one-lane road where you can’t go above 25. Not only can Fiber Expressway get you home faster than Copper Lane, but it can also handle far more traffic without congestion, which is important because your data runs through the same tubes as those of your neighbors who use the same ISP. The longer you can stay on fiber before having to turn off to something that’s not fiber, the faster your connection. What is copper wire? DSL, which stands for Digital Subscriber Line, operates on the same copper wires that phone companies use for traditional telephone service—so-called landlines—albeit on a higher frequency range that doesn’t necessitate tying up a phone line the way dial-up service does. ( .) Kids, ask your parents Phone lines were built to transmit voice, which doesn’t require a whole lot of data, so they tend to be s‑l‑o‑w. DSL speeds are dependent on the distance from where they hook into the fiber connections leading to the internet’s backbone. They need to be boosted frequently to push data over longer distances. In the middle is cable internet, which is generally slower than fiber but can provide relatively high speeds. Copper wire is like a one-lane road where you can’t go above 25. Cable internet is piped through coaxial cables carrying signals on a copper conductor surrounded by layers of plastic and metal coating to shield it from interference (an improvement over DSL). Since the coaxial cables were originally developed to transmit cable TV, which is fairly data-intensive video and audio information, they can move a lot of data. Since cable TV is traditionally a one-way broadcast medium, cable connections generally have faster downloads than uploads. A relatively new entrant to the residential broadband market is fixed wireless. As the name implies, this type of connection doesn’t involve a tube running directly into your home. Getting a fixed wireless connection typically involves installing a receiver pulling in cellular service that is then converted to Wi-Fi. Fixed wireless home service across the country, but some services advertise speeds that can give cable connections a run for their money. isn’t universally available For remote locations, where it’s not feasible for ISPs to install any kind of wired connection between the internet’s fiber backbone and your home, satellite internet, which allows data to be transmitted up to a satellite and then beamed down to an antenna at your residence, is an option. Satellite internet is generally not as fast as fiber or cable internet. Ookla found the median speed for SpaceX’s Starlink, the fastest satellite internet available in the U.S., was around 100 mbps download and 13 mbps upload. Can I Just Switch to a Different Provider and Get Faster Internet? You can certainly give it a shot! However, a dearth of competition in the broadband market across the United States may make that tricky. “The U.S. market for internet service is dominated by just four companies: AT&T, Charter, Comcast, and Verizon,” reads the 2020 edition of the Open Technology Institute’s Cost of Connectivity about the state of the U.S. broadband market compared to that in other developed countries. report “In most cities, there were only, like, two providers, and there are large swaths of addresses that only had one provider,” said Claire Park, one of the report’s authors. A 2020 from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance found that 83.3 million Americans are only able to purchase broadband internet from a single provider. report PSA: If your household income is lower than , you may qualify for the (ACP), which was created by the 2021 infrastructure bill and provides a $30 monthly subsidy for internet service. these guidelines Affordable Connectivity Program That subsidy increases to $75 for folks living on tribal lands. If you’re already signed up for free and reduced lunch for your dependent at school, the , , , or a number of other public-benefit programs, you . Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Medicaid Supplemental Security Income likely qualify (But hurry: An analysis by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance suggests that the pool of money Congress allocated for the ACP as soon as 2024 if it is not replenished.) could run out Many ISPs have created their that would allow households that qualify for the ACP to effectively get monthly internet service for free when combined with the governmental benefit. own reduced-cost internet plans Even if you can afford your internet bill, you can still shop around to see if you can get faster and/or cheaper service. To check your options, enter your address into the to see which ISPs serve your address. FCC’s National Broadband Map What’s listed as available for every address isn’t always accurate, so after seeing your search results, go to each ISP’s website, search for your address and see what prices and speeds they offer you. Maybe, just maybe, you can get an upgrade that will get you that cat video a whole lot faster. Update This story has been updated to include the findings of an investigation by The Markup. Written by: Aaron Sankin Also published here Photo by on Pascal van de Vendel Unsplash

Reasons Why Your Internet Is Slow

Razones por las que su Internet es lento

Raisons pour lesquelles votre Internet est lent

कारण आपका इंटरनेट धीमा क्यों है

インターネットが遅い理由

Razões pelas quais sua Internet está lenta

Lý do tại sao Internet của bạn chậm

互联网速度慢的原因

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is a new superhero show from Marvel, based on the comics by Stan Lee. This is a superhero show that’s set in a legal world, and it’s more sexy than its predecessors in the MCU. Despite its sexier nature, this show is a weak entry into the Marvel TV canon. She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is an MCU superhero show She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is an MCU superhero show that follows newly meta-human Jennifer Walters as she navigates her life as a lawyer and her newfound powers as a Hulk. While the plot is relatively straightforward, the show packs in a lot of content. It also features plenty of callouts to the larger MCU, as well as cameos from established Marvel characters. She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is a fun and humorous look at the world of superhero enhanced people in the MCU. The show is a comedic look at how people view these characters, presenting Jennifer as a brooding hero who doesn’t want to become a superhero. While she does love her new powers, she resents having to return to her normal self on occasion. Hulk Vs Ghost Rider Full Fight Power Comparison She-Hulk: Attorney at Law has been praised for its smart writing and strong performance, despite its slightly awkward plot structure and unnerving visual effects. The show also features a feminist perspective and a female point of view, which are both welcome in a superhero show. It’s a legal show She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is a comic book series featuring a superhuman lawyer. The series is set in the Marvel universe, and its creators have taken an approach to its premise that feels familiar, yet fresh. The show is a sexy and thoughtful take on law, with a lot of fun Easter eggs and light undercurrents. It also excels at crafting a warm and loving chemistry between its main characters. The show’s approach to the characters and the MCU overall is well done, and it doesn’t shy away from the bad stuff that has happened to the original characters. While this may lead to a few unnerving moments, the series doesn’t go too far into the uncanny valley. Rather, it uses the character to set a precedent for both heroes and villains dealing with the law. Why is The Newest Marvel Comic Hulk Is Deadliest? She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is a comedic exploration of the superhuman era, with its many enhanced individuals. While the character is primarily centered around solving real world problems, there are some scenes that display Jennifer Walters’ superhuman abilities. It’s sexier than the MCU If you think that Marvel movies aren’t sexy enough, check out She-Hulk. The new series is streaming on Disney+ now. Unlike the MCU, which is aimed at kids and families, She-Hulk has plenty of sex. As the lawyer Jennifer Walters, She-Hulk is not a new character in the Marvel Universe, but she does have a long and impressive comic book background. The first appearance of the character was in a comic book, where she’s a highly successful lawyer. She was almost killed during a failed murder attempt, but was saved when Bruce Banner gave her a blood transfusion. This helped her survive and gave her green gamma beast powers. The She-Hulk was born in a comic book in 1980 called “The Savage She-Hulk.” She was endowed with super strength and was 6 feet tall when barefoot and much taller when shod in heels. She had cantaloupe biceps, cocktail olive skin, and the waist-to-hip ratio of a lingerie model. The introduction of She-Hulk was supposed to revolutionize the MCU. Marvel knew that they had a special character and had successfully tapped into a growing female audience. After all, the 1970s marked the second wave of feminism and marked a sea change in society. It’s a weak entry into the Marvel TV canon She-Hulk: Attorney at Law takes a “kitchen sink” approach to canon, with a comic-book-ish tone and a mix of episodic storylines and larger serial mysteries. The result is a show that’s fun, zippy, and chock full of Easter eggs, but ultimately feels a bit off-kilter. Despite its weak entry into the Marvel TV canon, the show’s first episode is an enjoyable and involving character study. Its pitch-perfect premise is solid, and Tatiana Maslany plays the title character with charm. In addition to Maslany, the show also features Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner and Tim Roth as Abomination. Hulk vs Doomsday: Would DC or Marvel’s Powerhouse Win in the Comics? The show’s strongest point lies in its irreverence. The show’s creator, Jessica Gao, has a unique voice that comes through in the series’ mid-credits sequences. Her humor is often laugh-out-loud funny. In addition to this, the show is more like a legal sitcom than an action-adventure saga. However, it still has its share of great jokes and an irreverent tone. The comics’ origin story is also a weak entry into the Marvel TV cannon. The comic series’ original source material features Jenn Walters as a successful lawyer who experiences sexism on a daily basis. She later becomes the green version of herself, and this new identity is a sideshow for her. It’s helmed by women A number of women are leading the way in law reviews. More than half of the top 16 law schools have at least one female editor-in-chief. That’s a remarkable turnaround in a short period of time. Only seven years ago, women were represented in only 29 percent of law journals. Dean Abrams’ keynote address urged the next generation of women lawyers to continue the progress toward gender equality that began with the 19th Amendment. She called the conference “a love letter” to future women lawyers, and she praised the editors of 16 leading law journals. She charged the attendees to continue to work to advance women’s rights, including the right to equal pay and the right to work. The ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project is one such organization. Lenora was a Skadden Fellow in the organization a few years earlier, and she had just been promoted to its director role. The WRP was expanding and improving under Lenora’s leadership. Lenora devoted her life to improving the lives of women and girls. It’s sexier than The Good Fight The new Netflix series She-Hulk Attorney at Law Review will debut on August 17th. It’s described as a “Ally McBeal-style” legal comedy. It stars Mark Ruffalo as the titular smart Hulk, Benedict Wong, and Tim Roth. Renee Goldsberry, Jamela Jamil, and Josh Segarra also star. It is created by Jessica Gao and directed by Kat Coiro. The series focuses on the life and career of a 30-year-old attorney who acquires the green persona after an accident with Bruce Banner. She must navigate a legal career and a complex personal life while balancing her new identity. The series contains strong language and a healthy dose of superhero violence, so watch with caution. The comic’s dual theme of independence and acceptance pervades She-Hulk’s relationships with men. In particular, her father, Sheriff Morris Walters, was a tumultuous figure. A widower who lost his wife to mobsters, he was overprotective, judgmental, and controlling. As a result, Jennifer She-Hulk’s desire for independence from her father was a constant conflict. The Good Wife and She-Hulk Attorney at Law Review both feature law firm scenes in high-rise buildings. The Good Fight, however, was also set in a high-rise setting and was a lawyer-centric show. USA’s Suits had a similarly high-rise lawyer-oriented plot, and Netflix’s Partner Track stars Arden Cho as a young lawyer attempting to break the glass ceiling in her profession. She is also a frequent target for sleazy paparazzi. It’s more like Ally McBeal than The Good Fight This show aims for a more comedic approach than other Marvel shows. It borrows elements from “Ally McBeal,” “Legally Blonde,” and “Seinfeld,” and also borrows some elements from the She-Hulk comics. As a result, it also takes a more grounded approach to superhero life. The show begins with Jennifer Hulking out in public, and the audience sees a more comedic approach to legal issues. It’s not a serious comedy, though, and it has a lighter tone than The Good Fight, which is a far darker comedy. But the cast is solid, and Renee Elise Goldsberry, Josh Segarra, and Jameela Jamil are all dependable supporting players. The show is well worth watching for the characters and the premise. The She-Hulk concept has been around for some time, and it’s a great one for Marvel TV. The She-Hulk character is very recognizable, even under all the special effects. She’s green, large, and very stylized. Netflix has picked up the TV rights for the Defenders, including the titular superheroine. While the show is not tied to Marvel’s main line, it’s still an entertaining comedy, and a fun way to explore the character. Unlike other Marvel TV shows, Netflix’s take on the character is more wholesome. This show is like Ally McBeal for comic fans. Also Published On: https://mashradar.com/she-hulk-attorney-at-law-review-everything-you-need-to-know/

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Review - Everything You Need To Know

ReactJS has never stopped improving since its first release by Facebook in 2013, and it is now one of the most popular platforms for online and mobile development. ReactJS is an open-source JavaScript package that is used to create rich and interactive user interfaces. The framework, which is known for its flexibility, scalability, and simplicity, enables the development of big and sophisticated online and mobile apps. It may be used to create basic views for each state of an application, and it is capable of updating and displaying the appropriate components when the application data changes. ReactJS, being an open-source framework, is often regarded as the most cost-effective framework for developing feature-rich online and mobile apps. Advantages of React Js Development Rapid Rendering When developing a high-load application, it is critical to evaluate how the structure will affect overall app performance. Even the most advanced platforms and engines cannot guarantee the absence of vexing bottlenecks since the DOM (document object model) is tree-structured, and even little modifications at the higher layer might trigger disastrous ripples in the interface. To address the issue, the Facebook development team invented Virtual DOM, which is now one of the advantages of adopting React for heavily loaded and dynamic software solutions. Because it is a virtual version of the document object model, all modifications are performed to the virtual DOM first, and then the smallest scope of necessary DOM actions is computed using the diff technique. Finally, the real DOM tree is updated to ensure that the time spent is as short as possible. This strategy ensures a better user experience and increased app speed. SEO- Friendly Another advantage of React js is its ability to work around a typical search engine failure to understand JavaScript-heavy apps. React may operate on the server as a solution, rendering and returning the virtual DOM to the browser as a standard website. Though Google has made considerable advancements, we should not overlook alternative search engine platforms such as Yahoo, Bing, or Baidu. Furthermore, we must consider other microformat web use-cases, such as Open Graph, Twitter Cards, and so on, because Facebook, Slack, and Twitter will not execute your JS and will instead rely on SSR. React Native for Mobile Development React may confidently be dubbed a "learn once – write anywhere" framework since it follows the same design principles in both online and mobile application development, easing the transition process. You'll be able to create sophisticated UI for native apps that are supported by both the iOS and Android platforms by using simple JavaScript and React. Our React Native developers highlight the portability and flexibility to reuse components, real-time reload and modular design, open-source, and abundant ecosystem as benefits of React js in mobile app development. When it comes to genuine React Native usage, we can name mobile apps like Skype, Tesla, Airbnb, and Walmart. Large Community Support Initially developed for internal use, the React library was eventually made available to the rest of the world. It is now backed by the technical teams of Facebook and Instagram, as well as other specialists. ReactJS, unlike other platforms, solely employs Downward Data Flow. This ensures that even the smallest modification in the child structure has no effect on the parent structure. One-way Data Binding While hanging an item, mobile app developers modify its state and make modifications, but only after that specific component of it is modified. This method of Data binding assures code consistency as well as improved app performance in the long run. As a result, users choose ReactJS over other platforms since it allows for more efficient app operation. Code Stability Maintained ReactJS solely employs downward data flow to ensure that even minor changes in child structures do not influence their parents. When changing an object, developers simply edit its state, make modifications, and then only certain components are changed. The data binding ensures the stability of code and consistent app performance. Developer Tool Set Availability Learning new technologies and applying them to the next project may be enjoyable, but only if they can be used in a development environment. It indicates that a framework or library should have appropriate tools to ensure efficient performance. One of Reactjs' benefits is its support for debugging and design tools. React Developer Tools is a browser plugin that is available for Chrome and Firefox. It allows developers to analyse reactive component hierarchies, find child and parent components, and check their current state and properties. Final Thoughts Without question, there are several compelling reasons to use React JS. It is one of the world's most popular JS libraries because of its virtual browser DOM, interactive UIs, JSX compatibility, and zippy component-based structure. It has actually delivered on its promise as a framework that enables programmers to create large-scale applications with dates that vary over time. This makes it an excellent alternative for businesses ranging from startups to enterprise-level in almost every industry category. We'd love to collaborate with you on your next project if you're looking to recruit React.js engineers.

7 Advantages of ReactJS Development

Media Conglomerates Are Taking Over The World

“…in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: …the attention of its recipients.” ( , Professor Carnegie Mellon University, 1971) Herbert A. Simon There’s a new, better way to browse the internet: the Brave Browser. The Brave Browser operates on a principle I’m calling the Digital Attention Economy. As Professor Simon pointed out in 1971, the world is flooded with information, but human attention is a finite resource. Capitalizing on that resource has been every corporation’s objective, and we’re all familiar with the advertisement deluge that ensues. It’s overwhelming. Now, there’s a better way. With attention, security, and privacy in mind, CEO Brendan Eich (creator of Javascript and co-founder of Mozilla) and CTO Brian Bundy (former employee at Mozilla and Khan Academy) founded Brave Software to create a superior Internet browser. If you haven’t downloaded Brave already, I encourage you to give it a spin. I’ve got four basic reasons you should be using it— oh, and you can make some money, so that’s incentive, too. Speed Brave is fast. Like . According to the company website, Brave browses the web up to 8 times faster than Chrome or Safari. And that’s not just company propaganda. I can vouch for that speed from personal experience. really fast My journey to Brave began in 2017 when I first tangled with . Specifically, I ran into a phishing scam in which I was redirected from Amazon to a fake web page asking for my user name and password. DNS hijacking If you needed to pinpoint the exact moment I became paranoid of the manipulative power of the Internet, that was probably it. In response to the DNS hijacking, I downloaded new firmware for my router, changed my DNS servers, restricted network access to particular MAC addresses, and tried out a bevy of new browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Comodo. I think there were a few more lost in the wash. I didn’t run into the DNS hijacking again (because of my scorched earth measures, I’m sure), but I discovered another problem common to all the other browsers: they were clunky as hell. Over time, they all got bogged down, ate up my system resources, and slowed to a crawl. The only fix was to close out all my tabs or close the program or sometimes even restart the computer. (At times, I seriously considered chucking the whole system out the window.) No exaggeration: I couldn’t keep more than five tabs open at a time. Now, I made some other (which helped tremendously), and I installed more RAM, but those other browsers were more than happy to keep eating up my RAM and to even tax my CPU to 97% capacity. changes to Windows I’d had it. I dug into more browser options until finally, I found the solution: Brave. Brave has never given me any of those issues. As I write this, I have 20+ tabs open — not to mention Word, PowerPoint, Paint, and Music Bee. How much RAM is Brave taking up? About 10%. Processing power? Between 0.5% and 1.8%. Remember: 20+ tabs! Seriously, this browser is zippy and light on the resources. I love it! Speed alone is a good enough reason to download this product. Familiarity Brave is built on Chromium, Google’s open-source web browser project. Google Chrome, obviously, is built on Chromium, too. For users, this equals a familiar browsing experience. You won’t get thrown into some weird territory where all the page min-max tools are suddenly in the top-left corner or anything (sorry, Safari users!). Nothing will surprise you. Easy transition. Love it! Privacy Here we get into the fun stuff. Besides being the hands-down best browsing experience I’ve had since Google Chrome launched in 2008 (before it got all bloated), the Brave browser takes your privacy seriously. Check out that ad blocker. Nice! You decide whether you keep the shields up for each site, whether you allow autoplay, if 3rd-party cookies get blocked, if scripts can run, etc., etc. If you want a rundown of all the ad-blocking features and Brave’s commitment to privacy through its native Tor connectivity, check out ’s . Kenny Li take on the browser An added benefit to blocking all those ads is you save time. See how many ads (and how much loading time) Brave has saved me in the last month alone: Oh, it has fancy background pictures, too, which is simple but always nice. Cut Out the Middlemen: Monetize Your Browsing It’s no secret that companies like Facebook and Google run on ad revenue. They’re thrilled to suck up all of your time and attention for the money. Where it gets nefarious is the ways in which they track literally everything you do online to steal and monetize your habits and private data. Heck, they even track what you do in the real world. I’ve had conversations with coworkers who wanted me to go watch some obscure comedian’s new show only to go home and then have this comedian’s pop-up ads or Youtube videos suggested to me. My best guess, based on that and other experiences, is my phone’s mic picked up the conversation. For example, I once had a sweeping phone conversation with a friend about stoicism, Michel Foucault, and a philosophy of systems of thought. When I fired up the Roku later, Youtube was pushing videos on stoicism, Foucault, and some sort of hamster stuck in a closed system (a funny AI interpretation, but all in all, mildly terrifying). Now, if you’re not worried about Google tracking all your data, you should at least be upset someone else is monetizing that which rightfully ought to be yours. Your attention may as well be your labor in 2019. Well, Brave has you covered. Over at ’s blog, you can read up on Brave’s innovative use of its own Ethereum-based (ERC20) Basic Attention Token (BAT). Later this year, the program is set to launch in full force. The gist of it is that to receive BAT, and BAT can be pretty easily exchanged into its monetary value (think like a gift card). Geek on record users can voluntarily watch ads In fact, since Brave recently launched a , you actually can turn BAT into gift cards for places like Amazon, Starbucks, or Uber. You can even donate the funds to charities like Habitat for Humanity or the Red Cross. partnership with the TAP Network Another option is to directly. No more stupid ads you didn’t sign up for. Now, you can control if and when you view ads, and you can support the websites you visit. Brave even has features to simply automate the tipping process based on the percentage of time you spent browsing a given website. tip your favorite content creators It doesn’t get much easier than this. And, by the way, lots of content creators have signed on. By ’s October 2018 count, . Oh, and the user base of the browser is already at about 5 million and growing. Maxence Cornet 27k publishers have signed up Conclusion Do yourself a favor and right now. download Brave It’s fast, lightweight, and privacy-focused. It puts you in control of your personal data and lets you decide how you’d like to monetize that data, rather than sitting idly by as the likes of Facebook and Google exploit your time and energy to make millions off of you. Disclosure statement: The author owns some BAT.

Capitalizing on the Digital Attention Economy: The Brave Browser

has been owned and operated by Alaskans since its inception in 1969. Today it’s one of the leading truck and transportation industry parts and sales facilities in Alaska, providing state of the art solutions for transport, handicap and recreational needs by selective affiliations with proven national franchises. TrailerCraft, Inc TrailerCraft needed a new website to provide information and service to its Alaskan audience, whose internet connectivity can vary wildly due to the landscape. Key needs for the new website were fast / optimized load times and dynamic content management, so TrailerCraft chose interactive agency to built its zippy new React / Next.js website using . High Point Cosmic JS TrailerCraft’s Team Shares Feedback on Cosmic JS: Developer : “The Imigx integration that Cosmic JS has out of the box was key to serving a beautiful, image-filled site that was well optimized. We built the site with React and Next.js server side rendering. This way the site loads fast, is SEO-compatible, and when navigating the site, only the resources needed for fallowing pages are requested, keeping load times to a strict minimum.” Content Creator : “From a marketer’s perspective (and having a much less technical background) I really enjoy how easy it is for a novice to be able to edit and make changes on the backend. It’s a very “easy to use” system to keep our website up to date without the struggle of contacting a web development team each time we need an update.” Developer : “The Cosmic JS API plugin for React made requesting data a breeze and the built-in hosting makes deployments and updating super quick and easy.” “Cosmic JS allowed us to build a website and deliver content management exactly how we wanted it, specific for our needs. A breath of fresh air compared to the inevitably bloated admin panel that would have resulted if we used WordPress. The support team are total rock stars as well.” — Brandon Reid, Lead Developer

TrailerCraft Builds a Website using React, Next.js and Cosmic JS

provides a best-in-class headless CMS designed for your modern digital projects. By providing an intuitive admin dashboard, powerful APIs and flexible user roles, Cosmic JS enables content creators and developers to work better together. Applications are built faster, more light-weight, and your whole team saves time in the process. Cosmic JS Thanks to the Cosmic JS Community and all of its open-source contributions, you can get started out-of-the-box with pre-built websites and apps available for easy install. I’ll highlight 5 popular website boilerplates built specifically for zippy API-first dynamic content management using the Cosmic JS headless CMS API. TL;DR: Cosmic JS Apps Marketplace Cosmic JS Open-Source Cosmic JS Documentation 5 Website Boilerplates Built for API-first Content Management All of the website templates presented in this blog satisfy some common website requirements including: - dynamic pages- blog articles- author management- SEO ability- contact form- global website search Next.js Website Boilerplate Click here to view the demo Read how this app was built Next.js is a minimalistic framework for server-rendered React applications. See more available for easy install. Next.js Apps Nuxt.js Website Boilerplate Click here to view the demo Read how this app was built Nuxt.js is a minimal framework for creating Vue.js applications with server side rendering, code-splitting, hot-reloading, static generation and more! See more available for easy install. Nuxt.js Apps React Website Boilerplate Click here to view the demo Read how this app was built React makes it painless to create interactive UIs. Design simple views for each state in your application, and React will efficiently update and render just the right components when your data changes. See more available for easy install. React Apps Vue Website Boilerplate Click here to view the demo Read how this app was built Vue is a for building user interfaces. Unlike other monolithic frameworks, Vue is designed from the ground up to be incrementally adoptable. The core library is focused on the view layer only, and is easy to pick up and integrate with other libraries or existing projects. See more available for easy install progressive framework Vue.js Apps Node.js Website Boilerplate Click here to view a demo website Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform JavaScript run-time environment that executes JavaScript code outside of a browser. See more available for easy install. Node.js Apps Grab a boilerplate, add your content and users and start managing content in the cloud, available via API endpoint for use in any of your internet-connected applications. Write once, deliver everywhere with scalable content models that empower your team to build apps faster. 🚀 Conclusion When ditching the installed content management system and going API-first isn’t quick enough, check out the from Cosmic JS to get a project up and running in seconds. 🔥 Starter Apps If you have any comments or questions about building apps with Cosmic JS, and . reach out to us on Twitter join the conversation on Slack

5 Website Boilerplates Built for API-first Content Management

The team was honored to get the opportunity to speak at for the August . Cosmic JS co-founder presented “Building Modern Apps with API Services” to illustrate the growing trend of offloading core development tasks onto best-in-class API services. Using the recent as a Case Study, Tony outlines the process of integrating , and to deliver a robust, zippy search application that met the business requirements set forth. Cosmic JS Toyota Connected Ember.js Dallas Meetup Tony Spiro Story Licensing project Algolia SendGrid Cosmic JS Building Modern Apps with API Services Conclusion Developers prefer to focus on building apps, not configuring infrastructure and other time-consuming activities. Integrating with APIs that offload core development services allows teams to build apps faster and take advantage of the API communities’ iterations to make their products better, often solving use cases your team may run into real-time. If you have any comments or questions about building apps with Cosmic JS, and . reach out to us on Twitter join the conversation on Slack

Video: Building Modern Apps with API Services

Using a headless CMS API has many advantages, namely time and ease of getting your application up and running while giving your cross-functional team the tools they need to get their job done. enables content managers and developers to work better together. By providing an intuitive Admin Dashboard, powerful APIs, and flexible user roles, applications are built faster, more light-weight, and your whole team ends up saving time in the process. Developers can build applications using their favorite frameworks and programming languages, knowing they can integrate with any third-party APIs, databases or Static Site Generators. Cosmic JS A Static Site Generator (SSG) that has broken onto the playing field in a major way is . Gatsby lets you build blazing-fast sites with your data, whatever the source. Gatsby loads only the critical HTML, CSS, data, and JavaScript so your site loads as fast as possible. Once loaded, prefetches resources for other pages so clicking around the site feels incredibly fast. Gatsby Gatsby recently rolled out its and its . The source plugin allows developers to easily fetch data into Gatsby from Cosmic JS, and the Gatsby Starter lets you get a Gatsby app up and running, connected to Cosmic JS for dynamic content changes in mere seconds. 😎 In this tutorial we’ll quickstart a Gatsby application using the Cosmic JS headless CMS API. Cosmic JS Gatsby Source Plugin Gatsby Starter TL;DR: Gatsby Starter Developer Docs Gatsby Knowledge Base QuickStart a Gatsby App using a Headless CMS API Cosmic JS is an example of a robust headless CMS and API that’s promoting collaboration on cross-functional teams to build apps faster. Get started building Cosmic-powered apps in seconds 🚀 We have , , , and Starters to help you get your project started quickly. Node.js React Vue Gatsby Serverless 🛠️ Installation Install via the Cosmic CLI : I set up an example Bucket for this blog: Run for a list of all commands. Run for details on options for a specific command. You're now up and running with a QuickStart React Application that can be managed entirely from your Cosmic JS Bucket Dashboard and Command Line Terminal tool of choice. cosmic -h cosmic [command] -h Conclusion When ditching the installed content management system and going API-first isn’t quick enough, check out the Starter Apps from to get a project up and running in seconds. Cosmic JS integrates easily with Gatsby for an automated build process that allows you to maintain zippy static speed with dynamic content changes. 🔥 Cosmic JS If you have any comments or questions about building React apps with Cosmic JS, and . reach out to us on Twitter join the conversation on Slack

QuickStart a Gatsby Application Using a Headless CMS API

by Jason Costa It’s unclear when exactly self-driving cars are going to hit the road en masse, but it’s going to take some time to get there. What is clear though is that the autonomous vehicle race is going to be one of the most exciting business battles of our time, and it will continue to unfold over the next decade and beyond. It’s my belief that the world is slowly moving from a model of car ownership, to a “Mobility as a service” model. A world in which one can walk outside of their home or office to a waiting autonomous vehicle ready to take them to their next destination. The stakes in winning swaths of that value chain will be huge — and there are already a lot of players vying to win here. The Heavyweights Waymo Google’s intentions in the space are intriguing. While Uber’s ambition of making the unit economics per ride work is clear, in my opinion Google’s plan here is about distribution. The a day that the average American spends in the car is one of the last great frontiers in “time availability” for software services to attack. If a human is freed up for an hour to focus on other tasks within the cockpit while the vehicle drives itself, this opens up the possibility of a lot more searches for Google to monetize. Even more important, the car’s cockpit (much like the home) will be a critical battleground for Google Assistant, YouTube, and the entire G Suite of products to gain ground in the everyday lives of users. The car will become a distribution mechanism, much like the phone, for Google to maintain it’s stronghold when users are in need of a digital concierge. ~1 hour And if I were to guess, Google’s launchpad for such a ride hailing service would live inside of Google Maps. As people bring up the app to plan their next trip, they’ll be able to hail a Waymo vehicle natively within Maps. That would bootstrap the Waymo service with more than a right out of the gate. billion users GM Of all the OEMs looking at autonomy, GM seems to be the most aggressive with a vertically integrated approach. Over the past few years, they’ve bought companies across several layers in the stack: Cruise (software controls), Strobe (lidar / perception), Sidecar (fleet orchestration), Zippy (SLAM, computer vision). Other OEMs have made large bets here as well, such as Ford’s ~$1B “investment” in Argo; but GM stands out as the most aggressive. The benefit of being vertically integrated with a technology that’s further out at the frontier is clear: by not having to deal with external dependencies inherent in modular partnerships, a team can accelerate its pace to market by virtue of being “in the tent” together. So in the short to mid term, while this nascent technology has such a high degree of evolving interdependencies, I believe it’s likely to see many of the OEMs try to vertically integrate many of the core technology assets. The exciting thing about all of this is that the traditional OEMs are not standing still. They’re incredibly savvy players, many of whom have been around for a century or more. As incumbents of industry, OEMs are playing a different game than their record label or handset manufacturer colleagues before them. They’re not willing to be commoditized. The OEMs want to own the brand experience end to end, and none of them are looking to cede the cockpit to Google. Manufacturing cars at scale will be their primary leverage point in doing this, because that’s arguably the hardest part of the value chain — just look at what’s happening right now. Expect to see waves of consolidation from the OEMs over the next few years. with Tesla GM’s Cruise AV is a modified Chevy Bolt, planned for a 2019 release. Uber Back in 2015 when Uber siphoned off a large cohort of researchers and roboticists from Carnegie Mellon, the outfit illustrated just how focused they were on building their own autonomous vehicle technology. And if there was any confusion on whether Uber is serious about maintaining its own fleet of AVs powered by ATG, that debate is over with their of 24k Volvos valued at ~$1.4B. purchase order Driving the cost curve down on rides will be imperative to Uber’s quest for profitability. In a sense, making AV work is more of an existential question for the ride hailing service. They *have* to triple down here to control their own destiny. Autonomous vehicles are incredibly expensive, but as transportation transitions from car ownership to mobility as a service the ability to amortize the asset by maximizing usage will become a reality. Uber is going to have these cars out on the road doing as many miles per year as they can — more than 100k+ miles annually. And as they drive the cost per mile closer to $1 / mile, suddenly the unit economics become very interesting. Tesla Tesla’s plans in the autonomous vehicle space are fascinating to consider. The most interesting piece for this player is the data that they’ve collected to date. They’ve got a fair number of cars out on the road, and even if only a small fraction of the overall miles driven in those cars have the Autopilot driving assistance software engaged — that’s still a great deal of data. And with shadow mode enabled, Tesla is able to capture far more data for verification and validation purposes (i.e. what the autonomous car do, versus what it do). should would What’s unclear is Tesla’s aspirations for autonomy. My sense is that Tesla is really focused on building an aesthetic vehicle that fits in with being an energy company (solar panels, battery packs, etc.), and that driver assistance is a nice add on to upsell as part of the vehicle. The company today is still not using lidar, which I suspect has less to do with BOM costs, and more to do with the fact that it ruins the car’s aesthetic in its current form factor. In my opinion though, that’s a signal that L4 capabilities are simply less important to Tesla. electric Tier 1s Delphi made noise late last year when the company NuTonomy for ~$450M. This was a strong message that Tiers 1s were not going to be left behind in the race to self-driving dominance. It’s highly likely that these players (Continental, Magna, etc.) consider elements such as software controls, mapping, validation, etc. to be components of the car that the Tier 1s themselves should be producing and selling to OEMs. purchased There are many layers in the autonomous stack that will likely move to more modularized services sooner. Whoever solves these areas will stand to reap the benefits, and these players could end up becoming a new vintage of Tier 1s in their own right. Some areas of potential opportunity for faster modularization include: Vehicle security Labeling & annotation tools Teleoperations Network integrity Verification & validation Sensors / lidar HD Mapping Simulation services In- car experiences Autonomous Systems & other verticals As discussed above, autonomous systems are coming. And they’re coming to other categories faster than to the road. Ultimately, getting L4 systems on the road is going to be a longer time horizon because the failure case is so extremely high. If something goes wrong with a self-driving vehicle at high speeds, mortality is a very real possibility. As the technology gets cheaper (lidar costs being cut in half, etc.) and more performant (image classification rapidly improving, etc.), many of the engineering innovations such as sensory, motion planning, and control from autonomous cars are spilling over into other verticals. I suspect that we’ll see a massive acceleration of automation play out in other industries sooner. These markets will materialize faster because the failure case here is far safer: if a delivery robot accidentally bumps into something while going ~3 mph, a package of glasses might break, but the likelihood of serious injury to a person is extremely low. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the software control players going after L4 today move down market into the automated transport of goods for last mile delivery, as that market is likely to materialize before the automated transport of people. In either case, the self-driving race is going to be incredibly fun to watch play out over the next decade and beyond. The stakes are high, but countless other industry categories are going to benefit immensely from autonomous systems. Hopefully we’ll see a slew of great new companies built in the process. If you’re building one of those companies now, we at GGV would love to speak with you. Jason Costa is currently a Venture Partner at GGV Capital . This post is part of an ongoing series aimed at exploring topics such as consumer product development, platform analysis, and strategy.

The Self-Driving Race

In , I write about how easy it is to deploy with just a GitHub repo and the Cosmic JS system. Cosmic JS allows developers to deploy their codebases to the Cosmic JS App Server for staging, testing and demo purposes, and is now offering new production deployment options available with some of your favorite deployment services. Deploying your Codebase using Cosmic JS Cosmic JS Apps You can now deploy to , and . Building progressive web apps that are zippy fast require using powerful microservice tools and the flexibility to deploy to your favorite services based on your applications’ needs. Easily deploying web apps with services like Heroku, Zeit or Netlify is aided by the development process already being streamlined with your favorite tools. Cosmic JS-powered applications Heroku Zeit Netlify uses Dokku (Docker + Heroku-like deployment) to deploy your app from any GitHub, BitBucket or any other public repo to its own subdomain. Deployment will be successful as long as your application follows the . If you have connected your GitHub account to Cosmic JS, you will be able to deploy your private GitHub repos as well. Your deployed app will include environment variables which are used to connect to your Cosmic JS Bucket. You will need an account with the service you use to deploy your Cosmic JS App. Cosmic JS Heroku deployment guidelines Browse Apps to Deploy to Zeit, Heroku or Netlify How to Deploy Your Codebase using Cosmic JS Developer Documentation I hope that you’ve found this tutorial helpful. If you have questions or comments about Features in the system, I’d love to hear about them. You can refer to my for additional content on how to intuitively navigate the Cosmic JS Dashboard. Cosmic JS Cosmic JS Profile is an that allows blended teams of developers and editors to collaborate around a to manage their content, data, files and applications. Cosmic JS API-first CMS programming-language agnostic API

Deploy Cosmic JS-powered Apps using Zeit, Heroku and Netlify

I love ’ IDEs. I’ve been a faithful user since ’s release, seven years ago. JetBrains PyCharm As of late, if I’m watching a presentation, and someone is writing code in an editor, that editor is . almost always VSCode Something’s up, . People rave about this thing. and I’m going to get to the bottom of it I’ll answer some questions for myself — and, with luck, maybe I can save the JetBrains-faithful some time and energy. I aim to discover: Does it support my key bindings, or will I need to relearn everything? What’s the analog of a “Run Configuration?” What’s debugging look like? How’s the source map support? How easy is it to configure? How’s the extension ecosystem? How does the VCS (Git) integration differ? What’s the story on inline errors or warnings? How smart is it about types and code completion? I’ll be looking at this from the standpoint of a developer, so I’ll write “WebStorm,” but I really mean “a JetBrains IDE.” JavaScript I’m certainly interested in how VSCode handles Python and C/C++, but I’m not going to explore it in this post. First Impressions I used to install it: Homebrew Cask $ brew cask install visual-studio-code==> Satisfying dependencies==> Downloading https://az764295.vo.msecnd.net/stable/f88bbf9137d24d36d968ea6b2911786bfe103002/VSCode-darwin-stable.zip==> Verifying checksum for Cask visual-studio-code==> Installing Cask visual-studio-code==> Moving App 'Visual Studio Code.app' to '/Users/boneskull/Applications/Visual Studio Code.app'.==> Linking Binary 'code' to '/usr/local/bin/code'.🍺  visual-studio-code was successfully installed! This takes ~4s on my 2016 MBP — but I don’t have any extensions installed yet. I’m greeted with this: VSCode’s “Welcome” Page It has also opened a web page in Chrome: Online tutorials & such for VSCode I ignore the web page (thanks, but no thanks) and click a few of the “Install support for…” links under to get some basic extensions installed. I want to avoid customizing too much at the outset. Since C/C++ isn’t listed on the “Welcome Page”, I dig into to the extensions and … can’t help myself from installing a bunch of extensions. Oops. Tools and languages I am, however, elated to report that the is a thing, and it works great. JetBrains IDE Keymap I go ahead and open up my working copy… Mocha Summary You will install many extensions. Install “Extension Packs” to get started quickly. There’s . plenty of tutorials If you’re using the default bindings in WebStorm, you likely want to extension. install the JetBrains IDE Keymap Key bindings are at once more powerful and complex than WebStorm. It’s , but also . difficult to discover what a particular keystroke does at any given time supports conditionals, for a nearly absurd level of control Close Encounters with Version Control OK, so I want to edit Mocha’s . But I know has changes I need to pull. CHANGELOG.md origin Happily, VSCode understands this is, in fact, a working copy. To pull, I found a little “refresh” button in my status bar, and clicked it. I it worked? It said “sync.” What’s a “sync”? think I’m unsure what just happened. Which changesets did Git pull? I want to look at the history. After searching in vain, I realize that there is , and I’m going to need to grab an extension for this. no built-in support for Git history seems to solve this problem (and others). But there are Git-related extensions for VSCode. This is a drawback of the “small core” philosophy of VSCode (this reminds me of the Node.js ecosystem). To VSCode’s credit, it aids discovery with tags, filters and sorting. GitLens many GitLens does some oddball things like “inline blame” and “code lens” (which is another view into “blame”? I don’t get it). I want to turn this noisy stuff off. Hint: run and from the Command Palette. GitLens: Toggle Code Lens GitLens: Toggle Line Blame Annotations GitLens then provides Git history in the left sidebar. The presentation of the repo is a little disorienting (there are so many trees, it’s like a forest), but I see the pulled changesets. do Whew. I’ve made my changes to , and it’s time to commit. VSCode helpfully marks the file with a big in the file list. . CHANGELOG.md M +1 I find via the Command Palette, and realize I could have used my trusty . But I’m prompted that the stage is empty. Git: Commit ⌘-K If you use WebStorm’s built-in version control client (I don’t), this will be culture shock. VSCode uses the stage, like literally Git client except WebStorm’s. only every other I go ahead and commit everything (including unstaged changes; this would be if I wanted to avoid the prompt), and push. Git: Commit All Not the nicest initial experience, but I’m confident it’ll be smoother sailing from here. Next, I’ll run Mocha’s test suites to prepare for publishing. Summary You will likely want to , due to VSCode’s basic client implementation. install the Git extension pack VSCode , unlike WebStorm. uses the stage VSCode instead of you into oblivion. automatically enables Git support for working copies prompting Tasks in VSCode I think a “Task” is perhaps a “Run Configuration” or “External Tool”. “Tasks” are the same as “Tasks” in a WebStorm, which is WebStorm’s (leaky) abstraction around issues, staged changes and branching. not Let’s see what “Configure Tasks” does… What’s do you call a widget like this, anyway? Ooook. that needs some further explanation, but sure. Is it trying to automatically detect my npm scripts? For reference, Mocha’s in its is literally just: scripts package.json {  "scripts": {    "prepublishOnly": "nps test clean build",    "start": "nps",    "test": "nps test"  }} I’ll roll the dice with . npm: test VSCode creates and opens a file: .vscode/tasks.json At least it’s not XML, amirite? . I click the link and . It’s unclear whether VSCode intends for the user to commit to VCS (I don’t do so; in fact, I add to my post-haste). Fascinating learn about this file .vscode/ .vscode/ .gitignore VSCode likely didn’t need me to “configure” the Task — it discovered the script itself. I execute , choose , and the output opens in a terminal, as you’d expect. Run Task… npm: test I’m now certain “Tasks” are analogous to “External Tools”. Like in WebStorm, the user (seemingly) a Task, and there’s little integration. VSCode ships with some helpers for common build tools (unfortunately, is not one of them). Like WebStorm, the user has free rein to create a “shell”-based Task. cannot debug nps I’m still looking for the analog of a “Run Configuration,” which appears to be a “Debug Configuration,” though it’s just called “Configuration” under VSCode’s “Debug” menu. Next, I’ll take it for a test-drive. Whatever the hell it’s called. Summary . “Tasks” in VSCode are analogous to WebStorm’s “External Tools” . This isn’t too awesome, but VSCode provides validation/completion when editing, which is better than nothing. Configure tasks via JSON files You must . I’ve had success committing sliver of to VCS, but maybe the story is different here. Don’t look at me; find some other guinea pig. choose whether or not to commit **.vscode/** to VCS never any .idea/ Trivia: VSCode recognizes the filetype of as “JSON with Comments”, which, AFAIK, is unadulterated, imaginary nonsense. Is it or not? tasks.json JSON5 Debugging Photo by / Mink Mingle Unsplash First, I install the , since I figure I’ll need it to debug properly. Node.js Extension Pack From VSCode’s menu, I open . I’m presented with a new file, . Like , this is my config file. Debug > Open Configurations .vscode/launch.json tasks.json This menu item inexplicably corresponds to the command . Debug: Open launch.json In Node.js Do you want the good news or bad news first? I don’t care. The is, I can’t just throw in and expect my breakpoints to get hit. Why not? Because spawns , which spawns ten different processes in series, each which spawn , and many of which spawn . bad news npm test launch.json npm nps mocha _mocha _mocha again This is by no means VSCode’s fault, but the story around debugging subprocesses in Node.js is a sad one. I’d be foolish to expect a miracle. The is that if I choose some subset of the tests to run with , debugging works well (unless I want to debug more child processes). It’s a solid debugging experience, though lacking some of the bells & whistles of WebStorm’s debugger. good news bin/_mocha In a Browser Debugging tests with , awkward is. Karma In a WebStorm, you create Karma-based run configuration, point it to your config file, specify any particular browsers or other extra options, and push the button. It works well, even if you happen to be bundling your code with , which Mocha is. karma-browserify This is the VSCode experience: You need to install the extension. Chrome Debugger Create a debug configuration identical to: chrome {  "type": "chrome",  "request": "attach",  "name": "Attach to Karma",  "address": "localhost",  "port": 9333,  "pathMapping": {    "/": "${workspaceRoot}/",    "/base/": "${workspaceRoot}/"  }} Modify your ( , really?) to add a custom launcher to your setup object. The port below must be the same port as above. Hope it’s not in use! karma.conf.js ugh {  customLaunchers: {    ChromeDebug: {     base: 'Chrome',      flags: ['--remote-debugging-port=9333']    }  }} Start Karma (you can create a Task to do this): . Leave it running. karma start —-browsers ChromeDebug --auto-watch --no-single-run Run your “Attach to Karma” debug configuration; choose it from “Debug” > “Run Configuration…”. At this point, you can set breakpoint(s) by clicking in the editor’s gutter, though they will not immediately be enabled. There appears a small, odd, quasi-movable toolbar near the top of the window. Within this impish toolbar is a “refresh”-looking button; click it to re-run the tests. VSCode will then be able to discover which scripts/files Karma loaded. If you’re lucky, it’ll even hit your breakpoint! The above took a solid hour to figure out, even with a few scattered examples out there. The last thing I want to evaluate is VSCode’s “IntelliSense” capabilities. Summary . I’m calling them “Debug Configurations”, so there. “Run Configurations” = “Debug Configurations” , like “Tasks”. Configure “Debug Configurations” via JSON VSCode has without support for features such as enabling/disabling based on previous breakpoints, or disabling once hit. very basic breakpoints . I couldn’t find a Karma-specific extension to help with this. Debugging in Karma is a poor experience Code Completion, Inspections, & Intentions (Oh My) Assuming you use ESLint, install the . ESLint extension In terms of inspections, I just want ESLint to run on my JavaScript. I don’t need any other inspections, so I disable all the random crap WebStorm ships with. The ESLint extension “just works,” and the user sees the same type of inline inspections as from ESLint within WebStorm, right down to the intentions, like “Fix file with ESLint”. The Node.js Extension Pack provides some npm-related “IntelliSense,” which knows important stuff about , like if a package is missing or extraneous, will tell you so, and automatically fix it for you via an intention. package.json Is “IntelliSense” a trademark or something? It’s a Microsoft-ism, right? I am pretty sure I hate this word. I believe VSCode uses TypeScript definitions under the hood (not just in TypeScript files) to inspect code, at least in part. This results in code completion, jump-to-declaration, and the like. If there’s any “killer feature” for JavaScript developers, it’s this. You can coax such behavior out of WebStorm, but it will still be much more sluggish. extremely accurate and nearly instantaneous A “deep dive” into this would be an excellent source of information for WebStorm users (think: CSS, HTML, TypeScript, template languages, etc.), but is unfortunately out-of-scope. I’ll end with my final thoughts below. Summary VSCode (and/or its extensions) provide . accurate, zippy code-completion and inline docs for JavaScript VSCode If you use them, you’ll miss them, unless you find alternatives. does not ship with a bunch of built-in inspections. The . ESLint experience is strong The . npm-related experience is excellent VSCode: The Verdict Photo by / chuttersnap Unsplash Visual Studio Code is . It’s comparable with WebStorm — by way of extensions — in terms of feature set. It has a couple notable advantages over WebStorm, however: better than I expected VSCode is generally faster and more responsive than WebStorm VSCode’s JavaScript inspection/completion experience is just plain better Free as in beer Much exciting! Notable disadvantages include: Poor browser-based debugging experience (for me, anyway) Piecemeal (though complete) Git support JSON-based configuration No customer support As a developer, my code editor my most important tool. Having spent many years with JetBrains and WebStorm — and having very little dissatisfaction — a different tool must be compelling for me to want to pick up. incredibly My advice for WebStorm users? Don’t try VSCode unless you are prepared to switch. This article originally appeared March 9, 2018 on boneskull.com .

VSCode for WebStorm Users

is an that helps teams of developers and content editors build apps faster. 64.5% of developers on StackOverflow stated that WordPress was one of their most dreaded platforms to work with. With all the frustration with installed systems, it’s time to compare against API-first content management in the cloud. Cosmic JS API-first CMS surveyed Are you a WordPress developer? Wondering what makes Cosmic JS a more suitable CMS backend for you? offers an intuitive API that can deliver content to any website or application. This gives you the freedom to build your application using any programming language and allows for easier scaling within your development team. offers a streamlined editing experience that gives you everything you need to publish content quickly and easily. Since there is no CMS installation, you can easily build content in any phase of development and avoid unnecessary process bottlenecks. Cosmic JS Cosmic JS 1. Cosmic JS is more productive Installed content management systems create ongoing technical debt which becomes tomorrow’s problem. Stop reinventing the wheel with every project and avoid the installation, configuration, maintenence time-suck. By going API-first now, you will see the immediate benefit of saved project hours, timelines and costs. Don’t let another project become an installed headache that takes away resources from future projects. Complete projects in a fraction of the time it takes with an installed content management system. Eliminate bottle necks and ship faster. Teams working in different skillsets and technologies easily collaborate around a language-agnostic API with an intuitive content editing experience. Build and deliver content to your website, iOS and Android apps. Your content is also ready for your future watch, car or virtual reality app. In one word: magic. not only shortens your time to market, but totally transforms your development process. You will be able to deploy new apps on-the-fly, duplicate projects in a few clicks and spin up applications easily like never before. The Cosmic Stack is the simplest content management stack around. With Cosmic JS and GitHub, you’re in business. The Cosmic Stack 3. Cosmic JS provides a better content editor experience The dashboard makes it easy to manage content, drag and drop media and build content relationships. Developers are provided with powerful tools to build full-featured applications and content editors are given a simple and intuitive way to manage content. Cosmic JS 4. Cosmic JS is zippy fast is built on top of the most cutting-edge programming languages, frameworks and cloud technologies. This makes it faster than WordPress for both the publishing backend CMS as well as loading your websites. Cosmic JS 5. Cosmic JS takes care of upgrades, scalability and security issues Gone are the days of updating WordPress, installing and upgrading plugins, backing up your databases and fixing security issues. is an API-first content management platform so we take care of maintenance, security and scalability for you. Cosmic JS Content stored in and delivered by the API is protected with 256-bit SSL encryption. You can also restrict access to your content by adding optional access tokens located in the Settings tab in your Cosmic JS Bucket. Cosmic JS Conclusion Legacy content management systems are not equipped to handle the speed of modern business. Project timelines and costs grow significantly when the wrong technology choice is made. Technical debt grows over time, consuming future resources to maintain old infrastructure. provides a cloud-based solution that enables rapid application development which scales to meet the demands of modern business. You will see immediate benefits of saved project hours, costs plus a higher level of collaboration within your team. Cosmic JS Ready to give Cosmic JS a try? and join the to build apps faster. Reach out to us on or . Sign Up Cosmic JS Community Twitter Slack Additional Reading

Cosmic JS vs. WordPress

Carson Gibbons is the Co-Founder & CMO of , an API-first Cloud-based that decouples content from code, allowing devs to build slick apps and websites in any programming language they want. Cosmic JS Content Management Platform In this blog I will detail how to Build a API-Powered Static Website in 4 steps. The static website will use Webhooks and Markdown to automatically rebuild itself once content is changed dynamically with the Cosmic JS Content Management API. While I’m simply picking up a content-ready static website from the , you can see how the API-Powered Static Website was built with Node.js, specifically the Express Framework by reading . Cosmic JS Apps Page How to Build an API-Powered, Static Website 1. CREATE A NEW BUCKET WITH COSMIC JS for or navigate to your Cosmic JS Dashboard to Add a New Bucket. Once you’ve added a new bucket, you will be prompted to create your Bucket’s name. This will assign the bucket slug that will be used for your application’s API endpoint. Sign up Cosmic JS I named my bucket “Carson’s Static” as an example for this blog. 2. INSTALL THE COSMIC JS API-POWERED STATIC WEBSITE Once I’ve saved my bucket, I will have the option to install an application or get straight into creating my object types. I am installing the from the . API-Powered Static Website Cosmic JS Apps Page Once you’ve selected apps you will see the within your Cosmic JS Dashboard. You can filter between Node.js, PHP, React as well as other tags to filter between . Apps Page content-ready websites and apps I install the and am greeted with a Deploy to Web modal. I enjoy deploying my applications the minute I install them so that I can edit my web application within the and refresh to see my results in real time as the API updates my app immediately. Static Website Cosmic JS CMS 3. DEPLOY STATIC WEBSITE Once you select Deploy to Web, you will have options to set environment variables as well as add such as and . hosting features custom domains one-click SSL Click Deploy to Web and a “Deploy Web App” modal appears to clarify my GitHub branch, deployed location and the like. Start counting down until your Static Website is live, but don’t let it stop you from editing Globals, Pages, Content, Media or whatever your heart desires :) Average deployment on takes 2 minutes. I receive an email with the live link to my Static Website. Cosmic JS 4. MANAGE DYNAMIC CONTENT AND REVIEW Naturally, I click to view my Static Website and it’s live at . http://carsons-static.cosmicapp.co Static HTML and Markdown combines for a fast experience. The provides the dynamic content for the , controlled through the . Cosmic JS API API-Powered Static Website Cosmic JS Content Management Platform Edit objects, add new media and publish content to your Static Website. The static website rebuilds itself with each content change upon page load, so you stay real-time with the ease of maintenance of a Static Website. I used from Google a minute after deployment success and my Static Website was already firing off zippy HTML coupled with the Static Website’s Markdown files for a fast loading experience. Developer PageSpeed Insights . View the Static Website demo here . View the Static Website codebase on GitHub here . View the Static Website App page on Cosmic JS is an that makes it easy to manage applications and content. If you have questions about the Cosmic JS API, please reach out to us on or . Cosmic JS API-first cloud-based content management platform Twitter Slack

Build an API-Powered Static Website in 4 Steps

Seasoned software engineers long for the good old days when web development was simple. You just needed a few files and a server to get up and running. No complicated infrastructure, no endless amount of frameworks and libraries, no build tools. Just some ideas and some code hacked together to make an app come to life. Whether or not this romanticized past was actually as great as we think it was, developers today agree that software engineering has gotten complicated. There are too many choices with too much setup involved. In response to this sentiment, many products are providing off-the-shelf starter kits and zero config toolchains to try to abstract away the complexity of software development. One such startup is , a company which offers an online IDE where you can create applets that run as serverless TypeScript functions in the cloud. With Zipper, you don’t have to spend time worrying about your toolchain — you can just start writing code and deploy your app within minutes. Zipper Today, we’ll be looking at a ping pong ranking app I built — once in 2018 with jQuery, MongoDB, Node.js, and Express; and once in 2023 with Zipper. We’ll examine the development process for each and see just how easy it is to build a powerful app using Zipper. Backstory First, a little context: I love to play ping pong. Every office in which I’ve worked has had a ping pong table, and for many years ping pong was an integral part of my afternoon routine. It’s a great game to relax, blow off some steam, strengthen friendships with coworkers, and reset your brain for a half hour. Those who played ping pong every day began to get a feel for who was good and who wasn’t. People would talk. A handful of people were known as the best in the office, and it was always a challenge to take them on. Being both highly competitive and a software engineer, I wanted to build an app to track who was the best ping pong player in the office. This wouldn’t be for bracket-style tournaments, but just for recording the games that were played every day by anybody. With that, we’d have a record of all the games played, and we’d be able to see who was truly the best. This was 2018, and I had a background in the MEAN/MERN stack (MongoDB, Express, Angular, React, and Node.js) and experience with jQuery before that. After dedicating a week’s worth of lunch breaks and nights to this project, I had a working ping pong ranking app. I didn’t keep close track of my time spent working on the app, but I’d estimate it took about 10–20 hours to build. Here’s what that version of the app looked like. There was a login and signup page: The login page asked for your username and password to authenticate: Once authenticated, you could record your match by selecting your opponent and who won: You could view the leaderboard to see the current office rankings. I even included an algorithm like they use in chess: Elo rating Finally, you could click on any of the players to see their specific game history of wins and losses: That was the app I created back in 2018 with jQuery, MongoDB, Node.js, and Express. And, I hosted it on an AWS EC2 server. Now let’s look at my experience recreating this app in 2023 using only Zipper. About Zipper Zipper is an online tool for creating applets. It uses TypeScript and Deno, so JavaScript and TypeScript users will feel right at home. You can use Zipper to build web services, web UIs, scheduled jobs, and even Slack or GitHub integrations. Zipper even includes auth. In short, what I find most appealing about Zipper is how quickly you can take an idea from conception to execution. It’s perfect for side projects or internal-facing apps to quickly improve a business process. Demo app Here’s the ping pong ranking app I built with Zipper in just three hours. And that’s including time reading through the docs and getting up to speed with an unfamiliar platform! First, the app requires authentication. In this case, I’m requiring users to sign in to their Zipper account: Once authenticated, users can record a new ping pong match: They can view the leaderboard: And they can view the game history for any individual player: Not bad! The best part is that I didn’t have to create any of the UI components for this app. All the inputs and table outputs were handled automatically. And, the auth was created for me just by checking a box in the app settings! You can hosted publicly on Zipper. find the working app Ok, now let’s look at how I built this. Creating a new Zipper app First, I created my Zipper account by authenticating with GitHub. Then, on the main dashboard page, I clicked the Create Applet button to create my first applet. Next, I gave my applet a name, which became its URL. I also chose to make my code public and required users to sign in before they could run the applet. Then I chose to generate my app using AI, mostly because I was curious how it would turn out! This was the prompt I gave it: “I’d like to create a leaderboard ranking app for recording wins and losses in ping pong matches. Users should be able to log into the app. Then they should be able to record a match showing who the two players were and who won and who lost. “Users should be able to see the leaderboard for all the players, sorted with the best players displayed at the top and the worst players displayed at the bottom. “Users should also be able to view a single player to see all of their recorded matches and who they played and who won and who lost.” I might need to get better at prompt engineering, because the output didn’t include all the features or pages I wanted. The AI-generated code included two files: a generic “hello world” file, and a file for viewing the match history of an individual player. main.ts view-player.ts So, the app wasn’t perfect from the get-go, but it was enough to get started. Writing the ping pong app code I knew that Zipper would handle the authentication page for me, so that left three pages to write: A page to record a ping pong match A page to view the leaderboard A page to view an individual player’s game history Record a new ping pong match I started with the form to record a new ping pong match. Below is the full main.ts file. We’ll break it down line by line right after this. type Inputs = {
  playerOneID: string;
  playerTwoID: string;
  winnerID: string;
};

export async function handler(inputs: Inputs) {
  const { playerOneID, playerTwoID, winnerID } = inputs;

  if (!playerOneID || !playerTwoID || !winnerID) {
    return "Error: Please fill out all input fields.";
  }

  if (playerOneID === playerTwoID) {
    return "Error: PlayerOne and PlayerTwo must have different IDs.";
  }

  if (winnerID !== playerOneID && winnerID !== playerTwoID) {
    return "Error: Winner ID must match either PlayerOne ID or PlayerTwo ID";
  }

  const matchID = Date.now().toString();
  const matchInfo = {
    matchID,
    winnerID,
    loserID: winnerID === playerOneID ? playerTwoID : playerOneID,
  };

  try {
    await Zipper.storage.set(matchID, matchInfo);
    return `Thanks for recording your match. Player ${winnerID} is the winner!`;
  } catch (e) {
    return `Error: Information was not written to the database. Please try again later.`;
  }
}

export const config: Zipper.HandlerConfig = {
  description: {
    title: "Record New Ping Pong Match",
    subtitle: "Enter who played and who won",
  },
}; Each file in Zipper exports a function that accepts as a parameter. Each of the inputs becomes a form in UI, with the input type being determined by its TypeScript type that you give it. handler inputs After doing some input validation to ensure that the form is correctly filled out, I stored the match info in . Each Zipper applet gets its own storage instance that any of the files in your applet can access. Because it’s a key-value storage, objects work nicely for values since they can be serialized and deserialized as JSON, all of which Zipper handles for you when reading from and writing to the database. Zipper’s key-value storage At the bottom of the file, I’ve added a to add some title and instruction text to the top of the page in the UI. HandlerConfig With that, the first page is done. Leaderboard Next up is the leaderboard page. I’ve reproduced the file below in full: leaderboard.ts type PlayerRecord = {
  playerID: string;
  losses: number;
  wins: number;
};

type PlayerRecords = {
  [key: string]: PlayerRecord;
};

type Match = {
  matchID: string;
  winnerID: string;
  loserID: string;
};

type Matches = {
  [key: string]: Match;
};

export async function handler() {
  const allMatches: Matches = await Zipper.storage.getAll();
  const matchesArray: Match[] = Object.values(allMatches);

  const players: PlayerRecords = {};

  matchesArray.forEach((match: Match) => {
    const { loserID, winnerID } = match;

    if (players[loserID]) {
      players[loserID].losses++;
    } else {
      players[loserID] = {
        playerID: loserID,
        losses: 0,
        wins: 0,
      };
    }

    if (players[winnerID]) {
      players[winnerID].wins++;
    } else {
      players[winnerID] = {
        playerID: winnerID,
        losses: 0,
        wins: 0,
      };
    }
  });

  return Object.values(players);
}

export const config: Zipper.HandlerConfig = {
  run: true,
  description: {
    title: "Leaderboard",
    subtitle: "See player rankings for all recorded matches",
  },
}; This file contains a lot more TypeScript types than the first file did. I wanted to make sure my data structures were nice and explicit here. After that, you see our familiar function, but this time without any inputs. That’s because the leaderboard page doesn’t need any inputs; it just displays the leaderboard. handler We get all of our recorded matches from the database, and then we manipulate the data to get it into an array format of our liking. Then, simply by returning the array, Zipper creates the table UI for us, even including search functionality and column sorting. No UI work needed! Finally, at the bottom of the file, you’ll see a description setup that’s similar to the one on our main page. You’ll also see the property, which tells Zipper to run the handler function right away without waiting for the user to click the Run button in the UI. run: true Player history Alright, two down, one to go. Let’s look at the code for the file, which I ended up renaming to : view-player.ts player-history.ts type Inputs = {
  playerID: string;
};

type Match = {
  matchID: string;
  winnerID: string;
  loserID: string;
};

type Matches = {
  [key: string]: Match;
};

type FormattedMatch = {
  matchID: string;
  opponent: string;
  result: "Won" | "Lost";
};

export async function handler({ playerID }: Inputs) {
  const allMatches: Matches = await Zipper.storage.getAll();
  const matchesArray: Match[] = Object.values(allMatches);

  const playerMatches = matchesArray.filter((match: Match) => {
    return playerID === match.winnerID || playerID === match.loserID;
  });

  const formattedPlayerMatches = playerMatches.map((match: Match) => {
    const formattedMatch: FormattedMatch = {
      matchID: match.matchID,
      opponent: playerID === match.winnerID ? match.loserID : match.winnerID,
      result: playerID === match.winnerID ? "Won" : "Lost",
    };

    return formattedMatch;
  });

  return formattedPlayerMatches;
}

export const config: Zipper.HandlerConfig = {
  description: {
    title: "Player History",
    subtitle: "See match history for the selected player",
  },
}; The code for this page looks a lot like the code for the leaderboard page. We include some types for our data structures at the top. Next we have our function which accepts an input for the player ID that we want to view. handler From there, we fetch all the recorded matches and filter them for only matches in which this player participated. After that, we manipulate the data to get it into an acceptable format to display, and we return that to the UI to get another nice auto-generated table. Ping pong ranking app - Player history page Conclusion That’s it! With just three handler functions, we’ve created a working app for tracking our ping pong game history. This app does have some shortcomings that we could improve, but we’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader. For example, it would be nice to have a dropdown of users to choose from when recording a new match, rather than entering each player’s ID as text. Maybe we could store each player’s ID in the database and then display those in the UI as a . dropdown input type Or, maybe we’d like to turn this into a to allow users to record their matches directly in Slack. That’s an option too! Slack integration While my ping pong app isn’t perfect, I hope the takeaway here is how easy it is to get up and running with a product like Zipper. You don’t have to spend time agonizing over your app’s infrastructure when you have a simple idea that you just want to see working in production. Just get out there, start building, and deploy!

How to Build a Ping Pong Ranking App using Zipper and TypeScript Functions

I remember the first time I saw a demonstration of Ruby on Rails. With very little effort, demonstrators created a full-stack web application that could be used for real business purposes. I was impressed – especially when I thought about how much time it took me to deliver similar solutions using the Seam and Struts frameworks. Ruby was created in 1993 to be an easy-to-use scripting language that also included object-oriented features. Ruby on Rails took things to the next level in the mid-2000s – arriving at the right time to become the tech of choice for the initial startup efforts of Twitter, Shopify, GitHub, and Airbnb. I began to ask the question, “Is it possible to have a product, like Ruby on Rails, without needing to worry about the infrastructure or underlying data tier?” That’s when I discovered the Zipper platform. About Zipper Zipper is a platform for building web services using simple TypeScript functions. You use Zipper to create applets (not related to , though they share the same name), which are then built and deployed on Zipper’s platform. Java The coolest thing about Zipper is that it lets you focus on coding your solution using TypeScript, and you don’t need to worry about anything else. Zipper takes care of the following: User interface Infrastructure to host your solution Persistence layer APIs to interact with your applet Authentication Although the platform is currently in beta, it’s open for consumers to use. At the time I wrote this article, there were four templates in place to help new adopters get started: Hello World – a basic applet to get you started CRUD Template – offers a ToDo list where items can be created, viewed, updated, and deleted Slack App Template – provides an example of how to interact with the Slack service. AI-Generated Code – expresses your solution in human language and lets AI create an applet for you. There is also a gallery on the Zipper platform that provides applets that can be forked in the same manner as Git-based repositories. I thought I would put the Zipper platform to the test and create a ballot applet. HOA Ballot Use Case The homeowner’s association (HOA) concept started to gain momentum in the United States back in the 20th century. Subdivisions formed HOAs to handle things like the care of common areas and for establishing rules and guidelines for residents. Their goal is to maintain the subdivision’s quality of living as a whole, long after the home builder has finished development. HOAs often hold elections to allow homeowners to vote on the candidate they feel best matches their views and perspectives. In fact, last year, I published an on how an HOA ballot could be created using Web3 technologies. article For this article, I wanted to take the same approach using Zipper. Ballot Requirements The requirements for the ballot applet are: As a ballot owner, I need the ability to create a list of candidates for the ballot. As a ballot owner, I need the ability to create a list of registered voters. As a voter, I need the ability to view the list of candidates. As a voter, I need the ability to cast one vote for a single candidate. As a voter, I need the ability to see a current tally of votes that have been cast for each candidate. Additionally, I thought some stretch goals would be nice, too: As a ballot owner, I need the ability to clear all candidates. As a ballot owner, I need the ability to clear all voters. As a ballot owner, I need the ability to set a title for the ballot. As a ballot owner, I need the ability to set a subtitle for the ballot. Designing the Ballot Applet To start working on the Zipper platform, I navigated to and clicked the button. Next, I selected an authentication source: zipper.dev Sign In Once logged in, I used the button from the dashboard to create a new applet: Create Applet A unique name is generated, but that can be changed to better identify your use case. For now, I left all the defaults the same and pushed the button – which allowed me to select from four different templates for applet creation. Next I started with the CRUD template because it provides a solid example of how the common create, view, update, and delete flows work on the Zipper platform. Once the code was created, the screen appears as shown below: With a fully functional applet in place, we can now update the code to meet the HOA ballot use requirements. Establish Core Elements For the ballot applet, the first thing I wanted to do was update the file as shown below: types.ts export type Candidate = {
  id: string;
  name: string;
  votes: number;
};

export type Voter = {
  email: string;
  name: string;
  voted: boolean;
}; I wanted to establish constant values for the ballot title and subtitle within a new file called : constants.ts export class Constants {
  static readonly BALLOT_TITLE = "Sample Ballot";
  static readonly BALLOT_SUBTITLE = "Sample Ballot Subtitle";
}; To allow only the ballot owner to make changes to the ballot, I used the tab for the applet to create an owner secret with the value of my email address. Secrets Then, I introduced a common.ts file, which contained the function: validateRequest() export function validateRequest(context: Zipper.HandlerContext) {
  if (context.userInfo?.email !== Deno.env.get('owner')) {
    return (
      <>
         <Markdown>
            {`### Error:
            You are not authorized to perform this action`}
         </Markdown>
      </>
    );
  }
}; This way, I could pass in the context to this function to make sure only the value in the secret would be allowed to make changes to the ballot and voters. owner Establishing Candidates After understanding how the ToDo item was created in the original CRUD applet, I was able to introduce the file as shown below: create-candidate.ts import { Candidate } from "./types.ts";
import { validateRequest } from "./common.ts";

type Input = {
  name: string;
};

export async function handler({ name }: Input, context: Zipper.HandlerContext) {
  validateRequest(context);

  const candidates =
    (await Zipper.storage.get<Candidate[]>("candidates")) || [];
  const newCandidate: Candidate = {
    id: crypto.randomUUID(),
    name: name,
    votes: 0,
  };
  candidates.push(newCandidate);
  await Zipper.storage.set("candidates", candidates);
  return newCandidate;
} For this use case, we just need to provide a candidate name, but the Candidate object contains a unique ID and the number of votes received. While here, I went ahead and wrote the file, which removes all candidates from the key/value data store: delete-all-candidates.ts import { validateRequest } from "./common.ts";

type Input = {
  force: boolean;
};

export async function handler(
  { force }: Input,
  context: Zipper.HandlerContext
) {
  validateRequest(context);

  if (force) {
    await Zipper.storage.set("candidates", []);
  }
} At this point, I used the functionality to create Candidate A, Candidate B, and Candidate C: Preview Registering Voters With the ballot ready, I needed the ability to register voters for the ballot. So, I added a file with the following content: create-voter.ts import { Voter } from "./types.ts";
import { validateRequest } from "./common.ts";

type Input = {
  email: string;
  name: string;
};

export async function handler(
  { email, name }: Input,
  context: Zipper.HandlerContext
) {
  validateRequest(context);

  const voters = (await Zipper.storage.get<Voter[]>("voters")) || [];
  const newVoter: Voter = {
    email: email,
    name: name,
    voted: false,
  };
  voters.push(newVoter);
  await Zipper.storage.set("voters", voters);
  return newVoter;
} To register a voter, I decided to provide inputs for email address and name. There is also a boolean property called which will be used to enforce the vote-only-once rule. voted Like before, I went ahead and created the file: delete-all-voters.ts import { validateRequest } from "./common.ts";

type Input = {
  force: boolean;
};

export async function handler(
  { force }: Input,
  context: Zipper.HandlerContext
) {
  validateRequest(context);

  if (force) {
    await Zipper.storage.set("voters", []);
  }
} Now that we were ready to register some voters, I registered myself as a voter for the ballot: Creating the Ballot The last thing I needed to do was establish the ballot. This involved updating the as shown below: main.ts import { Constants } from "./constants.ts";
import { Candidate, Voter } from "./types.ts";

type Input = {
  email: string;
};

export async function handler({ email }: Input) {
  const voters = (await Zipper.storage.get<Voter[]>("voters")) || [];
  const voter = voters.find((v) => v.email == email);
  const candidates =
    (await Zipper.storage.get<Candidate[]>("candidates")) || [];

  if (email && voter && candidates.length > 0) {
    return {
      candidates: candidates.map((candidate) => {
        return {
          Candidate: candidate.name,
          Votes: candidate.votes,
          actions: [
            Zipper.Action.create({
              actionType: "button",
              showAs: "refresh",
              path: "vote",
              text: `Vote for ${candidate.name}`,
              isDisabled: voter.voted,
              inputs: {
                candidateId: candidate.id,
                voterId: voter.email,
              },
            }),
          ],
        };
      }),
    };
  } else if (!email) {
    <>
      <h4>Error:</h4>
      <p>
        You must provide a valid email address in order to vote for this ballot.
      </p>
    </>;
  } else if (!voter) {
    return (
      <>
        <h4>Invalid Email Address:</h4>
        <p>
          The email address provided ({email}) is not authorized to vote for
          this ballot.
        </p>
      </>
    );
  } else {
    return (
      <>
        <h4>Ballot Not Ready:</h4>
        <p>No candidates have been configured for this ballot.</p>
        <p>Please try again later.</p>
      </>
    );
  }
}

export const config: Zipper.HandlerConfig = {
  description: {
    title: Constants.BALLOT_TITLE,
    subtitle: Constants.BALLOT_SUBTITLE,
  },
}; I added the following validations as part of the processing logic: The email property must be included, or else a “You must provide a valid email address in order to vote for this ballot” message will be displayed. The email value provided must match a registered voter, or else a “The email address provided is not authorized to vote for this ballot” message will be displayed. There must be at least one candidate to vote on, or else a “No candidates have been configured for this ballot” message will be displayed. If the registered voter has already voted, the voting buttons will be disabled for all candidates on the ballot. The file contains a button for each candidate, all of which call the file, displayed below: main.ts vote.ts import { Candidate, Voter } from "./types.ts";

type Input = {
  candidateId: string;
  voterId: string;
};

export async function handler({ candidateId, voterId }: Input) {
  const candidates = (await Zipper.storage.get<Candidate[]>("candidates")) || [];
  const candidate = candidates.find((c) => c.id == candidateId);
  const candidateIndex = candidates.findIndex(c => c.id == candidateId);

  const voters = (await Zipper.storage.get<Voter[]>("voters")) || [];
  const voter = voters.find((v) => v.email == voterId);

  const voterIndex = voters.findIndex(v => v.email == voterId);

  if (candidate && voter) {
    candidate.votes++;
    candidates[candidateIndex] = candidate;

    voter.voted = true;
    voters[voterIndex] = voter;

    await Zipper.storage.set("candidates", candidates);
    await Zipper.storage.set("voters", voters);
    return `${voter.name} successfully voted for ${candidate.name}`;
  }

  return `Could not vote. candidate=${ candidate }, voter=${ voter }`;
} At this point, the ballot applet was ready for use. HOA Ballot In Action For each registered voter, I would send them an email with a link similar to what is listed below: https://squeeking-echoing-cricket.zipper.run/run/main.ts?email=some.email@example.com The link would be customized to provide the appropriate email address for the query parameter. Clicking the link runs the file and passes in the email parameter, avoiding the need for the registered voter to have to type in their email address. email main.ts The ballot appears as shown below: I decided to cast my vote for Candidate B. Once I pushed the button, the ballot was updated as shown: The number of votes for Candidate B increased by one, and all of the voting buttons were disabled. Success! Conclusion Looking back on the requirements for the ballot applet, I realized I was able to meet all of the criteria, including the stretch goals, in about two hours—and this included having a UI, infrastructure, and deployment. The best part of this experience was that . 100% of my time was focused on building my solution, and I didn’t need to spend any time dealing with infrastructure or even the persistence store My readers may recall that I have been focused on the following mission statement, which I feel can apply to any IT professional: “Focus your time on delivering features/functionality that extends the value of your intellectual property. Leverage frameworks, products, and services for everything else.” - J. Vester The Zipper platform adheres to my personal mission statement 100%. In fact, they have been able to take things a step further than Ruby on Rails did because I don’t have to worry about my service will run or data store I will need to configure. Using the applet approach, my ballot is already deployed and ready for use. where what If you are interested in giving applets a try, simply log in to and start building. Currently, using the Zipper platform is free. Give the AI-generated code template a try, as it is really cool to provide a paragraph of what you want to build and see how close the resulting applet matches what you have in mind. zipper.dev If you want to give my ballot applet a try, it is also available to fork in the Zipper gallery at the following location: https://zipper.dev/johnjvester/ballot Have a really great day! Also published . here

Streamlining Web App Development with Zipper: Write TypeScript and Offload Everything Else

The Lambda architecture is a widely adopted approach for processing big data. It involves the segregation of stream (real-time) and batch (offline) processing. This approach was also applied in our data processing pipeline, where we implemented separate pipelines for each type of data. These pipelines were designed to process the data in isolation before merging them to prepare for searches and queries. By adopting this approach, we were able to efficiently handle both real-time and offline data processing, ensuring seamless data management and analysis. But then we run into a few problems: Isolation of real-time and offline data warehouses I know this is kind of the essence of Lambda architecture, but that means we could not reuse real-time data since it was not layered as offline data, so further customized development was required. Complex Pipeline from Data Sources to Data Application Data had to go through multi-step processing before it reached our data users. As our architecture involved too many components, navigating and maintaining these tech stacks was a lot of work. Lack of management of real-time data sources In extreme cases, this worked like a data silo and we had no way to find out whether the ingested data was duplicated or reusable. So we decided to "zip up" the Lambda architecture a little bit. By "zipping up", I mean to introduce an engine that is capable of pre-processing, storing, and analyzing data, so real-time data and offline data converge a little earlier than they used to. It is not a revolution of , but a minor change in the choice of components, which made our real-time data processing 40% faster. OLAP Lambda Zipping up Lambda Architecture I am going to elaborate on how this is done using our data tagging process as an example. Previously, our offline tags were produced by the data warehouse, put into a flat table, and then written in , while real-time tags were produced by , and put into directly. Then would work as the computing engine. HBase Flink HBase Spark The problem with this stemmed from the computation efficiency of and . Flink Spark : When computing real-time tags that involve data within a long time range, Flink did not deliver stable performance and consumed more resources than expected. And when a task failed, it would take a really long time for checkpoint recovery. Real-time tag production : As a query engine, Spark could be slow in some cases. Tag query As a solution, we replaced and with , a real-time analytic database, and moved part of the computational logic of the foregoing wide-time-range real-time tags from to . HBase Spark Apache Doris Flink Apache Doris Instead of putting our flat tables in HBase, we place them in Apache Doris. These tables are divided into partitions based on time sensitivity. Offline tags will be updated daily while real-time tags will be updated in real time. We organize these tables in the Aggregate Model of Apache Doris, which allows partial updates of data. Instead of using Spark for queries, we parse the query rules into SQL for execution in Apache Doris. For pattern matching, we use Redis to cache the hot data from Apache Doris, so the system can respond to such queries much faster. Computational Pipeline of Wide-Time-Range Real-Time Tags In some cases, the computation of wide-time-range real-time tags entails the aggregation of historical (offline) data with real-time data. The following figure shows our old computational pipeline for these tags. As you can see, it required multiple tasks to finish computing one real-time tag. Also, in complicated aggregations that involve a collection of aggregation operations, any improper resource allocation could lead to back pressure or waste of resources. This adds to the difficulty of task scheduling. Maintaining and ensuring stability for such a long pipeline could be an issue, too. To improve on that, we decided to move such aggregation workload to Apache Doris. We have around 400 million customer tags in our system, and each customer is attached with over 300 tags. We divide customers into more than 10,000 groups, and we have to update 5000 of them on a daily basis. The above improvement has sped up the computation of our wide-time-range real-time queries by . 40% Overwrite To atomically replace data tables and partitions in Apache Doris, we customized the , and added an "Overwrite" mode to the Connector. Doris-Spark-Connector When a Spark job is submitted, Apache Doris will call an interface to fetch information of the data tables and partitions. If it is a non-partitioned table, we create a temporary table for the target table, ingest data into it, and then perform an atomic replacement. If the data ingestion fails, we clear the temporary table; If it is a dynamic partitioned table, we create a temporary partition for the target partition, ingest data into it, and then perform an atomic replacement. If the data ingestion fails, we clear the temporary partition; If it is a non-dynamic partitioned table, we need to extend the Doris-Spark-Connector parameter configuration first. Then we create a temporary partition and take the steps as above. Conclusion One prominent advantage of Lambda architecture is the stability it provides. However, in our practice, the processing of real-time data and offline data sometimes intertwines. For example, the computation of certain real-time tags requires historical (offline) data. Such interaction becomes a root cause of instability. Thus, instead of pooling real-time and offline data after they are fully ready for queries, we use an OLAP engine to share part of the pre-query computation burden and make things faster, simpler, and more cost-effective.

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