Render Golang templates with a timeout

Reading Time: Approximately 2 minutes.

Situation You’re writing a Go program that renders arbitrary Go templates that users can write. Since they are arbitrary, you want to prevent users from accidentally DDoSing your program by using long-running template functions. Something like this: import ( "os" "template" ) // Perhaps this is exposed through an interface that a // third-party API implements, for example. func LongRunningFunction(s string) { time.Sleep(100000000) // This takes forever return s } func main() { tmpl := `Hello, {{ . … »

Story Points Aren't Units of Time

Reading Time: Approximately 4 minutes.

They just aren’t. WHY Search for “story points agile” on Google. Try it. You don’t even have to type it into Google; click the link! You’ll get, at this time of writing, approximately 12 million results. Accouting for the 8 million results are bots promoting something that requires your wallet, that leaves four million web pages, many of which will go on to describe story points to the letter and how they aren’t about estimation. … »

Is your Java app ready for Docker? Take this super quick test!

Reading Time: Approximately 1 minutes.

Here’s a really quick test to see if your enterprise Java app is ready for Docker. NOTE: I am not a Java developer; more like a casual observer. Get your pitchforks ready! If I can’t do this: $> docker run --rm --volume "$PWD:/app" --volume "$HOME/.m2:/root/.m2" \ --tty maven:3.6.0-jdk$WHICHEVER_VERSION-alpine mvn build $> docker run --rm --volume "$PWD:/app" --tty openjdk:$WHICHEVER_VERSION-jdk-alpine \ java -jar /path/to/war.war Then either: Your application is not 12-factor and is probably not ready for Docker, Your source code has hidden dependencies that live outside of your pom. … »

Move Fast And Retain Corporate Governance with Pull Requests

Reading Time: Approximately 7 minutes.

DevOps and change control mix like oil and water. Product and development teams want to experiment with and release ideas as quickly as their customers request them, and do so with tight, but unstructured, collaboration across organizations. On the other hand, corporate governance wants auditability, transparent risk mitigation and justification in every step of the way. Consequently, both of these sides often don’t get along with each other well, hindering development speed in the progress. … »