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That Which Inspires Awe

That Which Inspires Awe

A software development blog

Articles

  • Dealing With LWLock:LockManager Wait Events in Aurora Postgres December 02, 2024
    ~1 min read Learn how Postgres' lock manager, lightweight locks, and fast-path locking work together—and what to do when LWLock:LockManager wait events slow down your system.
  • How to Safely Alter a Busy Table in Postgres October 13, 2024
    ~1 min read When altering busy tables in Postgres, acquiring the required locks can lead to application downtime if not handled carefully. This post explains the potential pitfalls of using ALTER TABLE on high-traffic tables, and provides strategies for minimizing disruptions.
  • Improve the Quality of Your Tests With Mutation Testing April 12, 2024
    ~1 min read Ever wondered if your tests are actually catching bugs as they should? Let's dive into mutation testing, a clever technique that helps us validate the quality of our tests.
  • Accessing EC2 Instances with AWS SSM April 07, 2024
    ~1 min read Discover how to access your EC2 instances with AWS Systems Manager (SSM), eliminating the need for complex networking setups or SSH key management.
  • What's inside the Nginx Ingress Controller? March 03, 2024
    ~1 min read This post explores the inner workings of the Nginx Ingress Controller and provides useful insights for application developers.
  • The Three Ways of DevOps June 14, 2020
    ~1 min read If you ask three people to describe DevOps, you’ll get four different answers. This post tries to shed some light on the meaning of DevOps by summarizing the key principles from The DevOps Handbook.
  • Pattern Matching for instanceOf in Java 14 March 28, 2020
    ~1 min read Pattern matching capabilities added to the instanceOf operator in Java 14 is going to enhance the programming language.
  • Helpful NullPointerExceptions in Java 14 February 29, 2020
    ~1 min read Helpful NullPointerExceptions in Java 14 improve NPE error messages by describing precisely which variable was null.
  • Java 14 Records February 22, 2020
    ~1 min read Java 14 introduces a new preview feature to the language—Records—with a goal to provide a compact syntax for declaring containers of shallowly immutable data.
  • Running Spring Boot apps as GraalVM native images January 06, 2020
    ~1 min read GraalVM is a high-performance polyglot virtual machine. It's ability to create ahead-of-time compiled native images considerably speed up Spring Boot startup times.
  • Misusing Java's Optional type October 05, 2019
    ~1 min read Java’s Optional type has been criticised for its flaws. It’s also being used for things it was perhaps not designed. This post shows some situations where I think Optional is being misused.
  • How to Invalidate JSON Web Tokens July 17, 2019
    ~1 min read JWTs allow us to implement stateless authentication. We don't have to query a central database to validate the token. But how do we invalidate them?
  • Rock-solid Consumer Driven Contract Testing Workflow With Pact June 27, 2019
    ~1 min read To make the most out of Pact, you should put some time into automation. This post will cover the steps you need to take to create a rock-solid workflow that helps you to reap the benefits of consumer driven contract testing.
  • Consumer Driven Contract Testing with Pact May 29, 2019
    ~1 min read Consumer driven contract testing is a method that can be used to verify that services speak the same language. It is an alternative to traditional integration testing that gives you faster feedback.
  • The Challenges of Testing Microservices April 28, 2019
    ~1 min read Microservices provide you with several benefits. But there's no question that they introduce a new set of challenges, one of them being testing.
  • Serving React apps from Spring Boot January 16, 2019
    ~1 min read You've decided to build a wep app with React and want to use Spring Boot for the back end. This post will show you how to serve a React app from Spring Boot.
  • Structuring packages in Java web applications October 28, 2018
    ~1 min read Often times in Java web applications we see that the package structure indicates that a layered architecture is used. In this post we're going to explore the ideas around what would happen if layers were not the topmost level of organization in an application architecture.
  • Improvements to Optional in Java 9 January 18, 2018
    ~1 min read Java 9 introduced three new methods to the Optional class. This post covers what they do and how to use them.
  • Using environment variables with Spring Boot December 17, 2017
    ~1 min read This post will cover how you can use OS environment variables to pass configuration values to a Spring Boot application.
  • How to write a good commit message September 17, 2017
    ~1 min read Version control systems play a vital role in tracking the history of changes in a codebase. Knowing how to write good commit messages is an essential skill if you wish to have your project's history well documented.
  • takeWhile and dropWhile in Java 9 Streams June 18, 2017
    ~1 min read Arguably one of the most noteworthy new features introduced in Java 8 was the Streams API. Java 9 offers two new stream operations—takeWhile and dropWhile.
  • To field inject, or not to field inject in Spring? May 31, 2017
    ~1 min read Nearly all Spring projects that I have worked with make heavy use of field injection. This must be a popular approach because it is concise and reads well. But have you ever considered the downsides of field injection?
  • Java's While and Do-While Loops in Five Minutes May 23, 2017
    ~1 min read A while loop is a control flow statement that runs a piece of code multiple times. It consists of a loop condition and body. Java also has a do while loop.
  • Java’s Ternary Operator in Three Minutes April 21, 2017
    ~1 min read The ternary operator is a form of syntactic sugar for if-then-else statements. It is also known as the conditional operator, which is perhaps a more meaningful name because it evaluates conditions like if does.
  • Java’s If Statement in Five Minutes March 23, 2017
    ~1 min read The if statement is the most basic conditional statement. It checks a condition, which is any boolean expression, and runs a block of code if it is true.
  • Unit testing classes that depend on time March 18, 2017
    ~1 min read Dependency inversion principle states that we should depend upon abstractions. Taking that into account, time should also be considered as a dependency.
  • Type-safe configuration in Spring Boot February 11, 2017
    ~1 min read Spring Boot provides a type-safe way to handle configuration by allowing you to create a bean and populating it with property values from your configuration file.
  • Externalized configuration in Spring Boot January 14, 2017
    ~1 min read Externalized configuration is essential if you wish to deploy the same deployable unit to different environments without modifying the source code. Spring Boot provides several easy methods of doing that.
  • Getting started with Dropwizard - CRUD operations December 27, 2016
    ~1 min read Dropwizard is a framework for building RESTful web services in Java. This tutorial shows how to create, retrieve, update, and delete resources.
  • 5 ways to create a Stream in Java 8 December 18, 2016
    ~1 min read Java 8 introduced the Streams API which allows developers to declaratively manipulate collections. Here are five ways to create a Stream in Java 8.
  • Running a Dropwizard application in IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse and NetBeans November 12, 2016
    ~1 min read In addition to executing a Dropwizard application from the command line, you can increase your productivity by configuring your IDE to do that for you. This post is going to be looking at how to run a Dropwizard application in IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse and NetBeans.
  • Getting started with Dropwizard October 29, 2016
    ~1 min read Dropwizard is a framework for building RESTful web services in Java. In this tutorial we're going to have a look at how to get started with developing a Dropwizard application by building a new service from scratch.
  • Practice programming with code katas October 20, 2016
    ~1 min read Kata is an exercise where the novice repeatedly tries to emulate a master. In karate, these kata are a sequence of basic moves, strung together in a way that makes sense. PragDave proposes the idea of doing the same with programming.
  • ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE and SSH not working September 20, 2016
    ~1 min read Chrome is returning ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE, Git and SSH connection hangs at expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_ECDH_REPLY. Seems to be an MTU/fragmentation problem.
  • Java, Unicode, and the Mysterious Compiler Error September 09, 2016
    ~1 min read This post covers how the Java compiler handles Unicode escapes and how they can cause mysterious compiler errors.
  • Java 8 Puzzlers: Streams August 31, 2016
    ~1 min read In the spirit of the book Java Puzzlers by Joshua Bloch and Neal Gafter, this post discusses a Puzzler that can be found in Java 8 Streams.
  • How to control an RC car over WiFi with ESP8266 July 17, 2016
    ~1 min read ESP8266 is a low-cost WiFi chip with a full TCP/IP stack and a microcontroller capability. Here is how I used it to control an RC car.
  • Design patterns: Specialization of the classic observer pattern July 04, 2016
    ~1 min read In the typical case, the observer is responsible of getting the updated state from the subject. This means that the observer has to hold a reference to the subject (also the subject holds a reference to the observer, meaning we have created a circular reference).
  • Design patterns: Observer pattern implementation in Java June 29, 2016
    ~1 min read Observer pattern is a design pattern with an intent to define a one-to-many dependency between objects so that when one object changes state, all its dependents are notified and updated automatically.
  • Ansible force remote user with Vagrant 1.8 June 08, 2016
    ~1 min read My Ansible playbook stopped working when using Vagrant 1.8 or above. The problem seems to be with changes made in Vagrant.
  • Ansible skipping localhost when using Vagrant May 28, 2016
    ~1 min read Vagrant Ansible provisioner skips plays that are meant to be run on localhost. There's a simple workaround for that.
  • Java 8: CompletableFuture April 30, 2016
    ~1 min read CompletableFuture is an implementation of the Future interface but with a modern twist. It takes advantage of functional operations to promote asynchronous/event-driven programming model.
  • Using Ansible to manage SugarCRM 7 environments and deployments April 12, 2016
    ~1 min read I've decided to use Ansible to manage SugarCRM environments and deployments. Here's an overview of Ansible playbooks I've created.
  • Chaining Optionals in Java 8 March 26, 2016
    ~1 min read Optionals in Java can help you to write a program without null checks. Chaining Optionals in a Stream enables to pick the first Optional which has a value and return it.
  • Using a serial monitor with SparkFun ESP8266 Thing on Linux March 18, 2016
    ~1 min read Using Arduino IDE's serial monitor with SparkFun ESP8266 Thing does not work. In this post you'll see how to use a serial terminal with the SparkFun ESP8266 Thing on Linux.
  • Optionals in Java 8 March 12, 2016
    ~1 min read If you have had any experience with Java, then you most likely have seen the NullPointerException. Optional in Java 8 are a way to fight them.
  • The fork/join framework in Java February 21, 2016
    ~1 min read Introduced in Java 7, the fork/join framework is used to divide a parallelizable task into smaller ones and afterwards combine the intermediate results to get the end result.
  • Controlling an RC car with an Arduino January 28, 2016
    ~1 min read Looking for an easy hardware project? Controlling an RC car with an Arduino board is relatively simple. I'll share my experience.
  • Version control and deployment practices for SugarCRM January 20, 2016
    ~1 min read This post will give you ideas on how to do version control with SugarCRM and how to manage multiple environments and deployments.
  • Creating a custom collector in Java 8 January 11, 2016
    ~1 min read A collector is a recipe for how to build a summary of the elements in a Stream. In this post you'll see how to create a custom collector in Java 8.
  • Service won't start when using the service utility December 20, 2015
    ~1 min read I debugged a service which didn't start when using the service utility but was working fine when calling the init script directly.
  • Four types of method references in Java 8 December 13, 2015
    ~1 min read Method references let you reuse existing method definitions and pass them just like lambdas. They can be useful in making the code more readable.
  • Blogging with Jekyll and Github November 21, 2015
    ~1 min read It is possible to host your blog at Github and version control your blog posts with Git. Here's how.
  • Java 8: Lambda expressions November 12, 2015
    ~1 min read In computer programming, an anonymous function (also function literal or lambda abstraction) is a function definition that is not bound to an identifier.
  • Java 8: Behavior parameterization October 17, 2015
    ~1 min read Behavior parameterization is essentially taking a block of code and making it available without executing it. Here's how to do it with Java.
  • The importance of taking a break October 06, 2015
    ~1 min read If you're going to dedicate the best years of your life to work, make sure you're doing it for the right reasons.
  • Setting up a reverse SSH tunnel with a Raspberry Pi part 2 September 27, 2015
    ~1 min read In part 2 I promised to show an example use case on how to connect to a Windows Server over RDP via a reverse SSH tunnel.
  • Setting up a reverse SSH tunnel with a Raspberry Pi part 1 September 18, 2015
    ~1 min read You need to access your work computer or network from your home. Maybe a Raspberry Pi can help you.
  • Using Joda-Time in unit tests February 15, 2015
    ~1 min read Joda-Time is a Java library which provides a quality replacement for the Java date and time classes.
  • Fixing wireless on Macbook Pro with Ubuntu 13.10 October 26, 2014
    ~1 min read Downgrading Broadcom's proprietary driver and making sure no updates are applied to it.
  • NTLM authentication fails on Linux when accessing QlikView Access Point October 09, 2014
    ~1 min read I was unable to connect to QlikView Access Point from a Linux machine. My browser presented me with a username/password prompt and after entering the correct credentials, it seemed like no authentication was made.
  • Error when exporting to Excel in QlikView AccessPoint September 01, 2014
    ~1 min read A client of mine was unable to export data from QlikView Access Point to Excel.
  • 5 steps to improve SSH security August 12, 2014
    ~1 min read SSH is something we (developers, sysadmins) use daily to connect to remote servers. Here are a few tips to keep your SSH connection secure.
  • Batch file in Windows Task Scheduler does not run July 15, 2014
    ~1 min read Creating a scheduled task in Windows Task Scheduler to run a batch file is relatively straight forward, or so I thought.
  • Remmina: cannot connect to Windows server over RDP July 14, 2014
    ~1 min read What to do when suddenly you're unable to connecto to a Windows server with Remmina over RDP
  • Sharing a local folder during a remote desktop session with RDesktop June 02, 2014
    ~1 min read Rdesktop is an open source client for Windows Remote Desktop Services, capable of natively speaking Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) in order to present the user's Windows desktop
  • SEVERE: Error listenerStart - debugging Tomcat applications February 14, 2014
    ~1 min read How to debug the dreaded 'Error listenerStart' error message
  • Getting started with Mockito - a tutorial for beginners December 24, 2013
    ~1 min read A tutorial for getting your feet of the ground with Mockito
  • Solving MySql JDBC CommunicationsException December 17, 2013
    ~1 min read I faced a com.mysql.jdbc.exceptions.jdbc4.CommunicationsException and this is how I solved it.
  • Character set problem when uploading a file December 12, 2013
    ~1 min read Non-ASCII characters in file name get garbled when uploading a file with Apache Commons and Spring CommonsMultipartResolver.
  • How to configure VirtualBox VM with 2 network adapters October 31, 2013
    ~1 min read This post describes how to create a VM which has a connection to the internet and also to other VMs in the virtual network.
  • Setting up Redis replication October 30, 2013
    ~1 min read The goal of this post is to install Redis on both of them and set up a master-slave replication configuration
  • Autoloading Yii application classes in external scripts October 24, 2013
    ~1 min read Sometimes I want to have access to all of my classes in a Yii application externally.
  • Background jobs with PHP part 2 October 21, 2013
    ~1 min read In this post, as promised, we're going to implement a queue of jobs with Resque and Redis
  • PHP Fatal error: Cannot redeclare class with Yii October 11, 2013
    ~1 min read I am fairly new to PHP and Yii. Lately i struggled with a 'cannot redeclare class' error.
  • Background jobs with PHP part 1 October 09, 2013
    ~1 min read A background job is a task that is executed 'behind the scenes' and without user intervention.
  • Configuring Tomcat to accept Estonian ID card September 20, 2013
    ~1 min read In order to accept Estonian ID card, Tomcat needs to be configured to accept client side certificates.
  • Setting up SSL on Apache September 19, 2013
    ~1 min read This article explains how to create an SSL certificate, get it signed and configure Apache web server
  • Configure SSL on Apache Tomcat September 03, 2013
    ~1 min read Here we are going to have a look at how to set up SSL on Apache Tomcat 7.0.
  • How to enable SSL listen port in Weblogic August 19, 2013
    ~1 min read Where to find the option in Weblogic console to enable SSL?
  • Programming tips and tricks #1 May 28, 2013
    ~1 min read These are not necessarily related to the technical aspects of programming.
  • How to access phpmyadmin after installation? April 27, 2013
    ~1 min read You've just installed phpmyadmin from your package manager. Here's what you need to do in order to access it
  • XsltException caused by JRebel April 26, 2013
    ~1 min read XsltException caused by a seemingly missing stylesheet. Turns out JRebel was the culprit.
  • Wrong version of Ant in path April 18, 2013
    ~1 min read Recently, working on a Windows box, I had a problem where my ANT_HOME and ant -version result did not match.

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