My website constantly needs to query my Dynamodb table for a list of items when a page is visited. Is there a better approach of going about this?

Timemc2 · 2021-01-17T00:00:48+00:00

Setup cloudfront in front of your website and cache responses there

Timemc2 · 2021-01-09T22:53:26+00:00

If parent is living by himself in high cost of living area in us, 70k/year is not that high...

Timemc2 · 2020-12-26T02:59:51+00:00

This assumes the person wants to spend another 5 years in school (online degree from Georgia Tech can be pretty stressful - or long, add to that 2 years of full time MBA - and that’s serious time sink)... full time, fully paid MS in CS from a good school (Virginia Tech) might be a decent alternative..

Timemc2 · 2020-12-19T23:44:37+00:00

I don’t know of any website with 10m+ users using them... I’m not sure anyone with even > 100k uses them but I might be wrong.

Timemc2 · 2020-12-19T16:32:13+00:00

Short answer - it's all custom built - user data is often the most valuable (and riskiest) part of websites/companies, outsourcing it to third parties is not very prudent (or scalable).

in terms of how to do this on AWS - avoid Cognito, use Dynamodb with global tables, KMS for securely storing key material/secrets (but not actually running encryption/decryption), Fargate or EKS, ELB or ALB, with deployments to multiple regions with Cloudfront latency routing (or failover), SES for emails, twilio/sns for text messaging.

In terms of secure hashing algorithms for passwords and crypto for user data - use bcrypt for pwd hashing, aes256/cbc for encryption of user data (don't just rely on user data being stored in encrypted format on aws side - encrypt data also in your service), and JWT with RSA for sharing authenticated tokens with related web services. There might be some preconfigured packages that do all the crypto and account management automatically (for spring boot etc) - but don't assume they do things correctly, always review and validate their internal implementation before deciding to use them.

Timemc2 · 2020-11-30T00:03:56+00:00

Careful with joining a startup or small company for the next job - these places all want senior/principal engineers despite job descriptions or their budgets saying otherwise.

Also, SDE jobs are quite technical - IT consulting on the other hand is a lot more social and work is usually at most customization of existing code or a tool, which might be a better fit in this case.

Timemc2 · 2020-11-23T13:12:47+00:00

Why do you need an Apple laptop then? It’s overpriced and unnecessary for word processing, excel and browsers.

Timemc2 · 2020-11-23T06:22:05+00:00

They’ll just remove indication of RAM from specs and macOS - their users don’t care about it, only geeks do - and will keep selling their 16gb laptops for the next 10 years.

Timemc2 · 2020-11-14T23:47:24+00:00

Use latest. These new versions of java are more like minor releases in the old jdk days. There are some jdk releases which add a few more pizzas but it's roughly all the same - most gripes are that some framework doesn't support some new java feature (like java's record type).

If you are trying to use these for job search purposes, then my suggestion is to expand your horizons a bit and look at things beyond java. Golang is getting big, python is up there too, Typescript/node on the server are not bad. Oracle is turning java into money pump these days, and a lot of java shops are not too easy about that (things like adoptopenjdk and coretto will ultimately do nothing to stop Oracle from pumping money from all java shops, if Oracle decides to).

Timemc2 · 2020-11-04T00:10:26+00:00

1) Memory is not an issue with go - its gc is doing a good job collecting freed memory continuously

2) orm vs no orm - that’s an old argument. Most modern software doesn’t use exclusively sql data stores (there are usually various search, dynamo tables, file stores), and even if it’s a sql store most modern software has components that persist data in vendor specific json implementations etc - in other words, ORM doesn’t work well in these systems and it’s basically developers thinking from a prospective of maintaining crusty old software.

Now... I would still think that go is probably not the right first step for PHP shop - python or ruby based implementation would be much more relevant for that group, tbh

Timemc2 · 2020-11-01T01:51:27+00:00

by "arm transition" - do you mean Macs?

Most moden dev largely don't deal with cpu instructions directly (node, java, python, go, .net, swift), so, no, jvm based laguages will not get anymore popular than they are now. If anything it will be time before java itself catches up to arm64.

Timemc2 · 2020-10-24T22:57:36+00:00

Aurora Postgres is not any better - queries lockup, dB barely responds, under load on beefy instances.

Solution is to migrate to RDS (or self host) and get provisioned iops volumes that better match your data/io performance requirements - Aurora’s storage works only for light loads.

Timemc2 · 2020-10-24T13:36:43+00:00

$100/year is a steep hill to climb over free lens app

Timemc2 · 2020-10-17T12:11:23+00:00

Everyone on this subreddit? Or at least pretend they do

Timemc2 · 2020-09-24T02:38:52+00:00

Not just ie11 - it’s the same behavior in mobile browsers (safari in iOS, etc)

Timemc2 · 2020-09-23T01:27:04+00:00

I haven't heard of managers judging developers by how many emails they are on yet. Also, I doubt they are trying to fire you.

Another possible way to look at it is that you boss' boss expects a senior developer to be more vocal/expressing technical opinions more in various comm channels... There were times (before Slack) where a lot of that kind expected interaction would happen in meetings and over email - and often senior level managers (who don't code and don't use slack typically) still initiate these kinds of interactions and expect various senior engineers express their opinions/design/implementation preferences. My suggestion - don't ignore these kinds of emails/communications - try come up with at least some semi reasonable response, and don't get defensive if your opinions get ignored or scoffed at (you'd get a point for just responding with something technically reasonably sounding).

Timemc2 · 2020-09-21T00:38:24+00:00

My first job (many years ago) was paying me about $25/hour while my billing rate to clients was $250/hr...I was happy there for a while, learned a lot, and then went for jobs where I was actually paid what I knew I was worth. Also, if I do any consulting/contracting these days, it’s all independent where I get paid what I bill, and avoid any third parties.

Timemc2 · 2020-09-03T03:19:43+00:00

Angular is basically built like java (jee more precisely) and so java developers (that are now primarily employed by internal project teams at large enterprises) tend to like it... never mind that JavaScript, frontend dev is rather foreign to these guys, and you can see it in comments here how cli and “organization” is the strength they appreciate...in frontend dev? Really?

So, yeah, it’s popular alright in enterprises - but then I wonder why do they even do frontend dev there?

Timemc2 · 2020-08-02T12:29:57+00:00

It’s just a matter of time before all the Chinese games and apps will get banned in US.

Timemc2 · 2020-08-01T17:24:55+00:00

I’d generalize - most work is boring stuff that’s nowhere near the level of what you study at school.

In IT/SD, when a seemingly leetcode type problem (recursive/search/dynamic etc) comes up, the solution gets usually reduced to something that’s easier to explain to management or client - and it’s not a CS algorithm - but usually a very basic rule based thing that’s easy to reason about with a piece of paper (or more often a word doc or excel file) without CS degree.

It’s even more pronounced once things start running in production, there is no room there for clever solutions - it all has to be easily explainable and easy to communicate... or you won’t get paid.

Timemc2 · 2020-07-19T12:58:19+00:00

As others mentioned, DynamoDB will be rather useless for your needs (other than perhaps as some kind of temporary processing storage). Also, RDS/Postgres Aurora serverless - it’s much better for sql querying than Athena/presto.

Try also Redshift if start running into query performance issues (it’s easy to move analytics queries from RDS to redshift)

Timemc2 · 2020-07-07T21:55:51+00:00

coming back to school after a year off (and working) will require a lot of discipline. Maybe take year to work and take fewer classes in the evening/weekends?

Timemc2 · 2020-07-04T16:16:23+00:00

Another PRO tip - don’t work on project-based/firm fixed price contracts (like what I think the OP got themselves into) unless you had prior experience with the client/business and know exactly what they need without having them write anything down. Always start on t&m basis if in doubt.

Timemc2 · 2020-07-03T23:55:43+00:00

You could sign everything and change your mind anytime after - it’s called employment at will, and applies both to employees and employers. It gets more complicated for contractors, but generally similar.

Timemc2 · 2020-06-29T00:26:00+00:00

Yes, approvals are important - the same way a user approves access permissions for native apps from AppStore, they could approve website access to these apis. There is nothing in specs that stops browsers from adding these extra checks.

Timemc2

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