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ESPRESSO FRIDAYS

Every once in a while I send hand picked things I've learned. Kind of like your filter to the tech internet. No spam, I promise!

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You Need To Learn Docker Swarm!

You Need To Learn Docker Swarm! Ever felt like you're overcomplicating your container deployments? You might be. Today, we're diving into a Docker orchestrator that's likely already on your machine (run `docker service` for a second will ya?), but you're probably overlooking: Docker Swarm. The Underdog Orchestrator For years (for me, the past 11 years to be exact), the path has seemed to be either simple Docker Compose or the more, WAY MORE complex, Kubernetes. Compose is great for local...

LimaVM Is Probably The Best MacOS Virtual Machine I've Ever Used If you're tired of Docker Desktop bogging down your machine, or simply don't like fuff of mapping ports, mounting volumes when all you need is a small virtual environment, this one's for you. I recently discovered LimaVM, and it's a game-changer for local development. It lets you spin up Linux VMs with ease, offering a faster, lighter alternative to Docker and other VM managers for many tasks, but especially for development....

Coding Is Changing. Here's How I Stay AHEAD This issue is brought to you by: Ideas to apps in seconds with Lovable Lovable is your superhuman full stack engineer. Click here for double credits when signing up The AI revolution isn't replacing engineers (IMHO) - it's changing how they work and which skills matter most. I mean, look at the sponsor of this week, a "vibe coding" platform that creates your idea in no time. But, does it actually matter for developers / devops and other tech...

Edit Faster: Vim Motions From Scratch Ever watched a developer frantically switching between keyboard and mouse? "Click, type, click, type..." It's like watching someone crawl when they could just walk. If you're tired of granny mode coding and want to boost your productivity, Vim motions might be exactly what you need. Every once in a while, I review my processes, trying to improve systems, tools, and yes, motions. This time I thought, why not share the basics with everyone too? These...

Neovim Debugging: A Dev's Edge in the AI Age In a world where AI-generated code is slowly becoming the norm, mastering debugging isn't just a nice-to-have skill—it's survival. As John Carmack, the legendary game engine developer, wisely pointed out: "A debugger is how you get a view into a system that's too complicated to understand. I mean, anybody that thinks 'just read the code and think about it'—that's an insane statement."- Lex Fridman Podcast What's the problem? Most developers...

Stop Releasing Bash Scripts. Do This Instead. This issue is brought to you by: Level Up Your Security Skills With Snyk! Join Snyk's "Live Hack: Exploiting AI-Generated Code" on Thursday, April 3, 2025, 11am-12:30pm ETLearn how to identify and fix security flaws in AI-generated code. REGISTER NOW! Ever accidentally leaked sensitive credentials in your code? Maybe just released a public shell script, baked in a container, an image, or any other public method? You're not alone. Nine years ago, I...

I Was DEFINITELY Using The Wrong VPS Setup When was the last time you thought up running something on a server? It doesn't have to be something fancy. A side project. A utility. An open source that you always wanted to run on your own but just too lazy to get it off the ground so you. I certainly have. Even when I needed a local server, my immediate thought was "sure, I can just setup and K8s cluster on my raspberry pie an put whatever I want there" 🤦 After years of advocating for complex...

Run Code Anywhere: A Modern Guide to Docker Imagine a world where your code runs flawlessly across any environment – from your laptop to production servers – without the dreaded "but it works on my machine" syndrome. That's the promise of containers, and they've revolutionized how we develop, test, and deploy applications. Containers emerged as a solution to the chaos of maintaining traditional servers, where applications would conflict with each other and overwrite data. Using Linux...

Stop Using Redis. Use Open Source Instead. This issue is brought to you by: Level Up Your Security Skills With Snyk! Join Snyk's "Live Hack: Exploiting AI-Generated Code" on Thursday, April 3, 2025, 11am-12:30pm ETLearn how to identify and fix security flaws in AI-generated code. REGISTER NOW! Redis, the cache system and in-memory DB we all love, started as a small passion project by an Italian developer name Salvatore Sanfilippo. Since it was open source and free to use, a small company at...

Kubernetes - Does It Live Up to the Hype? Twelve years ago, I landed my first DevOps role. I was a junior engineer, responsible for infrastructure and security at a startup (yeah, not the best call on their behalf), that would later become a unicorn. One evening, our CEO landed the first huge client, and we had 24 hours to prepare. I panicked. I spun up extra servers, scaled out load balancers, and froze every scale-down rule I could find to make sure we overkill this and that I'm not the...