Plus Mike reviews the System76 Darter Pro, our tool of the week, and some fantastic audience feedback.

Links:

• TechSNAP Episode 388: The One About eBPF — eBPF is a technology that you’re going to be hearing more and more about. It powers low-overhead custom analysis tools, handles network security in a containerized world, and powers tools you use every day.
• Feedback from Tom — I don't think people need to worry about Google's/Chrome's dominance the way we did about IE6. It's not just that Chrome is cross-platform and open-source, and (with Chrome Web Apps well behind us) sticks to the standards in a way that IE did not. Practically speaking, we must keep in mind that the browser is locked down on iOS in a way that didn't exist (and wouldn't have been tolerated) back then. This means that no matter how popular Chrome becomes, an importnat portion of mobile users must use Apple's browser (engine). But also, now matter how much effort, money Google puts into their web initiatives and in spite of their browser share dominance, they can lose big as they did with web components and webasm. That's the beauty of a standards based platform.
• How to publish iOS apps to the App Store with GitLab and fastlane — See how GitLab, together with fastlane, can build, sign, and publish apps for iOS to the App Store.
• Inside Clojure: Journal 2019.10 — Some tests I wrote were posted on Reddit this week, which was unexpected. The one thing in there that I think is worth thinking about is how to write tests that validate returns while also being open to accretion.
• QuickCheck: Automatic testing of Haskell programs — QuickCheck is a library for random testing of program properties. The programmer provides a specification of the program, in the form of properties which functions should satisfy, and QuickCheck then tests that the properties hold in a large number of randomly generated cases.
• Darter Pro Review - dominickm.com — My continuing adventures in Linux hardware and working on Linux as a software developer has lead me to check out the System 76 Darter Pro.
• Google+ API Shutdown — Legacy Google+ APIs have been shut down as of March 7, 2019.
• omniauth-google-oauth2: Oauth2 strategy for Google — A ruby gem for Oauth2 with Google.
• Mention removal of Google+ API usage in CHANGELOG by stanhu · Pull Request #350 · zquestz/omniauth-google-oauth2
• code-server: Run VS Code on a remote server. — Code on your Chromebook, tablet, and laptop with a consistent dev environment, take advantage of large cloud servers to speed up tests, compilations, downloads, and preserve battery life when you're on the go.

Plus Wes’ reluctant ruby adventures and our pick to ease your javascript packaging woes.

Links:

• rbenv: Groom your app’s Ruby environment — Use rbenv to pick a Ruby version for your application and guarantee that your development environment matches production. Put rbenv to work with Bundler for painless Ruby upgrades and bulletproof deployments.
• Serverless Feedback from TomEnom — One thing you left out of your definition of serverless (IMO) that I find important is that it scales to zero. So if your lambda/function is not being used it incurs zero cost. I guess you could say that that is where serverless becomes literal.
• Install openSUSE on Digital Ocean — Unfortunately, Digital does not at present have an option for an openSUSE image. That doesn’t mean that you can’t use openSUSE on Digital Ocean, but it is going to be a little more work than most common Linux distributions.
• What is Pika? — Pika's mission is to make modern JavaScript more accessible by making it easier to find, publish, install, and use modern packages on npm.
• Introducing: pika/pack — If you’ve recently published a package to npm, you know how much work goes into a modern build process. Transpile JavaScript, compile TypeScript, convert ES Module syntax (ESM) to Common.js, configure your package.json manifest… and that’s just the basics.
• Implications of Rewriting a Browser Component in Rust - Mozilla Hacks
• Rust use case study in npm [pdf] — The npm Registry uses Rust for its CPU-bound bottlenecks.

Plus the latest on Mike's road to Rust, some great feedback, and more!

Links:

• Choose Linux — The show that captures the excitement of discovering Linux.
• Reddit Feedback for Episode 341
• Vapor (Server-side Swift)
• Apple: Trust us, we've patented parts of Swift, and thus chunks of other programming languages, for your own good — In the past day or so, developers working with the language have highlighted on Swift discussion forum Cupertino's intellectual property land-grab, expressing concern that the patents – which are assigned to Apple rather than the Swift project – may expose those writing Swift applications to future legal jeopardy.
• Swift Forums: Apple is indeed patenting Swift features
• Programming system and language for application development
• DHH on Twitter (1) — Treating the web as a “compile target” washes away much of what‘s so special about it. Reducing the web to just another closed platform, like Windows or iOS, is to be blind to its truly unique shape and promise. Let’s cherish what made the web special, not pave it over.
• DHH on Twitter (2) — Web Assembly is exciting in a lot of ways. This isn’t one of them. Hopefully we’ll keep HTML/CSS/JS readable, tinkerable, teachable for all the work that doesn’t need Web Assembly.
• WebAssembly FAQ
• WebAssembly Use Cases
• WebAssembly support in Unity

Plus the guys define what makes a “Dark Matter Developer”, and gauk at the possibility of this young hip upstart’s automated build pipeline, and share memories of large scale QA testing teams.

Links:

• Mike: I'm Seeing Something Strange...
• MacinCloud — This is the cloud-based Mac solution you are looking for! Access on-demand Mac servers for app development, Mac tasks, and enterprise builds.
• iOS Code Signing in App Cente — An app must be signed to run on a real device during the development process, through a beta program or in the App Store.
• The Day the QA Department Died — Let’s take a step back and examine how things used to work.
• Who needs a separate QA Team? — Have you come across developers who think that having a separate Quality Assurance (QA) team, who could test (manually or auto-magically) their code/software at the end of an iteration/release, will really help them? Personally I think this style of software development is not just dangerous but also harmful to the developers’ growth.
• Why your QA testers quit—and what to do about it — After years of hearing tragic tales of continuous tester turnover, I started to wonder if testing is just a temporary, transitional role for many people.
• Alexa is the future of Amazon’s consumer business — Here’s a quick rundown of the Alexa-enabled products Amazon announced: A wall clock, microwave, subwoofer, an Alexa for the car, a DVR for your TV antenna, a smart plug, and a microphone that turns your existing hi-fi setup into an Alexa-powered audio rig. Oh, and updates to the Echo Dot, Echo Plus, and Echo Show.
• Big Mouth Billy Bass will soon work with Amazon Alexa - The Verge — Amazon says an updated Billy is coming later this year.