Author: MJ
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Prompt Engineering or Text Tinkering: What are we co-creating with GPT models?
TLDR; I can’t wait until universities start offering degrees in “Prompt Engineering” (troll) — If that happens, I’ll know the GenAI hype cycle has reached the top. Kidding aside, it is important to think about our interactions with GenAI because in a few years these applications will be as ubiquitous and as much a part…
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Hello GitHub Actions, Goodbye JAAnkins: Open Source North conference 2023
TDLR; If the day ends in Y, it’s a perfect day to ditch Jenkins and migrate your CICD to something less crappy, like GH actions. This is the summary of a talk I prepared for Open Source North conference in May 2023. When we talk about migrating an application CI/CD pipeline from Jenkins to GitHub…
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Typescript: Javascript’s Big Boy Pants
TLDR; Javascript is the backbone of web development. It’s ubiquitous and flexible and easy to learn, but its flexibility is a double-edged sword. Just ask anyone who has tried to scale a moderately complex app. Typescript is like the grownup version of Javascript. It has more structure and is designed to ensure type safety and…
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React from 30k feet: Building Dynamic UIs with Ease
TLDR; I’m going to attempt to explain the finer points of building dynamic user interfaces (UIs) using React. React is a Javascript library (not a framework!) for building user interfaces. It is incredibly popular and has revolutionized front-end development. What is React? Developed by Facebook in 2013, React brought a refreshing approach to building web…
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Ansible Adventures: Automating Your Infrastructure
TLDR; In the realm of DevOps, automation is king. Here, I focus is on using Ansible for infrastructure automation. I’ll cover the basics of Ansible, its advantages, and walk through automating server setup and configuration. Introduction to Ansible Imagine Ansible as a skilled orchestra conductor. Each musician (server) has their sheet music (playbook), which the…
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Docker Demystified: Containerization Made Easy
TLDR; ‘Docker demystified’ is for newbies who want to dive into the world of containerization with Docker. I’ll explain the concept of containers, how Docker simplifies deployment, and walk through setting up your first Docker container. I’ll wrap with a practical demonstration of automating a simple app deployment. Understanding containerization In the ever-evolving world of…
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Zero to Hero with Kafka on Kubernetes: Open Source North conf 2021
TLDR; this is a summary of a tech talk I did at Open Source North in 2021. It draws on a past project in which I created an event-driven architecture and patient portal to compare prescription prices by zip code. In the process I figured out an easier way to deploy and manage Kafka on…