A Java geek

GitLab Pages preview

When I write Apache APISIX-related blog posts, I want my colleagues to review them first. However, it’s my blog, and since I mix personal and business posts, I want to keep them from the repository. I need a preview, accessible only to a few, something like Vercel’s preview. I’m using GitLab Pages, and there’s no such out-of-the-box feature. I tried two methods: GitHub gists and PDFs. Both have issues. Gists don’t display as nicely as the final page.

Development

Health Check Response Format for HTTP APIs

I’m continuing my journey on getting more familiar with HTTP APIs by reading related RFCs. This time, I read the Health Check Response Format for HTTP APIs on the suggestion of Stefano Fago. In this post, I’d like to summarize my reading. Note that it’s a draft. Moreover, it has been dormant for nearly two years and, thus, has been automatically expired. However, it’s the closest to a specification on health checks and thus deserves some love.

Technical

Managing Data Residency - the demo

I explained the concepts and theory behind Data Residency in a previous post. It’s time to get our hands dirty and implement it in a simple demo. The sample architecture In the last section of the previous post, I proposed a sample architecture where location-based routing happened at two different stages: The API Gateway checks for an existing X-Country header.

Technical

Working on an unfamiliar codebase

In our profession, it’s common to work on an unfamiliar codebase. It happens every time one joins a new project or even needs to work on a previously untouched part in big ones. This occurrence is not limited to a developer having to fix a bug; it can be a solution architect having to design a new feature or an OpenSource contributor working on a GitHub issue in their free time. Hence, I want to describe how I approach the situation so it can benefit others.

Technical

Managing Data Residency - concepts and theory

Cloud computing has opened a Pandora’s Box of many original issues compared to sound old on-premise systems. I believe that chief among them is Data Residency, or Data Location: Data localization or data residency law requires data about a nation’s citizens or residents to be collected, processed, and/or stored inside the country, often before being transferred internationally.

Development

Server-side rendering in Rust - a Dall.E use-case

Last week, I decided to see the capabilities of OpenAI’s image generation. However, I noticed that one has to pay to use the web interface, while the API was free, even though rate-limited. Dall.E offers Node.js and Python samples, but I wanted to keep learning Rust. So far, I’ve created a REST API. In this post, I want to describe how you can create a webapp with server-side rendering.

Development

Leverage the richness of HTTP status codes

If you’re not a REST expert, you probably use the same HTTP codes over and over in your responses, mostly 200, 404, and 500. If using authentication, you might perhaps add 401 and 403; if using redirects 301 and 302, that might be all. But the range of possible status codes is much broader than that and can improve semantics a lot. While many discussions about REST focus on entities and methods, using the correct response status codes can make your API stand out.

Development

Fearless Distroless

With the rise of Docker came a new focus for engineers: optimizing the build to reach the smallest image size possible. A couple of options are available. Multi-stage builds: A Dockerfile can consist of multiple steps, each having a different Docker base image. Each step can copy files from any of the previous build steps. Only the last one will receive a tag; the others will be left untagged. This approach separates one or more build steps and a run step.

Technical

The importance of rel=canonical for content writers

The subject of canonical reference has been touched thousand times. But since some content writers are still making the same mistake over and over, I think it’s beneficial to add one more. I hope to reach some who aren’t aware of it. Content writing is not enough Writing content is not enough: you can have written the best blog post of the century; it’s no good if nobody sees it.

Nicolas Fränkel's blog