The Hardest Thing About Data Encryption
Encrypting data is all about making sure that only the right people can view the data you’ve encrypted. There are two primary forms of data encryption: symmetric and asymmetric. While you can easily Google “symmetric encryption best practices” and figure out the best algorithms and developer libraries to use (more on this later) to encrypt and decrypt data, one thing isn’t so easy: figuring out how to properly store and manage your data encryption keys....
How to Have the Best Meetings in Your Life
If I could sum up the amount of time I’ve wasted in meetings over the span of my career, it would be staggering! I’ve been in countless frustrating meetings where rabbits were chased down endless roads with no hope of return, dead horses were beaten beyond recognition, or the loudest person bullied the entire discussion with their personal agenda. Chances are you’ve had your share of exasperating meetings, too. Years ago I was introduced to...
Building Scalable Laravel Apps with PostgreSQL
Laravel is one of the hottest frameworks for backend and full-stack development of Web applications today. It boasts a large number of quality features out-of-the-box, but it’s still easy to learn the basics. The community is vast, and there are tons of free resources available on the Internet. This sample application will use Postgres as the backend database system, Okta for user authentication, and Heroku for quick deployment to a scalable platform. Heroku is a...
Servlet Authentication with Java
It can be very satisfying to build an application “the hard way”, using few conveniences. This approach helps you understand core development principles and the inner workings of everyday abstractions. That’s why today, you’ll build an application from the ground up using Java Servlets with a login form. There are more modern, technologically savvy ways to handle authentication within your application, namely OAuth 2.0 and OIDC, which I will touch upon later. However, this post...
MySQL vs PostgreSQL -- Choose the Right Database for Your Project
The choice of a database management system is usually an afterthought when starting a new project, especially on the Web. Most frameworks come with some object-relational mapping tool (ORM) which more or less hides the differences between the different platforms and makes them all equally slow. Using the default option (MySQL in most cases) is rarely wrong, but it’s worth considering. Don’t fall into the trap of familiarity and comfort – a good developer must...
Use Vue.js Data Binding Options for Reactive Applications
Vue.js is known as a “progressive framework for building user interfaces”. There’s a lot to unpack in this simple statement. It’s easy to get started with Vue.js, with a minimal feature set, and then layer in more of the framework as you need it. Unike React, it has full support for the MVC (Model View Controller) pattern out-of-the-box. It’s easier to use and grow with than Angular. And, if you couldn’t tell, I’m a little...
Container Security: A Developer Guide
Have you ever spent hours trying to figure out why your newly-installed database, web server, or Python library won’t work? If this sounds familiar, you likely understand the joy of software containers. Forget all those fruitless Stack Exchange searches trying to solve your configuration and dependency problems. Just install a container platform and pull an image. Looking to bootstrap an instant LAMP stack? You can save yourself the time and run sudo docker run -p...
Monitor Your Java Apps with Spring Boot Actuator
Have you worked with Spring Boot Actuator yet? It’s an immensely helpful library that helps you monitor app health and interactions with the app - perfect for going to production! Spring Boot Actuator includes a built-in endpoint for tracing HTTP calls to your application - very useful for monitoring OpenID Connect (OIDC) requests - but unfortunately the default implementation does not trace body contents. In this post, I’ll show you how to extend the httptrace...
Build Single Sign-on for Your ASP.NET MVC App
So you’re interested in using single sign-on (SSO) for your ASP.NET MVC apps? You’ve come to the right place. There are lots of reasons for using SSO for custom apps owned by the same organization. Better user experience. Less development time. Improved security. Those are all great reasons. Another thing I love about SSO is that it can enable upgrading a large codebase a piece at a time instead of all at once. How so?...
10 Myths About Java in 2019
Java turned 24 years old on May 23, 2019. That’s pretty old for a programming language. The fact that it’s still widely used and runs many of the world’s largest organizations is nothing short of incredible. But it has a unique impression problem among languages in that it means two very distinct things: Java the language and Java the runtime. Many developers, of course, think Java is old and therefore shouldn’t be used. And yet...