Test Your GitHub Repositories with Docker in 5 Minutes
How many times have you checked your code into GitHub, just to have someone else check it out and find out there was some dependency missing so they could not get it to run? I rely heavily on Docker for my build environment, and before I release anything to a teammate, I like to run it through a quick test in Docker to make sure everything is working properly. This approach is simple and only...
Build a Simple API Service with Express and GraphQL
GraphQL has become an immensely popular alternative to REST APIs. The flexibility you get from using GraphQL makes it easier for developers to get any information they need for an app, and just the information they need for that portion of the app. That gives you the feel of a very customized API and can help cut down on bandwidth. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to write a custom GraphQL API using Node...
Build a Web App with Spring Boot and Spring Security in 15 Minutes
Developers know that securing web apps can be a pain. Doing it right is tough. The worst part is that “right” is a moving target. Security protocols change. Vulnerabilities are found in dependencies and patches are released. Tons of often complex boilerplate code has to be generated. The software-as-service paradigm has proliferated over the last decade, and while I love reinventing the wheel as much as the next developer (because, clearly, I’m gonna write it...
Full Stack Reactive with Spring WebFlux, WebSockets, and React
Spring WebFlux can be used to create a REST API with streaming data. Spring WebFlux can also be integrated with WebSockets to provide notifications that clients can listen to. Combining the two is a powerful way to provide real-time data streaming to JavaScript or mobile clients. Add React to the mix and you have an excellent foundation for a full-stack reactive architecture. React is a UI toolkit (similar to GWT) that lets you build components...
Build Reactive APIs with Spring WebFlux
Spring Boot 2.0 was a long-awaited release from the good folks at Pivotal. One of its new features is reactive web programming support with Spring WebFlux. Spring WebFlux is a web framework that’s built on top of Project Reactor, to give you asynchronous I/O, and allow your application to perform better. If you’re familiar with Spring MVC and building REST APIs, you’ll enjoy Spring WebFlux. There’s just a few basic concepts that are different. Once...
Get Started with Reactive Programming in Spring
Reactive programming allows you to build systems that are resilient to high load. Handling lots of traffic isn’t a problem because the server is non-blocking and doesn’t block client processes to wait for responses. The client cannot directly observe, or synchronize with, the execution that occurs on the server. When an API is struggling to handle requests, it should respond in a sensible way. It shouldn’t fail to work or drop messages in an uncontrolled...
Simple Authentication with Rails and OmniAuth
Today I’m going to show you how to authenticate users into your Rails applications using the latest best-practices and a hosted authentication/authorization provider which makes managing users simple. Specifically, you’ll learn how to integrate Rails and Okta to create, manage, and secure users with OpenID Connect. To make this all work, you’ll be using one of the most popular gems in the Rails world: OmniAuth. Additionally, you’ll be using the fabulous devise gem to make...
Build a Desktop App with Electron and Authentication
Electron is a framework for building cross-platform desktop applications with web technologies like JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. It was created for GitHub’s Atom editor and has achieved widespread adoption since. Electron powers several apps that I use on a daily basis: Slack, Kitematic, and Visual Studio Code to name a few. Electron 2.0 was released in early May 2018, along with changes to the project to adhere to strict semantic versioning. This is good news...
How to Get More Internet Users to Enable 2FA on Their Accounts
If you are reading this article on the Okta Developer blog, chances are high that you are already quite familiar with two-factor authentication (2FA) and how it helps keep hackers out of user accounts even if they’re using compromised passwords. You probably already have 2FA enabled on all of your online accounts. Sadly, you are in the significant minority. Most People are Not Using 2FA Duo Security conducted a survey to research perceptions and adoption...
Build and Understand Express Middleware through Examples
If you’ve done any significant Node development in the past seven or eight years, you’ve probably used Express to build a web server at some point. While you can create a server in Node without using a library, it doesn’t give you a lot out of the box and can be quite cumbersome to add functionality. Express is a minimalist, “unopinionated” server library and has become the de facto standard for building web apps in...