Andriy Boyko

I have not one, not two, not even three, but 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐫 new automation frameworks that I've recently added to my GitHub portfolio 🙃 It might be cheating because they're all API testing frameworks testing the same site, RESTful Booker (look it up if you want an API to test, it's great!) But nonetheless, here are the four frameworks: - Postman, integrated with GitHub Actions - Playwright with TypeScript - Cypress with JavaScript - Python, using Pytest and Requests I'll be posting about one of them each day this week, just to spread it out a bit First up is Postman, check it out here: https://lnkd.in/e3Y_afYB Postman is generally the de facto API testing tool for most. I've heard there's a bit of animosity building up for it recently, so I'll be trying out Bruno, an open-source alternative, very soon (watch this space!) But essentially, I built a collection with all my API tests in Postman, including validation using scripts and environment variables to store thing like the baseUrl and bearer tokens, then I used Postman's GitHub integration to sync everything across I also added a GitHub Actions workflow file to run all the tests on every push, and you can see a badge with the workflow status on the README Things left to do: - Add a proper README - Add a separate file with test cases - Try out Bruno as an alternative to Postman - Try some more complex API testing sites

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Developer Experience is still a problem! I listened to this podcast https://lnkd.in/eZPvJnGE on how LastPass tries to make local experience much easier in the area of microservices. They went from the usual suspect of Docker compose but it requires you to build Docker images before being able to run things. Then they went to local kubernetes but it adds another layer and it doesn't help with the extra Docker build step. They decided to use nix which is Docker without Docker, universal package manager. This is something I looked at when working on codefly agents. One goal of codefly is to provide great Developer Experience, a developer starts any service, it will run any dependent services, do all the networking, and even provide hot-reloading for languages that don't have it (golang for example). I found nix to be too complicated so I am relying on Docker and spent quite some time getting that right: you really don't want to start/stop containers all the time and it's actually not that trivial to start and stop processes inside a Docker container. But the pain is worth it: - dependency is minimal, Docker is OK, nix is another story - performance hit is minimal since we try very hard to keep the containers around And agent can also use local stack if available. The philosophy of codefly is that your code needs some "co-pilot" for everything from setup, package maintenance, to networking, Docker build, kubernetes manifests. We do all the annoying stuff so you can just focus on writing code, writing tests that can depend on your full stack without any change of code, or mocking -- just that is a game changer and that's it. We take care of all the painful stuff so you can do the fun stuff!

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The "80:20 Rule" is probably one of the most quoted heuristics in software engineering (more so even than DRY), because it can be applied to nearly any situation, even paradoxically. Yes, "80% of your users use 20% of your features" is a good reminder that general functions are most often used and edge case implementations, but if 80% of your effects come from 20% of your causes, then 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your features, and they probably aren't the ones that are most used in your system.

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So much for Russian technology

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I can’t find it now but our team not long ago had a good laugh at a cartoon panel about a software engineer so exasperated at some syntax heavy quasi-code (Terraform, Webpack, Redux?), they quit and took up wood carving. It was our little joke in the Slacks for a minute. Now that the universe has blessed us with an opportunity for reflection (mass lay-offs), we might revisit that theme a bit more seriously. What does a set of wood chisels cost, anyway? I have been consistently surprised, over a couple decades of interviewing software engineering candidates, at how many are unable to demonstrate real interest in the field. Oh sure, there are platitudes; there’s the performative stuff that is the lifeblood of LinkedIn. But there’s less evidence of internally motivated, quiet, continuous self-improvement. What (software engineering things) did you do in the months since you left your last job? What new things are you currently exploring in the field? If the answer is “nothing,” congratulations, you sound like a normal person. But maybe it also means this is an opportunity to realign if not pivot to find what does spark curiosity for you, what you would love exploring. Maybe more UX programming; or more algorithmic. Few things will make your next job more enjoyable than having enthusiasm for the work.

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https://lnkd.in/eXRZ4-EG This headline sounds crazy, but it’s not surprising at all once you look closely at the current state of secrets management. Managing secrets — whether it’s API keys, certificates, or other sensitive data — has always been a challenge for companies. However, the industry is only just starting to realize the serious and material impact that poor secrets management can have on organizations and their users. Good secrets management doesn’t need to be complicated. • Secrets should never be hardcoded into source code • Secrets should never be built into distributed binaries (how else, you ask? https://lnkd.in/e5pk4_hw) • Secrets should be rotated based on their exposure risk • Access to secrets should be granted to as few people and machine identities as possible As an industry, we need to prioritize secrets management as a critical component of our security posture. Otherwise, this is going to keep happening until the consequences are much more serious than leaked OpenAI API keys discovered by an ethical hacker. Let’s work together and fix this.

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"Let's face it, software development is a commodity service," Ann said bluntly. Vlad sighed. "It’s hard to argue with that." Ann continued, "The problem is software development companies are the same. They are serving the same needs for the same companies in the same ways. So, they all end up competing by trying to be 'better.'" "When we claim to have more skilled developers or offer a better service, we're saying the same thing as everyone else. And who can measure that? It’s a pointless race trying to outdo each other with the same offerings. "We need a different approach," Ann said firmly. "Instead of competing within the same rules, we should create our own game with our own rules." Vlad said skeptically. "That sounds bold, but we’ve talked about this before. Changing our business model isn’t an option." "I’m not suggesting a complete overhaul," Ann clarified. "I’m proposing we still offer our services but narrow our focus." "Kajabi, Substack, Circle, and Searchie all provide similar features like courses, communities, newsletters, and memberships. Yet each is known for a specific area: Kajabi is the go-to for courses, Substack for newsletters, Circle for communities, and Searchie for memberships. They’ve carved out their niches." Ann continued, "Similarly, in software development. Alcor focuses on building development centers abroad, promising from 0 to 100 engineers in one year. qBotica positions itself as Automation as a Service (AaaS) provider that targets enterprise customers looking to lower operating costs. They focus on specific use cases." "So what’s our use case?" Vlad asked. Ann’s eyes lit up. "Rather than trying to serve every e-commerce development need—building new stores, fixing existing ones, or 'lending' developers—we should focus on one thing." Vlad raised an eyebrow. "And that one thing is…?" "Replatforming," Ann said. Stay tuned for the final Episode 5: "Choose a specific customer segment". .... I used Anthony Pierri 🎸's image in the slides below. He’s a must-follow for anyone interested in positioning within the software industry.

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Easy as Pie: Stateful Services at CloudKitchens https://lnkd.in/eDDTfs5e

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I'm not in the business of selling code craft (believe it or not). I prefer to focus on helping those who're already sold on it make these technical practices work for them. But if you *want* to sell TDD, refactoring, CI, separation of concerns, CD etc, here's my tip: What appeals to business stakeholders is getting their hands on working software *sooner*. Sooner's a big deal. Not bugs. Not maintainability. Not "professionalism". How soon can we give them that change they asked for? All the roads of code craft lead to "shippable at any time"

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And if you do sell the boss on the benefit of short lead times for drama-free releases, then you typically have to have The Conversation™. Boss: That sounds great. Let's do that! Me: It's not that simple. Boss: Surely we just tick the "Continuous Delivery, please" box on our cloud hosting account don't we? That's what the sales guy told me. Me: It's really a skills thing. [ Produces skills road map for Continuous Delivery ] Boss: Our senior developers have these skills, though. It said so on their CVs. Me: Yeah. About that... 99% of developers don't. And that includes 90% of the ones who say they do. Boss: So we send them on a course? Me: That could be a good *start*. But realistically, after a good practical introduction to these skills, they'll need to get a lot of practice for them to be able to apply them day-to-day. Boss: How much practice, exactly? Me: You might want to sit down for this... What I've learned over the last 15 years, training and coaching thousands of developers and hundreds of teams in dozens of organisations, as well as driving initiatives in my contract days, is that it takes an average spend of 20-25% of your entire development budget to build and maintain this level of capability. Basically, one whole day a week for everyone working in development. Forever. And that, 99 times out of 100, is the end of The Conversation™. And why 99% of developers don't have those skills, and 99% of organisations don't have that capability. Plenty want to play like Beckham... But few are prepared to put in the time. So anyway, that's why I'm not in the business of selling code craft. I'm at the other end of that process, waiting for the 1% who've persuaded themselves.

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When Chaim Turkel discusses the best practices for #RAG #LLMs, it's always interesting to hear. Read this post if you haven't already.

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🚀 Introducing BM42: The New Baseline for Hybrid Search! 🚀 For the past 40 years, BM25 has been the gold standard for search engines, powering giants like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. But the landscape of text retrieval has evolved, and it's time for a new champion. Enter BM42 - a groundbreaking hybrid search algorithm that combines the best of BM25 and modern transformer models to meet the demands of today's advanced search applications. What is BM25? BM25 (Best Matching 25) is a ranking function used by search engines to score the relevance of documents to a given search query. It uses: Inverse Document Frequency (IDF): This measures how unique or rare a term is within a corpus. Term Frequency (TF): This measures how often a term appears in a document. BM25 has been highly effective for traditional search tasks, particularly with longer documents like webpages and articles. What is BM42? BM42 is the next evolution in search technology, designed to address the limitations of BM25 in modern applications, especially with short documents and dense embeddings. BM42 leverages: Transformer Attention Mechanism: Extracts semantic importance from attention matrices in transformer models. Integrated IDF Calculation: Built into the Qdrant engine for real-time updates. WordPiece Retokenization: Efficiently handles subwords for accurate and efficient retrieval. 🔍 Why BM42? Superior Performance: Combines BM25’s interpretability and transformers' semantic understanding, ensuring high precision and recall. Optimized for Modern Search: Excels with short documents typical of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems. Efficient and Scalable: Supports sparse vectors and real-time updates, reducing computational overhead. ✨ Highlights: IDF Calculation Built-In: Maintains relevancy as your corpus evolves. Transformer Attention Mechanism: Provides deep contextual understanding. WordPiece Retokenization: Enhances accuracy while reducing memory footprint. 📈 Benchmark Success: In tests on the Quora dataset, BM42 outperformed BM25 with a Precision @ 10 of 0.49 vs. 0.45 and Recall @ 10 of 0.85 vs. 0.71. These results showcase its potential to revolutionize search and retrieval in various applications. 🔗 Get Started with BM42: From Qdrant v1.10.0 onwards, you can leverage BM42 for hybrid search, combining it with dense embeddings for unparalleled search performance. Check out the implementation guide and start experimenting today! https://lnkd.in/gxvME7R3 #SearchTechnology #BM42 #HybridSearch #AI #MachineLearning #NLP #Qdrant #TechInnovation #FutureOfSearch #AIResearch #DataScience

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Hi Team! I am looking for Project Manager/Software Architect 🏗️ and ☕ Craftsman 🛠️📐 position. I believe in helping clients, CTOs, and Senior Java Developers to improve SDLC, architect, and implement robust, complex Java systems with microservices in the cloud, to build effective teams and deliver maintainable solutions on time. Let me share some interesting real-life cases. I had the privilege of leading the team that developed SteinMart's website http://www.steinmart.com/. It was a smooth process, largely because every team member had clear requirements, and any questions that arose were promptly addressed. The account manager appreciated having an up-to-date view of the project’s progress, including a registry of risks and blockers. As the account manager put it, "Everything came under control, and even some impossible things became possible." I’m passionate about improving SDLC and tuning processes because I truly believe that a well-structured SDLC and an effective, happy team are among a company’s most valuable assets. When processes are optimized, everything runs smoother, and teams are more motivated and productive. It’s this combination that drives success. If you’re interested in learning more, there’s a link to an article on this topic at the footer of this message. I borrowed the idea of a mock server from a colleague, and it turned out to be a game-changer. The server was simple yet powerful, offering full control for mocking and hot reloads. It became indispensable for our team, especially for mocking third-party APIs, backend services by the front-end team, and for QA testing. What started as a borrowed idea quickly became a cornerstone of our development process. You can find the GitHub link to this mock server at the footer of this message. Best regards, Mykola Bova Software Architect e-mail: [email protected] Skype: mykola_bova Cell: +38067 912 81 90 [Viber|Telegram|WhatsApp] LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mykbova GitHub: github.com/MykolaBova A Comprehensive Guide to a Good Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) https://lnkd.in/dGG48nsd Mock server https://lnkd.in/dccdCfjC

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Want to be a Developer Advocate or Technical Evangelist? So, now you've decided to really dive deep into Technical stuff. You are all geared up to work closely with Developers who are creating cutting edge apps around the world. How do you ensure you are in touch with what they are trying to do and how do you become the bridge between developers and customers? Joining communities where developers discuss their pain points, especially in the AI, LLM, and GenAI domains, is a great way to stay informed and collaborate more effectively. Here are some of the best forums and communities you can consider joining: Stack Overflow: For technical Q&A and real-world problem-solving. Reddit (r/MachineLearning, r/ArtificialIntelligence, r/LanguageTechnology): For discussions and industry updates. GitHub: For project collaboration, code reviews, and issue tracking. Kaggle: For data science competitions, discussions, and sharing solutions. Hugging Face Forums: For specialized NLP and machine learning conversations. AI Alignment Forum: For discussions on aligning AI systems with human values. OpenAI Community: For insights and discussions related to OpenAI’s tools and technologies. LinkedIn Groups: For professional networking and industry-specific discussions. Data Science Central: For articles, tutorials, and community discussions. ResearchGate: For academic publications and research-focused discussions.

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💡 Real-World QA Lesson: It’s Not Just About Local Success! 💡 Ever been in this situation? A developer delivers a build for testing, but issues pop up. When addressed, the developer says, “But it works perfectly on my local setup!” The project owner then steps in with a truth bomb: "We're not building a product that only works on ‘your’ local environment!" 😏 This highlights a key principle in QA: A successful product works across all intended environments, not just locally. Testing is here to catch these gaps, ensuring a consistent, reliable experience for all users, not just developers. Lesson: Quality assurance is about real-world readiness, not isolated success. The goal is a product that performs reliably for every user, every time. Let’s keep testing and iterating until the experience matches the vision—beyond “just my local”! 👏 #ContinuousImprovement #RealWorldReady #QA #SoftwareTesting #QualityMindset 

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Quality assurance and testing are one of the most important steps when building software - and there are still companies that are missing it! 😱😭 This week, I talked to Meryem Zid on my #CloudCommute podcast about testing and QA. Learn about her favorite tools, her typical approach when starting from scratch, and the fact that AI will not solve your testing issue. Find it on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform #unittest #qualityassurance #resilience #regression simplyblock

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Did anyone else know that 32 bit UNIX time won't work as of 1/19/2038? It seems this is bigger than Y2K scare! From: https://lnkd.in/geKj-J2C What happens on January 19, 2038? On this date the Unix Time Stamp will cease to work due to a 32-bit overflow. Before this moment millions of applications will need to either adopt a new convention for time stamps or be migrated to 64-bit systems which will buy the time stamp a "bit" more time.

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