Flirting with Crystal, a Rubyist Perspective

AkitaOnRails write on his perspective on Crystal – a new programming language that aims to be type-checked, compile to native code and have a syntax similar to Ruby. I have played with Crystal myself recently and found the discussion thoughtful and interesting. Lately, it seems that Crystal is gathering some steam, especially since Mike Perham ported Sidekiq and has been tweeting about it.

My Candidate Description

Erik Dietrich lays down his requirements that companies must meet for him to consider working for them. My list would certainly be different, but that is the point. There is high demand for Software Engineers. It might now hold for other industries, where people don’t have much choice but to take what is offered. Instead of taking the first option that is presented, let’s be more mindful of what we want from an employer.

StartEncrypt considered harmful today

Notwithstanding the cliché title, this articles shows how easy it is to get security wrong. The tragic part is that the security flaws come from a Certificate Authority, StartCom. As it happens, it’s the CA used for the certificate of this very blog (at the time of writing). I’ll have to re-consider that decision soon. Also clear from the story, is that Let’s Encrypt is putting some pressure on CAs – which functionality StartCom was trying to replicate. Some CAs are even trying to steal their brand.

moreutils

Unix tools have been around for a long time and haven’t changed much. Joey Hess took it upon himself to evaluate new simple tools that he thought are missing (and rejected some ideas in the process). I downloaded moreutils as soon as I read the descriptions. I am sure they will come in handy very soon. Kudos.