People throw around the term Functional Programming but it's not always clear what they mean. In this episode, Wolf explains what goes into FP, and together we build a clearer picture that reveals you might already be doing it.

Show notes and things to think about:

1. Functional programing isn't academic.  It isn't overwhelming.  It isn't impossible to use.  It isn't inapplicable to ordinary problems like the ones you're solving right now.
2. You can use functional techniques in almost any modern programming language.  In fact, you probably already are.
3. Main pillars of FP:
   1. Pure functions (no side-effects)
   2. Functions are first-class objects (you can pass them as arguments, you can return them as results, you can store them in lists or any other data-structure)
   3. Data is immutable by default
   4. FP languages often provide powerful pattern matching syntax (didn't mention this much in the episode other than briefly noting Python's new match statement)
   5. A couple of things not mentioned: in FP, your code is more about what you want, not about how to get it.  That stack of functions for the sales data example looks declarative, not imperative.
   6. A couple of other things not mentioned: recursion and lazy evaluation.  Not exclusive to FP, but very often available in functional languages.
4. Papers and explanations about monads might be unreadable, but you're already using them and you already know how they work.
5. Using FP techniques appropriately can make your code easier to test, harder to break, and possibly even prettier to look at.
6. There are places in your code right now that you can make better right now with FP.  Do it!

Links:

• We mentioned a ton of languages.  Most of them have easy to find home pages so I'm not going to list out all the links; but there are a couple of obscure ones
  • There's nothing for the original Lisp, the closest these days is probably https://common-lisp.net.
  • ML can be found at https://sml-family.org but the more modern and popular variant, OCaml, can be found at http://ocaml.org.  Microsoft's take on this is F#, open-sourced at https://fsharp.org.

Hosts:
Jim McQuillan can be reached at [email protected]
Wolf can be reached at [email protected]

Follow us on Mastodon: @[email protected]

If you have feedback for us, please send it to [email protected]

Theme music:

Dawn by nuer self, from the album Digital Sky

Web browsers and web sites have been around for quite a while. Javascript has been the language driving those pages but there's a way to write in a lower-level language and speed up the slow parts without losing cross-platform compatibility. That way is called Web Assembly (WASM). In this episode Jim explains exactly what that is, and Wolf asks questions.

Show notes:

Take-aways from the episode:

1. If you have a compute intensive part of your web application, it may make sense to implement that bit of code in a compiled language like C, C++ or Rust and then compile them to WASM so they can be executed in the browser.
2. Security and Portability. WASM code is secure as it utilizes the browsers' sandbox and portable as all browsers are supporting the W3C Standard WASM.
3. You are almost certainly using WASM based applications. It's in use in Google Maps & Docs, Netflix, Spotify, Amazon and many more.

Links:

• https://emscripten.org/index.html
• https://emscripten.org/docs/getting_started/Tutorial.html - Nice tutorial
• https://github.com/WebAssembly/wabt - Web Assembly Binary Toolkit
• https://collabnix.com/top-20-companies-that-uses-wasm/ - Companies using WASM
• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/WebAssembly/Reference - WASM Instruction set
• https://developer.fermyon.com/wasm-languages/webassembly-language-support - Languages supported
• https://github.com/snaplet/postgres-wasm - Postgres implemented in WASM

Hosts:
Jim McQuillan can be reached at [email protected]
Wolf can be reached at [email protected]

Follow us on Mastodon: @[email protected]

If you have feedback for us, please send it to [email protected]

Theme music:

Dawn by nuer self, from the album Digital Sky

Lots of people talk about Cryptocurrency. It's in the news all the time but who really knows what it is? In this episode, Wolf reports his research and together we dig into it and explain what it's all about.

Show notes:

Take-aways from the episode:

• Crypto is not really anonymous
• Crypto is both regulated and taxed (at least here in the US)
• Legal uses of crypto outweigh illegal uses.  This stuff is legitimate.  There are dangers, but crypto is something you might legitimately possess
• There are scammers everywhere.  Protecting the private key in your wallet is vital to keeping your money: don’t lose it, don’t let it be stolen, don’t give it away.  Stealing your private key is much easier than stealing US dollars out of your bank account.

Feedback from episodes:

Champ at Key 9 Identity sent us a couple of links for blog posts on passkeys.

https://blog.k9.io/p/passwords-must-die

https://blog.k9.io/p/key9-the-2025-security-key-shootout

Hosts:

Jim McQuillan can be reached at [email protected]
Wolf can be reached at [email protected]

Follow us on Mastodon: @[email protected]

If you have feedback for us, please send it to [email protected]

Theme music:

Dawn by nuer self, from the album Digital Sky

Have you thought about moving your computing into the Cloud?

This episode takes a look at a real-world adventure that Jim went through when moving his computing infrastructure from purchased servers in a rented rack in a datacenter to a VM Running in a cloud service provider using Docker, Linux, managed PostgreSQL. He covers the steps he took to get there, how it's going, the good stuff and the challenges in making it work.

Show notes:

Cloud service providers:

• https://portal.azure.com
• https://aws.amazon.com/
• https://cloud.google.com/

Technologies used:

• https://www.postgresql.org/
• https://www.docker.com/community/open-source/
• https://www.haproxy.org/
• https://github.com

Hosts:

Jim McQuillan can be reached at [email protected]
Wolf can be reached at [email protected]

Follow us on Mastodon: @[email protected]

Theme music:

Dawn by nuer self, from the album Digital Sky

There are many scams, some to get your password(s), some just for money.  Join us as Wolf tells everything he knows and together we discuss a new way to protect your online accounts.

Show notes:

Lists of login methods:

• https://testdriven.io/blog/web-authentication-methods/ 
• https://www.logintc.com/types-of-authentication/

Who implements Passkeys?

• https://www.passkeys.com/websites-with-passkey-support-sites-directory
• https://fidoalliance.org/passkeys-directory/
• https://www.keepersecurity.com/passkeys-directory/

The three things that come together to make passkeys:

• Using key pairs, like SSH: https://www.ssh.com/academy/ssh/public-key-authentication
• Biometric authentication, you're already used to it from your phone
• New User Interface "ceremonies"

Which password managers support passkeys?

• 1Password (our personal favorite)
• Bitwarden
• Dashlane
• Google Password Manager
• Keeper
• NordPass
• RoboForm

A little about password managers:

Almost any password manager is better than no password manager at all so do your research. Find the best one for you. Make sure it answers these questions:

• Does it run on all the platforms you care about?
• Does it have a pricing model you like?
• Does it use a cloud service, or not, or of your choice, in a way that you like?
• Does the password service itself have access to your keys?
• What kind of secrets can it keep?
• Passkey descriptions and implementation documents
  • The FIDO alliance: https://fidoalliance.org/passkeys/
  • Google (for developers): https://developers.google.com/identity/passkeys/developer-guides
  • Apple (for developers): https://developer.apple.com/passkeys/

Wolf's top three personal digital security recommendations

• Use a password manager (it should support passkeys).  See above.
  • Once you create a passkey for a specific service; change your previous password. The new one should be generated by your password manager and you should never use it unless you absolutely must.
• Make sure your device is secure
  • Use biometric authentication
  • Have a strong password.  Your password manager can generate one made from words.  Easy to remember; hard to guess.
  • Make sure you know how to force your device to require a password.  You can be tricked or forced to authenticate biometrically.  Law enforcement can't force you to reveal a password; and if you're careful, you can't be tricked out of it.
• Be aware of your surroundings.  Bad actors can "shoulder surf" and get your password, or cameras. It's just like the old days at the ATM.  You don't want a person right behind you to see your PIN.

Hosts:

Jim McQuillan can be reached at [email protected]
Wolf can be reached at [email protected]

Follow us on Mastodon: @[email protected]

Theme music:

Dawn by nuer self, from the album Digital Sky