Current Events in CS & IT

I'll try to update this with events that are relevant for at least a semester or even a year. Some of these will be lists that relate to CS and CSA majors

2019-05-31

Looking at the C# 8 features. See: The video presetnation or see the webpage

Range calculations: Syntax gets shorter. Consider the following license plate number and state, that is then separated into two variables, plate and state.

   1 string x = "BVD789-TN";
   2 string plate = x.Substring(0, x.Length - 2);
   3 string state = x.Substring(x.Length - 2);

can become

   1 string x = "BVD789-TN";
   2 string plate = x[..^3]; //where 0 is assumed
   3 string state = x[^2..]; //where length is assumed
   4 

Property pattern: allows you to use switch more easily. Consider the following

   1 switch(vehicle)
   2 {
   3    case Car c when c.Passenger == 1;
   4       return 2.00m+0.50m;
   5    ...
   6 }

Becomes:

   1 public static decimal CalculateToll(object vehicle)
   2    => vehicle switch
   3    {
   4       Car { Passengers: 0 } => 2.00m+0.50m,
   5       Car { Passengers: 1 } => 2.00m,
   6       Car { Passengers: 2 } => 2.00m-0.50m,
   7       Car _ =>2.00m-1m,
   8 
   9       Taxi { Fares: 0 } => 3.50m + 1.00m,
  10       ...
  11       DeliveryTruck t when t.GrossWeightClass > 5000 => 10.00m + 5.00m,
  12       ...
  13       _ => throw new ArgumentException(message: "Not a known vehicle type", paramName: nameof(vehicle)
  14    };

Or even with nested switch expressions

   1 public static decimal CalculateToll(object vehicle)
   2    => vehicle switch
   3    {
   4       Car c => c.Passengers switch 
   5       { 
   6          0 => 2.00m+0.50m,
   7          1 => 2.00m,
   8          2 => 2.00m-0.50m,
   9          _ => 2.00m-1m, //Note they called the _ as the discard (symbol) which matches any.
  10       },
  11       Taxi { Fares: 0 } => 3.50m + 1.00m,
  12       ...
  13       DeliveryTruck t when t.GrossWeightClass > 5000 => 10.00m + 5.00m,
  14       ...
  15       _ => throw new ArgumentException(message: "Not a known vehicle type", paramName: nameof(...
  16    };

IAsyncEnumerable is a new type.

   1 private static async Task ChartTollsAsync()
   2 {
   3    await foreach (var t in TollSystem.GetVehiclesAsync())
   4    {
   5       await TollSystem.ChargeTollAsync(t.vehicle, t. time, t.inbound, t.license);
   6    }
   7 }

2019-02-11

Security: Installed Suricata at home today as part of pfSense. I noticed that (unamed cell company) is using IKEv2 with weak parameters... Hmmm. Turns out it is the Galaxy Note 5 (Android 7.0) that is the instigator of this particular alert. Apparently all email coming from unamed cell company goes through their hosts (even if it is using the outlook app) using outdated VPN connection configurations. The next question would be, is it hackable. Perhaps more later.

2019-02-07

I'm playing with Docker Containers. I didn't have a full concept of what it does, so I started here on youtube. This video covers high level concepts related to efficiency, performance and security.

2018-12-29

I've been playing around with several things this break and I've been able (amid being sick) to catch up on a bunch of stuff.

1. I re-created my website using bootstrap. Don't judge to harshly, I just started playing with it. But at least now it will be visible on my phone.

2. I updated all my infrastructure at home - updated the firewall, got backups running correctly again, updated plex etc.

3. In an effort to create a dashboard that would monitor the various processes and backups etc, I started playing around with nodejs and express. And what did I find? A new tutorial resource that I think I'm going to love! I highly recommend taking a look at the Mozilla Developer Network tutorials at https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/

2018-01-23

2016-11-30

Why you can't avoid DevOps

2016-11-16

10 Tech Jobs Set For Big Pay Raises In 2017

10 Hot Programming Languages to Build Web Apps

10 Programming Languages That Will Keep You Employed

*These langauges seem to me to be a bit iffy for the list. Cold Fusion, may be around, but I don't see it much. Perl is aptly described in the article as "the chewing gum and baling wire of programming languages." Go seems trendy, but not popular yet.

Nine Data center tools IT Pros Should Know About

1. OpenStack

2. puppet

3. CloudStack OpenStack derivative now computing with OpenStack.

4. System Center - Microsoft

5. OpenNebula aims at simplicity in Data Center Automation.

6. Eucalyptus For use with AWS style services

7. CHEF

8. Ansible Tower is RedHat's cloud management software.

9. git