Category: Closed Course

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Netflix shows how they get a high level look at Linux in 60 seconds

In 60 seconds you can get a high level idea of system resource usage and running processes by running the following ten commands. Look for errors and saturation metrics, as they are both easy to interpret, and then resource utilization. Saturation is where a resource has more load than it can handle, and can be exposed either as the length of a request queue, or time spent waiting.

uptime
dmesg | tail
vmstat 1
mpstat -P ALL 1
pidstat 1
iostat -xz 1
free -m
sar -n DEV 1
sar -n TCP,ETCP 1
top

Some of these

commands

  require the sysstat package installed. The metrics these commands expose will help you complete some of the USE Method: a methodology for locating performance bottlenecks. This involves checking utilization, saturation, and error metrics for all resources (CPUs, memory, disks, e.t.c.). Also pay attention to when you have checked and exonerated a resource, as by process of elimination this narrows the targets to study, and directs any follow on investigation. 

The Netflix Tech Blog: Linux Performance Analysis in 60,000 Milliseconds http://techblog.netflix.com/2015/11/linux-performance-analysis-in-60s.html

Lots of good info here, though I suspect many sys admins already run through most of this once they land on a box.

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Say goodbye to Scrum and take a look at  the new open development method

As part of an open development method, code quality is king. You should be asking key questions every time you write code:

  1. Is this code legible?
  2. Is this code testable?
  3. Is this code modular?
  4. Is this code economical?

Every question asked benefits not only you, but your team. When you write code in a such a way that another developer half a world away can sit down and start working on it immediately, without needing to ask any questions, you’re helping improve your team’s efficiency. Likewise, when you ensure your code is testable, you drastically cut down on the number of roadblocks your team may encounter. With modularity, you present code to your team that is both easily maintained and potentially recyclable for another project. And finally, economical code can save everyone—from your team and future contributors, to clients and end-users—both time and money.

Source: Scrum is dead: breaking down the new open development method :: Opensource.com

Beyond code quality, other tents of the open development method include documentation, testing, discussions, transparency, asynchronicity, and democracy. This short article helps remind us that there isn’t a one size fits all model of development out there and we need to be mindful of the context that we work in.

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IBM is reportedly going to buy Weather Company’s digital assets

International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) is nearing an agreement to buy the Weather Company’s digital assets in a deal that could be announced as soon as this week, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Source: IBM nears deal to buy Weather Company’s digital assets: source :: Reuters

The Weather Company’s digital assets include weather.com, the Weather Underground, and a bunch of platform apps. The weather.com website is generally considered one of the largest Drupal powered sites in the world.

This seems lit a bit of an odd move for IBM since it looks like a content play. Big Blue is more likely after the data that drives the digital properties and the talent pool it brings.

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Why is design in open source projects often ugly?

If you know a professional designer who is contributing time to an open source project, chances are they fall into one of these three categories, explained Garth Braithwaite, who spoke Monday at the All Things Open conference:
1) They were tricked into it or peer­ pressured by a friend who is also an open source project manager.
2) They work for a corporate sponsor, so they’re paid for their contributions.
3) They’re a designer who just so happens to be a developer.

Source: Report from All Things Open: Design in open source | Opensource.com

Open source projects often attract top flight developers, but designers are few and far between. The result is a lot of function over form design that is often utilitarian and ugly. This articles looks at why this is and what might be done about it.

 

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A Bitcoin primer for budding Ethereum developers

This series of articles will describe just enough of Bitcoin for budding Ethereum developers to better understand how Ethereum works under the hood, then begin to explore some routes by which new Ethereum devs can begin developing contract-orientation just like they developed their sense of object-orientation back in the day.

Source: Time sure does fly! — Medium

This article, first in a series, provides an overview of Bitcoin designed to help new Ethereum developers get their bearings in the fun filled world of cryptocurrency and blockchain.

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IBM Watson shakes up 7 industries. Are legal and education on the list?

Since IBM opened IBM Watson to the world last year, it has been building a developer and entrepreneur community around the development platform. The community now consists of more than 280 commercial partners, as well as tens of thousands of developers, students, entrepreneurs and other enthusiasts that are generating up to 3 billion monthly API requests on Watson.

How IBM Watson apps are changing 7 industries | Computerworld http://www.computerworld.com/article/2934460/emerging-technology/how-ibm-watson-apps-are-changing-7-industries.html#slide1

Surprise! Legal and education didn’t make the list. Maybe it isn’t much of a surprise. Both “industries” aren’t really driven by data crunching but much more by human interaction and both have been rather impervious to automation.

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Convertible notes are a founder friendly way to fund a seed round

A convertible note is an investment vehicle often used by seed investors investing in startups who wish to delay establishing a valuation for that startup until a later round of funding or milestone. Convertible notes are structured as loans with the intention of converting to equity. The outstanding balance of the loan is automatically converted to equity at a specific milestone, often at the valuation of a later funding round. In order to compensate the angel investor for the additional risk of investing

Source: Convertible Notes | FundersClub