O'Reilly Open Source Convention

A journey into feature toggles

November 29, 2019

Feature toggles (aka feature flags) are a set of patterns that enable dev teams to deliver features to users rapidly and safely. Pete Hodgson leads you on a journey with a dev team as they adopt feature toggles, covering what they are, why they're helpful, and how to use them successfully.

A less complex web with Ratchet and Jank

November 29, 2019

A tremendous amount of complexity has crept into web development. The decisions that got us here were in the name of speed, but the result is that building for the web is significantly more difficult. Using the Ratchet and Jank libraries, Jay Hayes explains how complex logic in view templates and complex JavaScript used to integrate new data into the existing view can address this complexity.

A question of trust: When good containers go bad

November 29, 2019

Container deployments are based on trustwe trust our applications, developers, and infrastructure to be secure and confidently deploy microservices. But what happens when trust is broken? Tim Mackey explores the nature of data center threats and shares measures you can take to proactively identify risks.

Adopting open source in your organization

November 28, 2019

Recently, Microsoft went from calling open source "a cancer" to being the biggest contributor on GitHub. Edward Thomson explains how Microsoft, one of the unlikeliest software vendors, began to embrace and even extend (but not extinguish) open source software and how you can begin using and contributing to open source software in your organization.

Application security: From zero to hero

November 28, 2019

While the rest of the world tries to solve the problems of insecure software with firewalls and intrusion detection, Jeremy Anderson explains how to solve the problem where it starts: at the code that defines it. Join Jeremy to learn how to fix code security defects when theyre created instead of during production when its already too late.

Are you succeeding when InnerSourcing? Defining a metrics strategy

November 28, 2019

InnerSource is a new approach to deal with usual issues in large organizations to increase development velocity and improve developer engagement, but it is still unclear how this is measuredor if this process is even actually succeeding. Daniel Izquierdo explores the concepts and tools you need from an analytics perspective and explains how they can help you make decisions.

Ask more questions

November 28, 2019

Move fast and break things is a mantra thats helped us learn, innovate, and push boundaries at speeds only dreamt about by other industries. However, there are times when that speed comes at a cost. Saron Yitbarek explores examples of technical projects that moved too fast and either hurt users or failed to solve a problem in irreparable ways.

Attracting, retaining, and developing new contributors in open source

November 28, 2019

A vibrant project attracts, grows, and values all contributions, and this is especially important for welcoming first-timers like women and members of other underrepresented groups to FOSS. Nithya Ruff and Rupa Dachere explain how to create on-ramps for first-time contributors, how to retain the contributors you have, and how to develop contributors for the future.

Be(come) a mentor and help others succeed

November 28, 2019

There is always something new to learn in technology. Even if we are experts in one field, we're beginners in another. Its important to have a mentor to learn successfully, but its equally important to learn how to be a good mentor. Anna Ossowski explores what makes a mentor "good" and shares the tips and tricks of mentorship and concrete ways you can get involved as a mentor.

Blockchain development fundamentals on Hyperledger fabric

November 27, 2019

Matt Lucas demonstrates how to develop a realistic blockchain application using the Linux Foundation's Hyperledger fabric.

Build better stuff faster by talking to strangers: A case study

November 27, 2019

Jane Davis shares how Dropbox used a research- and design-led development process to de-risk and identify assumptions for both engineering and design and explains how the company effectively integrated research into the development process and involved engineers in the research and design process.

Building a deployment pipeline with Jenkins 2.0

November 27, 2019

Brent Laster explains how to use Jenkins 2.0 and illustrates how to easily integrate it with other open source technologies, such as Git, as he walks you through building a simple multistage deployment pipeline (managed and automated through Jenkins) that implements principles of continuous integration and continuous delivery.

Building a private CI/CD pipeline with Java and Docker in the cloud

November 27, 2019

A private Java (Maven or Gradle) repository as a service can be set up in the cloud. A private Docker registry as a service can be easily set up in the cloud. But what if you want to build a holistic CI/CD pipeline on the cloud of your choice? Baruch Sadogursky walks you through setting up a universal artifact repository, which can serve for both Java and Docker.

Building a professional services practice in open source

November 27, 2019

As open source projects increase in size and complexity, open source-adopting professional services companies become their champions as partners in their clients projects. Drawing on their experience with Drupal, Jenn Sramek and Mark Sakurada share technical and management observations from 10 years in growing professional services companies in an open source community.

Building a real-time recommendation engine with Neo4j

November 27, 2019

William Lyon explains how to use a graph database to generate real-time recommendations using real-world data. William introduces graph data modeling and querying concepts using Neo4j and Cypher, the query language for graphs to import and query data, before demonstrating how to apply graph algorithms and NLP using Python data science tools to enhance your recommendations.

Building serverless applications on the Apache OpenWhisk platform

November 27, 2019

Apache OpenWhisk on IBM Bluemix provides a powerful and flexible environment for deploying cloud-native applications driven by data, message, and API call events. Daniel Krook explains why serverless architectures are attractive for many emerging cloud workloads and when you should consider OpenWhisk for your next project.

Can you roll your own virtual assistant?

November 27, 2019

Creating sophisticated, intelligent applications that listen and respond in natural language is getting easier. Greg Bulmash walks you through building a cross-platform application that works on both mobile and desktop clients and uses Amazon's Lex and Polly services to perform a number of useful tasksand a few entertaining ones.

Cloud-native Java

November 27, 2019

Microservices invite architectural complexity that few are prepared to address. Joshua Long explores how high-performance organizations like Ticketmaster, Alibaba, and Netflix make short work of that complexity with Spring Boot and Spring Cloud, moving beyond mere theory to implement real code to support a microservices system, live.

Containers are cool, but how do you secure them?

November 26, 2019

As container proliferation accelerates, threat surfaces increase, and new security concerns emerge as applications go into production. Merlin Glynn explores some of the headaches of running secure container workloads at scale and shares methods for addressing key challenges.

Containers versus serverless frameworks: Navigating application deployment options

November 26, 2019

Daniel Krook explores a real application packaged using popular open source container technology and walks you through a migration to an event-oriented serverless paradigm, discussing the trade-offs and pros and cons of each approach to application deployment.

Contract-first API development using the OpenAPI Specification (formerly Swagger)

November 26, 2019

Dave Forgac and Ian Zelikman demonstrate how to use a contract-first approach to API development using the OpenAPI Specification (formerly called Swagger) and other open source tools. Dave and Ian walk you through defining a simple API specification, using it to generate documentation, a mock server, and stub code, and implementing a working API based on the specification.

Contributing to Hyperledger

November 26, 2019

Regardless of whether or not you are a developer, there are many ways for you to get involved in open source. Tracy Kuhrt offers an overview of Hyperledger and its projects and outlines the ways that you can participate. You'll leave with a set of initial steps to begin your journey with this growing community.

Databases and Docker: A survival guide

November 26, 2019

Containers are great ephemeral vessels for your applications. But what about the data that drives your business? It must survive containers coming and going, maintain its availability and reliability, and grow when you need it. Alvin Richards does some live coding to show key strategies to help you survive the transition to production.

Developer on the rise: Blurring the line between developer and data scientist with PixieDust

November 26, 2019

Ready to dip your toe into data science? Va Barbosa explains why you should start with notebooks and PixieDust, a new open source library that helps data scientists and developers working in the Jupyter Notebook and Apache Spark be more efficient.

Distinguish pop music from heavy metal using Apache Spark MLlib

November 25, 2019

Taras Matyashovsky explains how to use Apache Spark MLlib to build a supervised learning NLP pipeline to distinguish pop music from heavy metaland have fun in the process.

Diversity and collaboration

November 25, 2019

How can one want diversity and still fail to show up? When you say there is a pipeline issue, this doesn't reflect negatively on schoolsit concerns the tech community as whole. Tameika Reed explains how to change the mindset of those who are not involved in diversity.

Fake it before you make it: Mocking your way to better HTTP APIs

November 25, 2019

RESTful APIs are often designed and implemented before a client gets to see how they work, but once an API is made public, it can be hard to change. Dave Forgac and Ian Zelikman explain how to improve this process by explicitly designing the API contract and getting client feedback before implementation and outline processes and tools for building RESTful APIs with a design-first approach.

Farm-raised versus wild: Sustainability in corporate open source

November 25, 2019

We all know the tension between open source and corporate stewardship. Are corporate and community interests aligned? Who makes the calls? As projects grow up, OSS projects must find ways to transcend their corporate boundaries or risk losing steam or being forked. Jonathan Lipps shares the story of how one large open source project found a sustainable future after corporate incubation.