Jun 6Rust Compile Time Checks for SecretsOne of the joys of writing Rust is seeing how much work is ‘shifted to the left’, to compile time. Yes, the many compilation errors that Rust throws at you can be annoying; the compiler might occasionally wear you down with a game of whack-a-mole where every fix causes another…Rust5 min readRust5 min read
Nov 1, 2022Using a procedural macro to generate DynamoDB client codeIn a previous example project, I was storing my data in AWS DynamoDB. The code for saving looked like this: impl CoordinatesDb for DbClient { async fn add(&self, table: &str, email…Dynamodb6 min readDynamodb6 min read
Oct 16, 2022How code might help you understand the Monty Hall problemThere’s a famous brain teaser that many of you are probably familiar with, called the ‘Monty Hall problem’. It goes like this (from Wikipedia): Suppose you’re on a game show, and you’re given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick…Programming4 min readProgramming4 min read
Sep 26, 2022Some Rust ObservationsAs may be guessed from my previous blog post, this year I finally did it! I started learning Rust. And like so many others before me, I’ve fallen for its charms. In honor of my new love, this blog post contains some general thoughts about the language, types and functional…Rust18 min readRust18 min read
Sep 19, 2022Using Rust’s procedural macros to generate public structsRust’s structs come with various sensible standard settings. For instance, both the structs themselves and their fields are private by default. Such structs can only be used within their own file and module. …Rust3 min readRust3 min read
Dec 8, 2021Better Type Checking for the Javascript DynamoDB SDKSay we want to write a boring old CRUD application that saves and retrieves users from DynamoDB. If we are writing Typescript, we can create a type called User: type User = { name: string, age: number, married: boolean, }; // example user const user: User = {…Typescript4 min readTypescript4 min read
Published inCodeX·Aug 18, 2021Making an Existing Application More FunctionalPart 3 — Asynchronous Behavior and Bringing It All Together — Introduction In our previous posts, we showed the shortcomings of a naively written pet application and gave an overview of how Functional Programming (FP) ideas could help us in handling such issues. Next we rewrote the application with a more sensible structure, using the Either monad and pure functions for…Typescript11 min readTypescript11 min read
Published inCodeX·Aug 13, 2021Making an Existing Application More FunctionalPart 2, Validation — Introduction In the previous blog post, we did a walkthrough of an example Node application, discussing its advantages and issues. We also gave a high-level overview of the ways we can improve upon its design. In this blog post, we will start rewriting the application in a functional style, thereby showing…Functional Programming14 min readFunctional Programming14 min read
Published inCodeX·Aug 7, 2021Making an Existing Application More FunctionalPart 1, Starting Point — Introduction In this series of blog posts we will take a look at Pet Service, a simple application written in an imperative style using both objects and functions. Despite some advantages (you use functions/objects when and where they are suitable), it also has numerous issues. In this blog post, we will…Functional Programming13 min readFunctional Programming13 min read
Published inVRT Digital Products·Mar 22, 2021Functional Programming at the VRT Profile Team: a Status ReportAbstract In the last two years the VRT Profile Team has moved from only using Object Oriented Programming (OOP) for its projects to a mixed model with several newer, serverless applications written with Functional Programming (FP). …Functional Programming11 min readFunctional Programming11 min read
