5 levels of transparency for open source communities
Managers of open source communities have to be aware of the 5 levels of transparency that they can provide. These 5 levels of transparency are important for building a thriving open source community.
This article describes each level, its goals, and why they are important. But first, I revisit why transparency is important for open source ecosystems.
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Tame your text with Perl
Although its popularity has been tempered by languages like Python, Lua, and Go, Perl was one of the primary utilitarian languages on Unix and Linux for 30 years. It remains an important and powerful component in many open source systems today. If you haven't used Perl much, then you may be surprised by how helpful it can be for many tasks. This is especially true if you deal with large amounts of text in your day-to-day work.
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Learn Perl in 2022
Released in early 1988, Perl is a postmodern programming language often considered a scripting language, but it is also capable of object-oriented programming. It is a mature language with tens of thousands of libraries, GUI frameworks, a spin-off language called Raku, and an active and passionate community. Its developers pride themselves on its flexibility: According to its creator Larry Wall, Perl doesn't enforce any particular programming style on its users, and there's more than one way to accomplish most things.
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6 Linux metacharacters I love to use on the command line
Early in my Linux journey, I learned how to use the command line. It's what sets Linux apart. I could lose the graphical user interface (GUI), but it was unnecessary to rebuild the machine completely. Many Linux computers run headless, and you can accomplish all the administrative tasks on the command line. It uses many basic commands that all are familiar with—like ls, ls-l, ls-l, cd, pwd, top, and many more.
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3 ideas for bringing innersource to your company
Like open source, innersource is all about being transparent and collaborative. This usually leads to a sense of belonging that favors employee happiness if done right. Regardless of org charts, geographies, or expertise levels, innersource creates an inclusive environment where employees contribute and collaborate in the open and learn from one another.
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5 steps to migrate your application to containers
Generally, you consider it a good thing when people want to use your application. However, when the application runs on a server, there's a cost for popularity. With users come increased demands on resources, and at some point, you may find that you need to scale your app. One option is to throw more servers at the problem, establish a load balancer like Nginx, and let the demand sort itself out.
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My tips for maintaining dotfiles in source control
Ever started using a new computer, by choice or because the old one let the magic smoke out, and got frustrated at how long it took to get everything just right? Even worse, ever spent some time reconfiguring your shell prompt, then realizing you liked it better before?
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Accumulating into lists in Java and Groovy
In my last article, I reviewed some differences between creating and initializing lists in Groovy and doing the same thing in Java. I showed that Groovy has a straightforward and compact syntax for setting up lists compared to the steps necessary in Java.
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Write code inspired by Shakespeare with esolang
Maybe you've heard that playwright William Shakespeare contributed 1,700 new words to the English language. But did you know that he has an entire programming language as well?
SPL (Shakespeare programming language) was created to make source code resemble Shakespeare plays. It is an esoteric language, also known as an esolang. An esolang is a computer programming language designed to experiment with weird ideas, create a challenge for programmers, or simply serve as a source of amusement, rather than for practical use.
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Create an app with this Arnold Schwarzenegger-themed programming language
Have you ever wished programming were more like an action movie? If you answered yes, then I have the language for you.
While wandering the internet to find the most obscure and fun open source languages, I came across ArnoldC. ArnoldC is an imperative programming language where the basic keywords are replaced with quotes from various Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.
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How we hired an open source developer
As the CEO and co-founder of Profian, a start-up security company, I've been part of our effort to hire developers to work on Enarx, a security project that deals with confidential computing, written almost exclusively in Rust (with a bit of Assembly). Profian has now found all the people it was looking for in this search, with a couple of developers due to start in the next few weeks.
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Build your own container on Linux
Containers are run in the cloud. That's because container technology allows websites and web apps to spawn fresh copies of themselves as demand increases. They're the reason hundreds of millions of people can use popular sites without those sites buckling under the pressure of global traffic. Containers are a Linux technology, meaning that they rely on code (specifically cgroups and namespaces) unique to the Linux kernel, so when you run a container, you're running Linux.
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How open source supports businesses' impact on climate change
In the coming decade, climate changes will compel the creation of new ecological norms and rules for our economy. The financial industry will be at the center of this transition, determining which companies and technologies are granted the resources they need to spearhead this evolution.
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How radical transparency is transforming open source healthcare software
At Tidepool, where I work as a Community and Clinic Success Manager, the company's mission is to make diabetes software more accessible, meaningful, and actionable. Operating in the open is how we achieve that. Tidepool's diabetes management software is an open source platform free for both clinicians and people impacted by diabetes. And, because the company is a nonprofit, it also operates according to the transparency rules that govern 501(c)(3) organizations.
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View your Linux server's network connections with netstat
I shared some important first steps to help manage your personal Linux server in a previous article. I briefly mentioned monitoring network connections for listening ports, and I want to expand on this by using the netstat command for Linux systems.
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3 ways I configure SSH for privacy
SSH (Secure Shell) is a protocol that enables you to create a verified and private connection, securing the channel using cryptographic keys, to launch a remote shell on another machine. Using this connection, you can execute remote commands, initiate secure file transfers, forward sockets and displays and services, and much more.
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How to set up a CI pipeline on GitLab
This article covers the configuration of a CI pipeline for a C++ project on GitLab. My previous articles covered how to set up a build system based on CMake and VSCodium and how to integrate unit tests based on GoogleTest and CTest. This article is a follow-up on extending the configuration by using a CI pipeline. First, I demonstrate the pipeline setup and then its execution.
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Open source tools to make your Wordle results accessible
Wordle seems to be popping up everywhere across social media feeds. Wordle is a quick word game that you can play once daily, and you can easily share results with friends over social media.
The aim of Wordle is to guess a secret word. To make a guess, enter a word, and Wordle displays the results of your guess in a grid of color-coded emoticons. Green indicates that a letter is in the correct location. Yellow indicates that the secret word contains the letter, but it is in the wrong location. And grey means that the letter isn't in the word at all.
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