As developers we constantly try to improve our knowledge. We are trying to implement features where the code will be easy to maintain in the future. It is really important when we work on some long lasting, complex project. But should it be a priority when we work for a client with limited budget or tight deadline?
Today we will code our first bitcoin transaction. To achieve this goal we will use JavaScript library called bitcore. JavaScript is the most popular, modern programming language and almost every developer knows it, so it makes this article universal and useful for the wider audience.
I've been working with Platform as a Service products for almost 3 years. I truly believe that an introduction of PaaS solutions was a breakthrough for web development.
There are many online services that provide an efficient and relatively cheap entry-level PaaS (e.g. Heroku, EngineYard), but what about self-hosted alternatives? Do they exist? Are they a good call?
It’s our annual tradition that we go to the biggest Ruby conference in Poland - wroc_love.rb. This year it took place from 17th to 19th March. It’s a really good thing to attend programming conferences for couple of reasons and here are my thoughts about it.
We don't have many infrastructure related posts here. We have a few full-time DevOps, it's a part of our normal offer. But, we're busy most of the time. When an opportunity to write a blog post emerged, I knew I've had to write about a thing which changed our workflow. During last two years, there were few ideas which helped us providing better and more reliable services - one of them is infrastructure integration testing.
"Intelligence is a very valuable thing, innit, my friend? And usually it comes far too fucking late."
Alfie Solomons
This time is different. Intelligence comes in the right time. In the previous episode, we learned how is “our” API working. It is time to code the scraper that will use this API to get the data we want. Unfortunately, the API provider probably doesn't want us to get this data. He will ban us as soon as he will notice our unwelcome activities. Good news is that we will be smart from the beginning and prevent being noticed and banned :)
“Everyone's a whore, Grace. We just sell different parts of ourselves”
Thomas Shelby
Life is not always nice, simple and easy. Sometimes is more complex. Sometimes you are its lawful citizen. Sometimes you break the rules and do some dirty, shady things. Sometimes you are a copper. Sometimes you are a scoundrel. One day you are writing an API and taking care of its protection. Another day you are receiving the task to use someone else API without permission. It is not a thing you should do, but in startups game sometimes you have to do whatever it takes. It is possible to do that if the API is protected by basic auth. I will help you to do it right and won’t be caught.
Last year Ragnarson cooperated with the Archangel Summit on preparing the Archangel Contest. We also sponsored one of the prizes - software development services for the best submitted business idea. Now we are working with the winners on moving their application to the next level. We will share some of the details in the near future.
No matter what kind of online business you run, you also collect some data. To be honest we collect and store more and more data nowadays. The problem is that almost no one understands collected data and it cannot be used to make better business decisions.
At Ragnarson we have unique experience in building Platform as a Service infrastructures for applications. For more than one year, I have worked on a private solution for a big player from Asia. We made a platform using several tools and services. Here is the list of some of them: