DEV Community: Damian Brdej

The problem with tech Twitter

Damian Brdej — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 16:08:05 +0000

The Problem I Have with Tech Twitter

As a developer who's been in the industry for a while, I've noticed a concerning trend on tech Twitter that's been bothering me more and more. It's not just about the constant stream of new technologies or frameworks – it's about the way information is shared and the impact it has on the developer community.

The Hype Train Never Stops

The other day, I found myself justifiably using MongoDB in a project, and it made me reflect on how we got here. Remember when MongoDB was the hottest thing in tech Twitter? Everyone was singing its praises, urging developers to abandon their SQL databases for this NoSQL solution.

It was as if the entire dev community on Twitter collectively decided that relational databases were outdated overnight. But here's the thing: for many projects, this shift was like a family of five trading in their practical station wagon for a Porsche 911. Sure, the Porsche is sleek and fast, but good luck fitting your kids, the dog, and the groceries in it! (Though I have a friend who insists a 911 is a family car - to each their own, I suppose.)

The "Gurus" Problem

The longer I spend in the programming world and on tech Twitter, the more I realize that many of these self-proclaimed "programming gurus" are just jumping from one hype train to another. They're like tech magpies, always drawn to the next shiny object without considering its practical applications.

It's almost comical to watch them hop from one trendy technology to the next, proclaiming each as the ultimate solution to all of our coding woes. Their tweets often read like infomercials, promising revolutionary changes with each new tool or framework.

The Shifting Tides

But here's where it gets interesting: as the tech industry faces challenges, we're starting to see a shift on tech Twitter. These same gurus who once praised only the cutting-edge are beginning to endorse the "boring" technologies they previously shunned.

It's not just me noticing this trend. On Twitter, these hype-chasers are increasingly being called out as "tech bros." The community is becoming more aware of the hollow nature of their constantly shifting allegiances, and it's refreshing to see some pushback.

The Drama Cycle

Tech Twitter seems to thrive on drama and predictions of doom. Take the recent discussions about WordPress, for example. Many tweetstorms are prophesying the fall of WordPress, conveniently forgetting how they made similar predictions about GitHub's demise when Microsoft acquired it.

This cycle of hype and doom-saying isn't just annoying – it's potentially harmful to developers, especially those new to the field who might take these proclamations at face value.

Why This Matters

As developers, it's crucial to see past the hype that dominates tech Twitter and focus on what truly matters: choosing the right tool for the job. Sometimes, that might mean embracing a cutting-edge technology. Other times, it might mean sticking with a "boring" but reliable solution.

The problem with tech Twitter is that it often fails to provide this balanced perspective. Instead, it amplifies voices that are more interested in gaining followers than in providing nuanced, practical advice.

A Call for Change

So, what can we do about this? As consumers of tech content on Twitter, we need to be more critical of what we read. We should seek out voices that provide balanced, experience-based insights rather than just jumping on the latest trend.

For those of us creating content, let's strive to be more responsible. Let's talk about both the pros and cons of new technologies. Let's admit when we don't know something, and let's be open about the times we've been wrong.

The next time you see a tweet proclaiming the death of a popular platform or the rise of a new game-changing technology, take a step back. Remember the MongoDB craze, the GitHub acquisition panic, and all the other false alarms that have echoed through tech Twitter.

In the end, solid engineering principles and a clear understanding of your project's needs will serve you far better than chasing the latest trend championed by tech Twitter. Let's work towards a more thoughtful, nuanced discussion of technology – even if it doesn't fit neatly into 280 characters.

Laradock - ready to use PHP docker environment

Damian Brdej — Sun, 16 Jan 2022 21:38:30 +0000

Laradock is a full PHP development environment for Docker. It contains a variety of popular services such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB, PHPmyAdmin, and so on.

Let's setup empty Symfony project with a PostgreSQL database to see how it works:

First clone project from GitHub repository:

git clone https://github.com/Laradock/laradock.git

Next enter the laradock directory and rename `.env.example` to `.env`:

cp .env.example .env

Let's look at the basic settings in the `.env` file

APP_CODE_PATH_HOST - here you can specify the location of the directory with your project

PHP_VERSION - with this setting you can set up a version of PHP, unfortunately at the time of writing this article the newest available version in laradock is 8.0

I set up the location on my project to ../app and PHP version to 8.0.

Now we can start containers

To do so type: docker-compose up -d nginx postgres - this command will create Nginx and Postgres container. First start-up may take a while but next ones should be quick.

If you get an error that the address is already in use just change the port in the blocking service. For example to change the port of Nginx change value of NGINX_HOST_HTTP_PORT variable in the .env file.

Nginx and PostgreSQL are two of many services available in laradock. Full list of services you can check on the project page

Set up our Symfony project

We need to get into Docker container by typing:
docker exec -it laradock_workspace_1 sh
When we are in a container we can use composer to install Symfony:
composer create-project symfony/skeleton .

After this, we can visit localhost in our browser to see the standard Symfony 404 page.

Setting up PostgreSQL:

In workspace container execute another command:

composer require symfony/orm-pack

and then configure a database connection in Symfony .env, all needed configuration data we can find in laradock .env. The default ones look like this:

POSTGRES_VERSION=alpine
POSTGRES_DB=default
POSTGRES_USER=default
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=secret
POSTGRES_PORT=5432
POSTGRES_ENTRYPOINT_INITDB=./postgres/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d

But what's the host?

Host is simply a service name, so in our case it is postgres

Whole connection configuration variable in symfony .env looks like this:

DATABASE_URL="postgresql://default:secret@postgres:5432/default?serverVersion=13&charset=utf8"

And that's it, we've set up docker environment with nginx and postgreSQL. Now go and write some code!!!

Selection sort algorithm

Damian Brdej — Wed, 29 Dec 2021 20:41:11 +0000

Let's look at the "top" tab on dev.to, there is a list with the most popular articles on the portal. To display it, first we need to sort all articles by number of views. To do that we can use Selection sort algorithm.

The principle of this algorithm is very simple - we search the list of articles looking for the one with the highest number of views, then we copy it to the first index in the newly created list and remove this item from the old list. We repeat these steps until we have a sorted list.

def findBiggest(arr):
    biggest = arr[0]
    biggest_index = 0

    for i in range(1, len(arr)):
        if arr[i] > biggest:
            biggest = arr[i]
            biggest_index = i
    return biggest_index


def selectionSort(arr):
    newArr = []

    for i in range(len(arr)):
        biggest = findBiggest(arr)
        newArr.append(arr.pop(biggest))
    return newArr


print(selectionSort([51, 32, 63, 2, 101])) # [101, 63, 51, 32, 2]

The algorithm although simple is very slow with a large amount of data, so the dev.to developers surely used something faster. The speed of this algorithm specified in Big O notation is O(n2), since we have to search every element in the list.

More about Big O notation you can read in my previous post here

Binary search algorithm

Damian Brdej — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 12:06:17 +0000

Binary search is an algorithm in which a sorted list of elements is given as input. If the list contains the item we are looking for, the algorithm returns information about its location. Otherwise, it returns the null value.

In a binary search, we guess the middle number in order to eliminate half of the remaining numbers in each trial.

def binnary_search(list, item):
    low = 0
    high = len(list) - 1  #1

    while low <= high:
        mid = round(low + high) // 2    #2
        guess = list[mid]

        if guess == item:     #3
            return mid
        if guess > item:      #4
            high = mid - 1
        else:                 #5
            low = mid + 1
    return None

my_list = [1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 23, 123, 345]

print(binnary_search(my_list, 345)) #9
print(binnary_search(my_list, 11)) #6
print(binnary_search(my_list, 15)) #None

Let's break this program down into parts:

Use low and high to control which part of the list is searched
As long as the search area has not been narrowed down to one element, we select the middle element
Element found
Our guess is too big
Our guess is too low
There is no such element

Remember that numbering in lists starts at 0

Binary search is a good alternative to searching the entire list of items one by one. The speed of a binary search with a list of 10 elements is O(log 10) which gives us a maximum of 4 guesses.

More about Big O notation you can read in my previous post here

Big O notation

Damian Brdej — Mon, 27 Dec 2021 12:46:33 +0000

Big O notation is a special way to describe the speed of algorithms.

Let's say we need to find a name in the phone book (yes, that old book with phone numbers). We can, of course, search all the names one by one, but this will be time consuming, better at this point to open the phone book halfway and see if we hit it. If not we open the phone book in the middle again, this time between the previous middle and the beginning or end of the book, and so on until we find the right name.

To see which algorithm is faster we can measure the time between the two algorithms simply by measuring the time in which they executed. But what if we are looking for the first name in the phone book - the first way will prove to be more efficient as it will only need one operation to complete. But what if we are looking for the last name in the phone book - then the second algorithm will turn out to be incredibly faster.

Which algorithm to choose, then? With help comes the Big O notation

The big O notation specifies the worst-case running time of the algorithm

The information alone on how long an algorithm took to execute is not sufficient, more important information for the programmer is how much the execution time increases as the number of elements increases.

Big O notation looks like this:

O(n) - First comes big O, and in parentheses the number of operations to be performed in the worst possible case

The name "Big O notation" comes from the fact that it puts the letter O in front of the number of operations (yes, seriously!)

Below is a list of the most common execution times expressed in the Big O notation:

O(log n) - logarithmic time, e.g binary search
O(n) - linear time, e.g linear search
O(n ⋅ log n) - e.g quicksort
O(n²) - e.g selection sort
O(n!) - very slow algorithm, e.g traveling salesmen problem

Summary

the speed of execution of algorithms is not expressed in seconds, but in the rate of increase in the number of operations
When discussing the speed of the algorithm, it is stated how fast the execution time increases as the size of the input set increases
The execution time of the algorithms is expressed in the Big O notation
The larger the dataset the greater the difference in algorithm execution time

if/else in CSS

Damian Brdej — Sat, 25 Dec 2021 22:53:31 +0000

As we know, there are no conditional statements in CSS, but this may soon change with new @when and @else operator

Currently, the only way to perform a conditional statement was to use media queries like this:

@media (min-width: 600px) {
  /* ... */ 
}
@media (max-width: 599px) {
  /* ... */
}

It works perfectly, but in the new proposal it looks much cleaner and very similar to many programming languages.

@when media(min-width: 600px) {
  /* ... */ 
}
@else {
  /* ... */ 
}

We can do multiple conditions as well by using multiple @else statements, and not just use @media, but @supports too.

@when media(width >= 600px) and media(pointer: fine) and supports(display: grid) {
  /* A */
} @else supports(caret-color: red) and supports(background: double-rainbow()) {
  /* B */
} @else {
  /* C */
}

There may be questions about the naming of this new feature. Some people think that @if would be a better name than @when, the reason behind this naming is probably that Sass already uses @if, and it would be annoying to many developers if they had to refactor their Sass logic.

The bad news is that it's not supported by any browser at this moment, it's not even listed on caniuse.com.

What do you think about this new proposal?

8 most useful PhpStorm keyboard shortcuts

Damian Brdej — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 13:40:12 +0000

`Double Shift` - Search Everywhere

Quickly find any file, action, class, symbol, tool window, or setting in PhpStorm, in your project, and in the current Git repository.

`Ctrl+Shift+A` - Find Action

Find a command and execute it, open a tool window, or search for a setting.

`Alt+Enter` - Show Context Actions

Quick fixes for highlighted errors and warnings, intention actions for improving and optimizing your code.

`F2` and `Shift+F2` - Navigate between code issues

Jump to the next or previous highlighted error.

`Ctrl+E` - View recent files

Select a recently opened file from the list.

`Ctrl+W` and `Ctrl+Shift+W` - Extend or shrink selection

Increase or decrease the scope of selection according to specific code constructs.

`Ctrl+/` and `Ctrl+Shift+/` - Add/remove line or block comment

Comment out a line or block of code.

`Alt+F7` - Find Usages

Show all places where a code element is used across your project.

Summary

To master your programming skills first you have to master tools you use.
Which keyboard shortcut you use most often?

Number one question on every PHP interview

Damian Brdej — Fri, 17 Dec 2021 10:40:27 +0000

I am a PHP programmer and have been on many job interviews. I noticed that on each of them one question always came up.

That question is:

What's the difference between abstract class and interface?

The answer to this question is simple and proves the candidate's familiarity with object-oriented programming.

So let's compare these two:

Abstract class

It can provide some functionality and leave the rest for the derived class.
The derived class may or may not override the concrete functions defined in the base class.
A child class extended from an abstract class should logically be related.

To declare class to be abstract just simply abstract before class keyword

Interface

It cannot contain any functionality. It only contains definitions of the methods.
The derived class MUST provide code for all the methods defined in the interface.
Completely different and non-related classes can be logically grouped together using an interface.

To declare interface use interface keyword

interface Template
{
    public function setVariable($name, $var);
    public function getHtml($template);
}

PHP - Deprecation of Dynamic Properties

Damian Brdej — Sun, 28 Nov 2021 18:12:12 +0000

Recently the Deprecate dynamic properties RFC has been approved for PHP 8.2, which means that dynamic properties will not be allowed in PHP 9.0.

here's an example of declaring dynamic property:

class User {
    public $name;
}

$user = new User;

// Assigns declared property User::$name.
$user->name = "foo";

// Oops, a typo:
$user->nane = "foo";
// PHP <= 8.1: Silently creates dynamic $user->nane property.
// PHP    8.2: Raises deprecation warning, still creates dynamic property.
// PHP    9.0: Throws Error exception.

code snippet from https://wiki.php.net/rfc/deprecate_dynamic_properties

Judging by the pace of PHP development, version 8.2 will be released in November 2022, and version 9.0 in November 2025 so we have plenty of time to prepare for this change.

In my opinion, this is a good change, it makes PHP more strict language and it will prevent mistakes and hard to find bugs.

And what do you think about this change?

Useful Docker Commands

Damian Brdej — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 21:22:02 +0000

Today I learned some docker commands, let me share it with you:

To stop all containers simply type:

docker kill $(docker ps -q)

docker ps - list all running containers

flag -q - displays only ids of these containers

docker kill - stops containers

If you want to remove all containers use the command:

docker rm $(docker ps -a -q)

docker rm - removes containers

flag -a - lists all containers not only running ones

The rest is similar to previous command

To remove all docker images type:

docker rmi $(docker images -q)

docker rmi - removes images

docker images - q - lists ids of all images

PHP Match statement

Damian Brdej — Sun, 14 Nov 2021 14:23:22 +0000

PHP 8 introduces match expression which is similar to switch. Let's look into the differences between these two:

More strictness

Match compares values strictly (===) instead of loosely (==) as the switch statement does.

In Match Unknown values cause errors, so if you forget to check for a value and you don't have a default value PHP will throw an UnhandledMatchError exception

Returns value

Match returns value so you have to It once instead in each case like in switch statement, which make code much shorter

Combining conditions

Match arms do not fall-through to later cases the way switch statements do, but you can combine conditions on the same line, separated by commas to achieve the same effect

Single-line expressions

Only single-line expressions are allowed in Match statement. In switch you can have multiple expression till the 'break' statement

Summary

In my opinion Match is better option than switch in situations where you don't need multiple-line expressions.

And what do you think about this "new" feature?

Constraints in SQL

Damian Brdej — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 18:37:10 +0000

Constraints in SQL are used to specify rules for data. You can't insert a row if any of these rules are broken. It's a good way to prevent user from inserting wrong data.
Here's CREATE TABLE statement with most common constraints in it:

CREATE TABLE user(
    id INT PRIMARY KEY,
    email VARCHAR(255) UNIQUE NOT NULL,
    status_id INT NOT NULL DEFAULT 1,
    age INT NOT NULL,
    CHECK (age >= 18)
    FOREIGN KEY (status_id) REFERENCES status(id)
)

NOT NULL

With this constraint you can ensure that every row in this column has value, and cannot be NULL.

UNIQUE

Specify that every value in this column has different value.

PRIMARY KEY

Is a combination of NOT NULL and UNIQUE, often use to identify a specific row in table. There can be only one PRIMARY KEY in each table.

FOREIGN KEY

Prevents from destroying links between two tables when deleting or modifying data.

CHECK

Ensures that value of this field meets certain condition. In our example we check if the user has minimum 18 years old

DEFAULT

It's simply default value for field, if no value is specified.

DEV Community: Damian Brdej

The problem with tech Twitter

The Problem I Have with Tech Twitter

The Hype Train Never Stops

The "Gurus" Problem

The Shifting Tides

The Drama Cycle

Why This Matters

A Call for Change

Laradock - ready to use PHP docker environment

First clone project from GitHub repository:

Next enter the laradock directory and rename .env.example to .env:

Let's look at the basic settings in the .env file

Now we can start containers

Set up our Symfony project

Setting up PostgreSQL:

Selection sort algorithm

Binary search algorithm

Big O notation

Summary

if/else in CSS

8 most useful PhpStorm keyboard shortcuts

Double Shift - Search Everywhere

Ctrl+Shift+A - Find Action

Alt+Enter - Show Context Actions

F2 and Shift+F2 - Navigate between code issues

Ctrl+E - View recent files

Ctrl+W and Ctrl+Shift+W - Extend or shrink selection

Ctrl+/ and Ctrl+Shift+/ - Add/remove line or block comment

Alt+F7 - Find Usages

Summary

Number one question on every PHP interview

Abstract class

Interface

PHP - Deprecation of Dynamic Properties

Useful Docker Commands

To stop all containers simply type:

If you want to remove all containers use the command:

To remove all docker images type:

PHP Match statement

More strictness

Returns value

Combining conditions

Single-line expressions

Summary

Constraints in SQL

NOT NULL

UNIQUE

PRIMARY KEY

FOREIGN KEY

CHECK

DEFAULT

Next enter the laradock directory and rename `.env.example` to `.env`:

Let's look at the basic settings in the `.env` file

`Double Shift` - Search Everywhere

`Ctrl+Shift+A` - Find Action

`Alt+Enter` - Show Context Actions

`F2` and `Shift+F2` - Navigate between code issues

`Ctrl+E` - View recent files

`Ctrl+W` and `Ctrl+Shift+W` - Extend or shrink selection

`Ctrl+/` and `Ctrl+Shift+/` - Add/remove line or block comment

`Alt+F7` - Find Usages