[Video 350] Patrick McKenzie: Kill Your Inner Code Monkey

Many developers are in business for themselves, working as consultants. But many developers fail to think about things in business terms; it’s easier and more convenient to think in terms of code and programming, rather than sales, marketing, and the bottom line. In this talk, Patrick McKenzie draw upon his success in business — as a consultant and the owner of several SaaS applications  —  and tells developers how to think from a business perspective, rather than a programming perspective. This switch means that you’ll make more money, work less, and get to work on more interesting and rewarding projects.

[Video 349] Stepan Ilyin: Making applications secure with NGINX

nginx is an increasingly popular HTTP server, in no small part because of its ability to scale massively. Because of its modular architecture, nginx is used not only on its own, but also with many third-party modules that add functionality to the core HTTP server. One module, Naxsi, provides administrators with the ability to filter (and reject) certain patterns of URLs, request headers, locations, and other suspect requests that might cause more harm than good. In this talk, Stepan Ilyin introduces naxsi and other nginx-based security techniques that, if used, can reduce the chances of someone taking down your Web application.

[Video 348] Thomas Wilde: The Go Programming Language — An Introduction

The Go language continues to rise in popularity. What is it about Go that makes it popular? And why should you consider it for your upcoming projects? In this talk, Thomas Wilde introduces the language, starting with its origins and motivations, and moving into basic syntax and some of Go’s most famous features, such as goroutines. If you have always been curious about Go, but haven’t had a chance to learn it, this talk is a good introduction to the language, and where it might be useful in your projects.

[Video 347] Josh Berkus: Explain Explained

If your PostgreSQL query runs slowly, what should you do? How can you find out what has gone wrong, and how to optimize it? The “explain” command (and related ‘”explain analyze” command) tell you what the PostgreSQL query planner intends to do, and then (if you use the “analyze” option) executes the query, as well.  The problem is that the output from “Explain” can often be cryptic to newcomers. In this talk, Josh Berkus introduces the “explain” command, and shows how database developers and administrators can use it to improve the speed of their queries.

[Video 346] Leah Hanson: How Julia Goes Fast

Julia is a relatively new programming language, one meant for use with data analysis (aka “data science”). Julia aims to simultaneously provide a low threshold for entry (so that non-programmers can analyze their data without learning too much about programming) and high-performance execution. How does Julia manage to do this, and how do the results compare with a language such as Python‘s NumPy and SciPy? In this talk, Leah Hanson describes Julia’s aims, the differences between Julia and other languages (such as Python), and what how these design decisions have affected the resulting language.

[Video 345] Peter Geoghegan: UPSERT Use Cases

The upcoming (9.5) version of PostgreSQL will include the long-awaited “UPSERT” functionality, which makes it possible to insert-or-update with a single query.  How is this different from other functionality, such as MERGE? What are the use cases for this functionality? And what should we keep in mind when we use it? In this talk, Peter Geoghegan introduces UPSERT, compares it with other alternatives (including in MySQL), and demonstrates when and why we can look forward to seeing it in the upcoming version of PostgreSQL.

[Video 344] Venkat Subramaniam: Rediscovering JavaScript

JavaScript might be a popular and powerful programming language — but it also has a huge number of inconsistencies and oddities that make it challenging to learn and use. That said, JavaScript is growing in popularity and power, and has capabilities that we can and should respect, and even use, in our production work. In this talk, Venkat Subramaniam demonstrates the power of JavaScript, allowing us to use (and mix) object-oriented and functional styles.

 

[Video 343] Eric Carlisle: Dazzling Data Depiction with D3.js

Having lots of data isn’t enough; you have to present it in ways that are interesting and compelling. D3 is a popular JavaScript library that makes it straightforward to turn data into complex visualizations, in a variety of formats. In this talk, Eric Carlisle introduces D3, describing and demonstrating many of its capabilities.

[Video 342] Dan North: Agile Revisited

Everyone love to be agile!  Companies, teams, and individuals nowadays all claim to be working in an agile fashion. We all have standups, sticky notes, tests, and the other stuff that agile is supposed to represent.  Right?  Well… maybe. What does agile really mean? What does an agile group and company look like?  How can (and should) we modify our processes so that we can truly become productive?  In this talk, Dan North provides insights into what “agile” really means (and can mean), and how we can (and should) harness it.