Published in Better Programming·11 hours agoMember-onlyPython GIL: Explained Like I’m FiveAll the fuss about the Python GIL explained — So, you have heard of the Global Interpreter Lock or GIL for short? What exactly is GIL? Well, in short GIL is a mechanism that is built into the CPython interpreter. It is designed to prevent multiple native threads from executing Python bytecodes at once. “Blah-blah-blah, stop trying to sound…Programming5 min readProgramming5 min read
Published in Better Programming·Jan 3Member-onlyPython Decorators — The What, the Why, and the WhenCreating modular and reusable code in Python — Decorators are incredibly powerful in Python. They are useful for creating modular and reusable code. Plus, they’re pretty cool once you get the hang of them! In this article, we’ll look at what decorators are, why you should use them, and when you should and shouldn’t use them. As always…Programming5 min readProgramming5 min read
Published in Better Programming·Nov 21, 2022Member-onlySay Goodbye to Heroku Free Tier — Here Are 4 AlternativesAn in-depth guide, including comparisons — 28 November 2022 is a sad day for developers. If you haven’t heard, Salesforce (Heroku’s parent organization) is phasing out its free tier plan on this date. For many years, Heroku has been the de facto standard platform as a service (PaaS). So many students and developers deployed their first…Programming5 min readProgramming5 min read
Published in Better Programming·Nov 1, 2022Member-onlyUnderstanding Auth and Cookies for Web ApplicationsStop comparing JWT and Cookies — There is a lot of confusion about cookies, sessions, token-based authentication, and JWT. Today, I want to clarify what people mean when they talk about “JWT vs Cookie, “Local Storage vs Cookies,” “Session vs token-based authentication,” and “Bearer token vs Cookie” once and for all. Here’s a hint — we…Programming8 min readProgramming8 min read
Published in Better Programming·Oct 4, 2022Member-only4 Levels of How To Use MakefileA quick introduction to Makefile — I love Makefile. Today, I use Makefile for most of the projects that I am working on. You may have seen Makefile in many open source projects on GitHub (e.g. this). Like me, you have probably wondered what Makefiles are and what they do. There is a bazillion of incredible…Programming6 min readProgramming6 min read
Sep 21, 2022How to Sync Dota 2 Esports Matches To Google CalendarSync individual matches from TI11, Majors, and DPC Games to your GCal — I rely on Google Calendar to manage my rather chaotic schedule in life. Like you, I want to know what and when is the next Dota 2 tournament happening, especially for Major Championships and The International. I want to know exactly when the next Esports match or game is going…Dota 24 min readDota 24 min read
Published in Better Programming·Jul 27, 2022Member-onlyHow I Back Up My Ghost Blog to a Cloud StorageDo it in 5 steps — I’ve been writing on my self-hosted Ghost blog for some time now. In case you’re wondering, this site is hosted on a Digital Ocean Droplet. For the most part, I felt like I was doing something inconsequential that only meant much for myself. …Programming6 min readProgramming6 min read
Published in Better Programming·Jul 4, 2022Member-onlyExporting PostgreSQL Queries to Google SheetsHow to export PostgreSQL queries to Google Sheets for free — A couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have known that connecting a PostgreSQL database to Google Sheets could be this expensive. Despite being a trivial problem, existing market solutions such as Zapier, KPIBees, etc. require us to pay a premium for it. TL;DR In this article, I am writing about…Programming5 min readProgramming5 min read
Published in Better Programming·May 26, 2022Member-onlyHow to Set Up CI/CD Pipeline For Cloudflare WorkerUsing GitHub Actions with Wrangler, k6, and semantic release — Today, most of my projects on GitHub are kept up to date with Renovate. With auto-merging enabled, I want to have enough confidence that the automated dependencies update would not cause any regressions. Testing Cloudflare Worker is a bit out of whack. Don’t get me wrong, I love Cloudflare Worker…Programming5 min readProgramming5 min read
Published in Better Programming·Apr 25, 2022Member-onlyGoodbye Heroku Postgres. Hello, RailwayI’m leaving Heroku Postgres for now. Here’s why — A little less than a year ago, I built Burplist, a free search engine for craft beer in Singapore. With the goal to keep my infrastructure cost as low as possible, I started off with Heroku Postgres free tier. With a row limit of 10,000 and a storage capacity of…Programming5 min readProgramming5 min read
