Last Week

Last Week is a weekly column with an emphasis in articles and posts that I read and appreciated, it is a collection from a dozen of different sources. All the content shared is made by people which I believe that would highly appreciate your feedback, so don't forget to say thank you.

If you have a topic you would like to see reflected in this Last Week initiative, please leave a comment below!

Have an amazing week and always keep learning!

Azure

The new Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB Developer Specialty Certification is here!

Developers who wish to prove their cloud-native app development skills with Azure Cosmos DB can now earn the Azure Cosmos DB Developer Specialty Certification.  Get a preview of what to expect in the latest episode of Data Exposed.

Check out the article: The new Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB Developer Specialty Certification is here!

Technical leaders agree: AI is now a necessity to compete

AI is enabling new experiences everywhere. When people watch a captioned video on their phone, search for information online, or receive customer assistance from a virtual agent, AI is at the heart of those experiences. As users increasingly expect the conveniences that AI can unlock, they’re seen less as incremental improvements and more as the core to any app experience. A recent Forrester study shows that 84 percent of technical leaders feel they need to implement AI into apps to maintain a competitive advantage. Over 70 percent agree that the technology has graduated out of its experimental phase and now provides meaningful business value.

Check out the article: Technical leaders agree: AI is now a necessity to compete

Serverless Split and Process File with Azure Functions

This article covers the implementation of a data ingestion use case, to ingest a big file, process it and load it into a schemaless database. The entire use case is setup over Azure, taking advantage of Azure Storage as the main source for the file dump, Azure Functions to process the data, and Cosmos DB as the final persistence step.

Check out the article: Serverless Split and Process File with Azure Functions

Operations Task Management for Azure Alerts

A few weeks back, a customer asked us for a way to effectively track the alerts that they get from Microsoft Sentinel and Defender for Cloud and ensure resolution. For organizations with an ITIL practice, this work is tracked by logging an Incident or a Problem ticket in an ITSM tool. But some organizations are a lot leaner (no ITIL practice and no ITSM tooling) and simply need something that works.

Check out the article: Operations Task Management for Azure Alerts

General availability: SOAP and XML request and response validation

With the release of SOAP and XML feature, you will be able to reduce the API attack surface for SOAP or XML-based REST APIs by blocking or logging ill-formed API requests or responses and admitting only those, whose bodies adhere to the declared XML schema. The validation policy now supports custom schemas in addition to the schemas specified in the API’s definition.

Check out the article: General availability: SOAP and XML request and response validation

dotnet / C#

PriorityQueue In .NET 6

I am honestly surprised that after seeing for several years the different implementations of PriorityQueue included internally in Microsoft Frameworks, now they have been exposed publicly, and this thanks to the arrival of .NET 6. In this article, we are going to know the possibilities of PriorityQueue.

Check out the full article: PriorityQueue In .NET 6

Performance Vs. Scalability

Performance and scalability are two related but separate aspects of a system. However, there is a lot of confusion around the two terms, which often leads to architectural mistakes. This article talks about the difference between the two concepts and how to improve them.

Check out the full article: Sharing code between ASP.NET and ASP.NET Core

.NET March 2022 Updates – .NET 6.0.3, .NET 5.0.15 and, .NET 3.1.23

Today, we are releasing the .NET March 2022 Updates. These updates contain reliability and security improvements. See the individual release notes for details on updated packages.
You can download 6.0.3, 5.0.15 and, 3.1.23 versions for Windows, macOS, and Linux, for x86, x64, Arm32, and Arm64.

Check out the full article: .NET March 2022 Updates

Released: Microsoft.Data.SqlClient 5.0 Preview 1

Microsoft.Data.SqlClient 5.0 Preview 1 has been released. This release contains improvements and updates to the Microsoft.Data.SqlClient data provider for SQL Server.

Our plan is to provide GA releases twice a year with two or three preview releases in between. This cadence should provide time for feedback and allow us to deliver features and fixes in a timely manner. This first 5.0 preview includes fixes and changes over the previous 4.0 GA release.

Check out the full article: Released: Microsoft.Data.SqlClient 5.0 Preview 1

React

How to Upgrade to the React 18 Release Candidate

Our next major version, React 18, is available today as a Release Candidate (RC). As we shared at React Conf, React 18 introduces features powered by our new concurrent renderer, with a gradual adoption strategy for existing applications. In this post, we will guide you through the steps for upgrading to React 18.

Check out the article: How to Upgrade to the React 18 Release Candidate

Everything You Need To Know About the React 18 RC

Upgrading to the React 18 RC is fast and easy—start taking advantage of these great new features now to be ready for final React 18 release in a few weeks!

Check out the article: Everything You Need To Know About the React 18 RC

Automatic batching support in React 18

React 18 comes with automatic batching support for state updates. This helps in avoiding multiple renders for state updates in promises, setTimeout, setInterval, native event handlers in addition to react event handlers. Thus, we get performance improvement in our React apps out of the box because of automatic batching.

Check out the article: Automatic batching support in React 18

Controlling React API Calls With Hooks

 love React. But there are some aspects of the framework that have previously given me fits. One of those aspects is in the careful controlling of API calls from within a React app.

How many times have you witnessed this scenario?

You load a React app in the browser and, because you're a frontend developer, you find yourself opening the Inspector Tools and looking at the API (asynchronous) calls that are made from the app. That's when you notice something... fishy.

Check out the article: Controlling React API Calls With Hooks

Software Architecture

Bottleneck #01

This article is the first in a series that examines these bottlenecks. In each article we'll look at how startups get into the bottleneck, usually through doing the right things that are needed early in a startup's life, but are no longer right as growth changes the context for ways of working.

Check out the full article: Bottleneck #01

John Lewis IT Software Engineering Principles

Through our combined experience of building and releasing software we have discovered and come to value the following principles. These principles are not hard and fast rules but rather some things that we apply and use to guide us on a daily basis. These principles could also be used in a "discovery phase" when selecting a new product to purchase.

Check out the full document: John Lewis IT Software Engineering Principles

The Code Review Pyramid

Check out the full article: The Code Review Pyramid

One Way Smart Developers Make Bad Strategic Decisions

Sometimes smart people working hard make things worse. The following story is based my recollection of some real events.

Check out the full article: One Way Smart Developers Make Bad Strategic Decisions