February 17, 2024

Europe’s Digital Services Act applies in full from tomorrow - here’s what you need to know

In one early sign of potentially interesting times ahead, Ireland’s Coimisiún na Meán has recently been consulting on rules for video sharing platforms that could force them to switch off profiling-based content feeds by default in that local market. In that case the policy proposal was being made under EU audio visual rules, not the DSA, but given how many major platforms are located in Ireland the Coimisiún na Meán, as DSC, could spin up some interesting regulatory experiments if it take a similar approach when it comes to applying the DSA on the likes of Meta, TikTok, X and other tech giants. Another interesting question is how the DSA might be applied to fast-scaling generative AI tools. The viral rise of AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT occurred after EU lawmakers had drafted and agreed the DSA. But the intent for the regulation was for it to be futureproofed and able to apply to new types of platforms and services as they arise. Asked about this, a Commission official said they have identified two different situations vis-à-vis generative AI tools: One where a VLOP is embedding this type of AI into an in-scope platform? — where they said the DSA does already apply.?

Composable Architectures vs. Microservices: Which Is Best?

Composable architecture is a modular approach to software design and development that builds flexible, reusable and adaptable software architecture. It entails breaking down extensive, monolithic platforms into small, specialized, reusable and independent components. This architectural pattern comprises a pluggable array of modular components, such as microservices, packaged business capability (PBC), headless architecture and API-first development that can be seamlessly replaced, assembled and configured to align with business requirements. In a composable application, each component is developed independently using the technologies best suited to the application’s functions and purpose. This enables businesses to build customized solutions that can swiftly adapt to business needs. ... The composable approach has gained significant popularity in e-commerce applications and web development for enhancing the digital experience for developers, customers and retailers, with industry leaders like Shopify and Amazon taking advantage of its benefits.

Nginx core developer quits project in security dispute, starts “freenginx” fork

Comments on Hacker News, including one by a purported employee of F5, suggest Dounin opposed the assigning of published CVEs?to bugs in aspects of QUIC. While QUIC is not enabled in the most default Nginx setup, it is included in the application's "mainline" version, which, according to the Nginx documentation, contains "the latest features and bug fixes and is always up to date." ... MZMegaZone confirmed the relationship between security disclosures and Dounin's departure. "All I know is he objected to our decision to assign CVEs, was not happy that we did, and the timing does not appear coincidental," MZMegaZone wrote on Hacker News. He later added, "I don't think having the CVEs should reflect poorly on NGINX or Maxim. I'm sorry he feels the way he does, but I hold no ill will toward him and wish him success, seriously." Dounin, reached by email, pointed to his mailing list responses for clarification. He added, "Essentially, F5 ignored both the project policy and joint developers' position, without any discussion." MegaZone wrote to Ars (noting that he only spoke for himself and not F5), stating, "It's an unfortunate situation, but I think we did the right thing for the users in assigning CVEs and following public disclosure practices.?

Bridging Silos and Overcoming Collaboration Antipatterns in Multidisciplinary Organizations

Some problems with these anti-patterns. I'm going to talk again in threes, I've talked about three anti-patterns, one role across many teams, product versus engineering wars, and X-led. I'm going to talk about some of the problems with these. The first one is one group holds the power. One group holds all the decision-making power, and others can't properly contribute. They aren't given the opportunity to contribute. In our first example, Anita the designer doesn't hold any power because all she's doing is playing catch-up. She's got no time to really contribute to decisions. In the second anti-pattern in the product versus engineering, there's always a battle between who holds the power. It's not collaborative, there's silos between the two. ... Professional protectionism is about people protecting their professional boundaries and not letting other people step into them. It's like, "No, this is my area, you stay over there and you do your thing and I'll do my thing over here." Maybe some people have experienced this. For example, I was working with an organization recently and they said the user research team didn't want to publish how they did user research, because other people might do it.

Scalability Challenges in Microservices Architecture: A DevOps Perspective

Although microservices architectures naturally lend themselves to scalability, challenges remain as systems grow in size and complexity. Efficiently managing how services discover each other and distribute loads becomes complex as the number of microservices increases. Communication across complex systems also introduces a degree of latency, especially with increased traffic, and leads to an increased attack surface, raising security concerns. Microservices architectures also tend to be more expensive to implement than monolithic architectures. Creating secure, robust, and well-performing microservices architectures begins with design. Domain-driven design plays a vital role in developing services that are cohesive, loosely coupled, and aligned with business capabilities. Within a genuinely scalable architecture, every service can be deployed, scaled, and updated autonomously without affecting the others. One essential aspect of effectively managing microservices architecture involves adopting a decentralized governance model, in which each microservice has a dedicated team in charge of making decisions related to the service

CQRS Pattern in C# and Clean Architecture – A Simplified Beginner’s Guide

When implementing Clean Architecture in C#, it’s important to recognize the role each of the four components plays. Entities and Use Cases represent the application’s core business logic, Interface Adapters manage the communication between the Use Cases and Infrastructure components, and Infrastructure represents the outermost layer of the architecture. To implement Clean Architecture successfully, we have some best practices to keep in mind. For instance, Entities and Use Cases should be agnostic to the infrastructure and use plain C# classes, providing a decoupled architecture that avoids excess maintenance. Additionally, applying the SOLID principles ensures that the code is flexible and easily extensible. Lastly, implementing use cases asynchronously can help guarantee better scalability. Each component of Clean Architecture has a specific role to play in the implementation of the overall architecture. Entities represent the business objects, Use Cases implement the business logic, Interface Adapters handle interface translations, and Infrastructure manages the communication to the outside world.?

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