Recreational Programming with Serverless

Cloud projects don't have to be big or great. Sometimes, it's enough for them to be fun. For me, serverless is the very definition of fun.

Building things is fulfilling, servers are a distraction. Learn how serverless has helped me rediscover the joy of programming.

Transcript

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2. Moin!
   I'm Mathias Lafeldt
   I help nice people learn how to embrace the cloud
   6 years of experience running production systems on AWS
   Freelancer by choice
   ✌
   @mlafeldt 2
   

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3. Most of my
   consulting work:
   Kubernetes + AWS
   @mlafeldt 3
   

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4. "Kubernetes is a fairly complex system
   with many moving parts. Its ecosystem is
   constantly evolving and adding even more
   layers (service mesh, ...) to the mix.
   Considering this environment, we don't
   hear enough real-world horror stories to
   learn from each other!"
   -- Henning Jacobs
   @mlafeldt 4
   

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5. @mlafeldt 5
   

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6. https://unsplash.com/photos/ZMcLVBi9xx4 6
   

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7. Recreational Programming
   "One of my life's goal is to help people
   remember what they found in computer
   programming originally."
   -- Jamis Buck
   https://weblog.jamisbuck.org 7
   

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8. https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2019/08/modern-applications-at-aws.html 8
   

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9. Increase Agility and Innovation Speed
   1. Microservices architecture
   2. Purpose-built databases
   3. Automated release pipelines
   4. Automated, continuous security
   5. As serverless as possible
   @mlafeldt 9
   

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10. The Serverless Future
    "At Amazon, we're not completely serverless ourselves, but we're
    moving in that direction."
    "In fact, we anticipate that there will soon be a whole generation of
    developers who have never touched a server and only write
    business logic."
    -- Werner
    @mlafeldt 10
    

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11. Serverless 101
    • Services that run without the need for infrastructure provisioning
    & scaling
    • Built-in availability and security
    • Pay-for-value billing model
    • Focus on "secret sauce"
    • Faster path to customer value
    @mlafeldt 11
    

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12. Serverless is also a perfect fit for
    "recreational cloud programming"
    @mlafeldt 12
    

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13. https://dilbert.com/strip/2019-08-30 13
    

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14. @mlafeldt 14
    

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15. @mlafeldt 15
    

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16. 2 Lambdas, 1 Bucket
    $ serverless invoke -f get-strip -d '{"date":"2019-08-30"}'
    {
    "date": "2019-08-30",
    "title": "No One Is Taking Advice",
    "image_url": "https://assets.amuniversal.com/ef1707409f430137b461005056a9545d",
    "strip_url": "http://dilbert.com/strip/2019-08-30",
    "upload_url": "https://some-bucket.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/strips/2019-08-30.gif"
    }
    $ serverless invoke -f gen-feed
    {
    "feed_url": "https://some-bucket.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/feed.xml"
    }
    @mlafeldt 16
    

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17. @mlafeldt 17
    

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18. @mlafeldt 18
    

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19. Healthchecks.io
    @mlafeldt 19
    

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20. Things I learned from this project
    • AWS Lambda with Go
    • Parsing HTML, generating RSS feeds in Go
    • AWS Step Functions
    • Lightweight cron monitoring
    • Serverless deployment via SLS / AWS SAM / Terraform
    • Playground & template for other projects
    @mlafeldt 20
    

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21. DynamoDB Store for
    LaunchDarkly's Go SDK
    github.com/mlafeldt/launchdarkly-dynamo-store
    @mlafeldt 21
    

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22. Serverless Chaos Monkey
    @mlafeldt 22
    

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23. Positive Feedback
    @mlafeldt 23
    

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24. Takeaways
    • Cloud projects don't have to be big or great
    • Sometimes, it's enough for them to be fun
    • Building things is fulfilling, servers are a distraction
    • Serverless is a great fit for recreational programming
    @mlafeldt 24
    

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25. Thank you.
    @mlafeldt
    https://sharpend.io
    mathias@sharpend.io
    25
    

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