Adding Version Information to Go Binaries

Preslav Rachev in tips, golang | 9 Jul, 2019
One of the things that I find really neat about Go, is the single-executable delivery model. For small projects, it’s as simple as dragging and dropping the built executable right where I need it. After some time, however, I might easily forget which version of my codebase a given executable has been built upon. If I have to revert a change, how can I make sure that I build from the right commit?
image from Implementing a Functional-Style Builder in Go

Implementing a Functional-Style Builder in Go

Preslav Rachev in functional programming, golang | 7 Jul, 2019
Go is definitely not the first language on my mind, when I hear the term “Functional Programming”. Yet, functions are first-class citizens in Go, and one can achieve a lot using higher-order functions (those that can receive and/or return other functions) alone. In this post, I want to demonstrate the use of functional constructs for implementing the well-known Builder pattern. Please, note that there are many ways to implement a Builder, and I don’t claim that mine is certainly the best.

Sofia's Trams

Preslav Rachev in trams, bulgaria, sofia, photo stories | 23 Jun, 2019
It has been almost a decade, since I last set foot in the city center of Bulgaria’s capital, Sofia. Although I fly home regularly, Sofia’s Airport is just an intermediary stop on my ultimate route to my hometown. This time was different. My wife and I flew for the wedding of one of our best friends, and since we had a whole day to spare, we decided to take a walk through the centre of the City of Trams.
image from Busting the Myth Around Multithreading in Python

Busting the Myth Around Multithreading in Python

Preslav Rachev in python, concurrency | 3 Jun, 2019
One of the things I often hear from other developers, along with the usual “Python is slow”, is that “multithreading in Python sucks”. The sad reality is that I hear those from Python developers too. While I will pretend I have not heard the former accusation (hoping you’ve already heard how well Python integrates with C), I will try to bring up some light on the latter. When I ask the same guys about why they think that multithreading in Python sucks, some of them mention the GIL (Global Interpreter Lock) as the root cause.

Sixtus Half-Marathon (Schliersee) 2019

Preslav Rachev in running, half-marathon, germany, bavaria | 17 May, 2019
Today, I took part in the Sixtus Half-Marathon near lake Schliersee for the third time in a row. Unlike last year, this time I started with a completely different strategy - keep it cool and let everyone else pass by me during the first third of the race. Seeing everyone else’s backs can be demotivating and requires a lot of patience and training. After the first 5-6K, having realized that I was really the last of the HM group, I started slowly picking up the pace.

My Reasons to Consider Go Coming from Java

Preslav Rachev in spring boot, java, golang | 7 May, 2019
I hate listicles, and I am highly hoping that this doesn’t become one of them. Yet, I somehow felt the need to write down the reasons why I am giving Go a second (or maybe, third 🤔) chance. To the Java developers out there, searching for a new weapon of choice, I am hoping that this will give you a bit of perspective. This is not a description of Go-specific features.

Developer Tool Tip: DevDocs

Preslav Rachev in tools, tips, docs | 3 May, 2019
Here is a handy developer tool tip for today: DevDocs As developers, we spend a large portion of our time, searching for the “name of the function abc that did thing xyz”. Not surprisingly, sites like StackOverflow have become so popular. Yet, SO answers are often full of additional information, and what we need most of the time is a simple search on top of the docs themselves. Years ago, I used a tool for macOS, called Dash.

Deploying a Native Go Binary on Heroku

Preslav Rachev in golang, heroku, tips | 20 Apr, 2019
My company, KI labs recently held its first hackathon in our Munich office. My team and I went for a very cool mobile app idea that promotes healthy walking competitions among colleagues and friends. Though the app itself deserves a proper introduction, I will talk about it in a separate post. This time I will focus on one problem I experienced while working on the app’s backend part, written in Go.

Give Me Back My Monolith

Preslav Rachev in 2 cents, dev culture | 23 Mar, 2019
Give me back my monolith It feels like we’re starting to pass the peak of the hype cycle of microservices. It’s no longer multiple times a week we now see a blog … Source: - http://www.craigkerstiens.com Give Me Back My Monolith by Craig Kerstiens is something I have been ranting about for quite some time. It is thus good to see other people standing on the same side of the bridge:
image from Using Ephemeral Docker Containers as CLI Applications

Using Ephemeral Docker Containers as CLI Applications

Preslav Rachev in programming, docker, python | 18 Mar, 2019
Docker containers have proven themselves extremely useful in allowing developers to sandbox environments and ease the deployment of services. Have a complicated service setup? No worries. Simply, describe the steps in a Dockerfile and you should be able to replicate the process on every host OS that has Docker support. When I said services, I bet that the first thing you thought about was HTTP servers, or some sort of persistent, always running processes that send or accept requests to such services.