Lessons Learned and News in March 2020

This is what I learned in March 2020:

1. I deepened my knowledge about Docker, Kubernetes and AWS. Like always, I created a repository with notes about Docker and also Kubernetes.
2. I finished the Udemy course “Spring Framework DevOps on AWS”. During the course, I repeated a lot of known topics and learned some new things about AWS services. I already knew about basics like Spring properties, profiling and how to use an external database in general. The setup of an AWS-based DB was new to me, just like how to use Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) to run an application. In conclusion, the course was a nice in-between learning opportunity.
3. I discovered a JSON Path online evaluator. JSON paths can be used in Spring Web MVC tests to validate response JSON from a REST endpoint. The evaluator helps in forming the JSON path expression.
4. The other board members of IT Hub e.V. and I switched to OX Application Suite. This service contains mail-, task-, calendar- and office applications, all accessible via browser. It is our new central organization tool.
5. A coworker and I added Java Testcontainers to one of our projects. Our tests now use a Mongo database container to test our data mapping and queries in data repositories.
6. Watching the Udemy course “Linux Shell Scripting”, I had a shallow-dive into Vagrant. Of course I heart a lot of it already, but didn’t go into the details yet.
7. This article explains when to use query parameters and query parameter for REST URIs: “If you want to identify a resource, you should use Path Variable. But if you want to sort or filter items, then you should use query parameter.”
8. I learned about API Gateways like Kong.
9. I learned to never use function calls in Angular-templates.

I read the following books:

1. “Principles” by Ray Dalio (review here)

This is what I’m working on right now / planning to do in the near future / other stuff:

1. I’m working on learning more about several cloud technologies and everything that is connected to it. I began a new Udemy workshop about Linux shell scripting, I will review some books about cloud I once read and I will deploy several applications to different cloud providers.
2. I’m working on enhancing the IT Hub by connecting events to groups. In this process, I learn a lot about (REST) API design and ROCA.

(Photo: adrian825, http://www.istockphoto.com/photo/monthly-management-reports-36658768)