S5E18: "Guided by Languages"

Posted 2020-10-25 23:59
Modified 2020-10-26 13:29
Comments 0

In this episode, we revisit sysops’ scripting languages (or rather, programming languages in general) and applying canonized best practices (regulations, specifications, guidelines, etc.).

• Just the Tip
• Notes
• 15 Clams
• Errata
• Music

Just the Tip

• Jthan sent Paden a Yubikey 5C NFC. Paden thinks it’s pretty easy to use.

Notes

Starts at 19m40s.

I was drinking the last of my wedding sangria. Paden was drinking the last of his Buckeye vodka. Jthan was drinking an old-fashioned with Buffalo Trace bourbon.

• Announcements!
  • We have a two-day game night (“night”) coming up! The day before and the day of for Halloween. We’ll be playing They Hunger and Afraid of Monsters (both co-op), see the link for details.
  • On November 7, I (r00t^2) will be doing Extra-Life! We’ll be playing Unreal Gold Co-op plus maybe Doom if we finish Unreal.

• SysOps Langauges (28m33s)
  • We talk about sysops langauges first wayyyy back in S0E15.
  • For new projects and *NIX, sh and python.
    • LEARN POSIX SHELL SCRIPTING if you’re in a mixed-*NIX environment!
  • Ruby is esoteric and… not really recommended. The only real reason to learn it is Puppet.
  • PowerShell is the winner for MS environments.
  • I still insist golang is not a good language for operations.
  • It all comes down to overhead of building and distribution, complexity of environment (dependencies, test cases, etc.), and its lack of flexibility.
    • But it doesn’t hurt to learn it.
    • “It feels like Fisher-Price C.”
  • BUT you SHOULD learn Lua scripting! Nmap, Nginx, PowerDNS, a LOT of projects support Lua extensions/scripting.
  • DEFINITELY learn Jinja2 for templating.
  • Data langauges – JSON, YAML, XML.
    • LEARN ALL THREE. Seriously.

• Following Best Practices (45m18s)
  • Compliance to regulations suck. We all know it. It’s ineffective, non-nuanced, and usually not thought out well, despite best-intention behind them (thanks bureaucrats)…
  • But sometimes it’s necessary to follow them (e.g. HIPAA).
  • A big issue with legal regulation is they’re monolithic and either are over-restrictive or under-restrictive to be effective and/or practical.
  • You can register as a DMCA safe harbor service provider by following these instructions.
  • GDPR is incredibly complex. Seriously.
  • You can find STIGs here.
  • GET AN ATTORNEY while implementing a policy/regulation/etc.
  • Document everything.
  • Keep in mind the purpose of the regulation regardless of your personal view/ideals/etc., and this will help you find violations of it.
  • Some regulations conflict, and segregation by role will save you here.
    • You don’t need your HIPAA systems that store patient health data to be directly linked with your payment systems (PCI).

15 Clams

In this segment, Jthan shares with you a little slice of life. The title is a reference to this video. (2m16s in)

Starts at 1h05m05s.

Jthan thinks he might be experiencing “impostor syndrome” (imposter phenomenon). He wants to know what you can do to reassure yourself.

I explain to the guys what the Johari and Nohari Window models are.

I theorize that imposter phenomenon has grown wildly in recent years because 1.) people don’t spend a lot of time on self-awareness these days, and 2.) people don’t seek to perceive an external perception. This self-absorption-without-awareness leads to us thinking that employers hire us as people and not as roles, and this leads to us thinking employers mistake us as someone we aren’t.

Ultimately, if this is something affecting you, you should pursue professional mental health assistance rather than listening to a couple knuckleheads on a tech podcast or people on the Internet.

Also Jthan’s headphones are shocking him.

Errata

• The episode’s intro that Jthan thought my greeting for this episode was a reference to was S1E5. Meanwhile I wasn’t even trying to make a reference at all.
• Yes, Jthan, you could indeed remove Tom from your friends list:
  • “Myspace Tom was everybody’s friend on the site by default, which meant you had to manually remove him if you didn’t want to keep him in your friends list.”
• I simply cannot believe Paden has never heard the song I referenced. And here I thought you’d have seen it at least once if you’ve been on the Internet more than 3 years.
• Minecraft doesn’t have strafejumping, Paden. But it apparently has 45 Strafe.
  • Still not interested in playing it though. Yawn.
• Holy crap, Solaris is alive?!
  • I was thinking of the open-source/“developer edition” of Solaris, which is dead.
• YAML (as of 1.2) is actually a subset of JSON.
• PSA, be sure to set up a living will and power-of-attorney.
• I said “clip chip” – I meant to say Clipper chip.
• Ironically, I spelled Dunning-Kruger incorrectly on-air. (I spelled it “K-r-e-u-g-e-r”)
• Jthan does indeed ask a question for his 15 Clams, which Paden and I attempt to answer. (“…What can you do if you’re experiencing something like impostor syndrome?”, 1h13m11s)
• I checked the tracks. The microphone rubbing was 100% Jthan.

Music

Author r00t^2
Categories Season Five