1. Home Assistant blocked from integrating with Garage Door opener API
Total comment counts : 91
Summary
The MyQ integration will be removed from Home Assistant in December 2023. Chamberlain Group, the owners of MyQ, have decided to block access to third-party apps, including the MyQ integration. This decision has caused issues for Home Assistant users, as the integration breaks and gets fixed repeatedly. Chamberlain Group claims that blocking unauthorized access will improve the performance and reliability of MyQ. Home Assistant has reached out to Chamberlain Group in an attempt to find a solution but has not received a response. As an open-source project, Home Assistant cannot pay a partnership fee to become an authorized partner. Therefore, the MyQ integration will be removed from Home Assistant. Users are recommended to use ratgdo, a device that connects to MyQ garage door openers and allows for local control. Home Assistant urges users to avoid supporting companies that mistreat their customers and to choose products that work locally and do not rely on third parties.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author suggests that there is not much value in the analytics of IoT (Internet of Things) devices. They argue that the two main revenue streams in the IoT space are charging for video storage and charging for commercial access. Chamberlain, the company mentioned, offers both of these services through their MyQ cameras and garage access program. Chamberlain aims to reduce fraud for retailers like Amazon and Walmart through their “In garage delivery” service, which prevents users from falsely claiming package theft. However, the author explains that due to security issues with wireless protocols used in garage doors, Chamberlain’s solution is not effective, and other industries like automotive have more secure encryption systems. The author implies that the decision to focus on monetization rather than addressing foundational issues was misguided.
Top 2 Comment Summary
Chamberlain is described as having a monopoly in the market, with customers being affected by recent changes that caused a “DDoS” incident. The company claims the changes were made to promote their official products, but it has discontinued a local hub that did not require their cloud service. The timing of the API breakage coincides with the appointment of a new CTO who aims to transform the company into a smart access software company. It is unclear whether the CTO lacks understanding or is intentionally blaming users for the “DDoS” incident. However, a local solution called ratgdo, using ESP technology, is recommended as a good alternative.
2. Hard-to-swallow truths they won’t tell you about software engineer job
Total comment counts : 118
Summary
The article discusses the misconceptions and realities of being a software engineer. The author talks about how new graduates often have an idealized view of the job, focusing on perks like good pay and remote work, without understanding the challenges and demands of the role. The author emphasizes that college education only provides a basic foundation and that extra work, such as coding projects and learning about business domains, is necessary to succeed in the field. They also highlight that working on real projects involves dealing with complex codebases and collaborating with colleagues, rather than just implementing algorithms and design patterns. The article touches on the importance of being aware of bugs, managing uncertainty, and developing soft skills, such as communication and teamwork. It concludes by acknowledging the drawbacks of the job, such as long hours, limited work-life balance, and potential job insecurity, but also highlights the opportunities for innovation, flexibility, and demand for software engineers.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article argues that while clean code is important, people generally do not care about it. However, if your boss and coworkers are doing their jobs well, they will communicate if your code is helping or hindering their work. Clean code should be focused on being understandable, usable, and easily modifiable, as that is what people actually care about.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article emphasizes the importance of understanding that almost every profession ultimately revolves around providing service to other people. Whether it’s software engineering, plumbing, law, medicine, or any other field, the measure of success comes from satisfying the needs of clients or organizations. The author highlights the need for qualities such as calmness, competence, compassion, timeliness, and communication in addition to technical skills. The article also mentions that dealing with people, arbitrary constraints, bureaucracy, and challenges unrelated to the core profession are unavoidable in any job. The author suggests that those who prefer to focus on artistic pursuits should pursue them alongside their career, but should recognize the distinct roles and purposes of both.
3. Gleam: a type safe language on the Erlang VM
Total comment counts : 21
Summary
This article promotes the programming language Gleam, which combines the power of a type system, functional programming, and Erlang runtime. It highlights features such as scalability, high concurrency, and reliability. Gleam comes with a compiler, build tool, formatter, editor integrations, and package manager. It can use thousands of published packages from the BEAM ecosystem. Gleam is designed to make coding enjoyable and stress-free, and it supports code interoperability with other BEAM languages. It can also compile to JavaScript and generate TypeScript definitions. The article emphasizes inclusivity and community values. It encourages readers to consider becoming sponsors and provides links to further resources.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the syntax of a programming language and praises it for its attractive features. One particular feature that is highlighted is the use of labeled arguments, which the author finds delightful. An example code snippet is provided to demonstrate this syntax.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article provided is a list of various posts and discussions related to Gleam, a type-safe Erlang-family language. The links include topics such as updates, releases, features, and discussions on the Gleam language and its development.
4. Chamberlain blocks smart garage door opener from working with smart homes
Total comment counts : 42
Summary
Chamberlain Group, the owner of garage door opener brands like LiftMaster and Chamberlain, is discouraging customers from using third-party smart home apps with its “myQ” smart garage door openers. The company claims that unauthorized usage of these devices negatively affects the user experience and the performance of its ecosystem. However, the move is also seen as an attempt to promote Chamberlain’s own app, which has been receiving negative reviews due to the inclusion of ads and upselling features. The popular open-source smart home platform, Home Assistant, is removing the myQ integration from its project as it no longer functions. Chamberlain’s preference for customers to use authorized partners, such as Amazon and Alarm.com, is seen as a way to generate revenue. Home Assistant suggests using a circuit board called a “ratgdo” to bypass Chamberlain’s restrictions. The founder of Home Assistant encourages consumers to avoid companies that treat their customers poorly and to support products that prioritize local functionality.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author discusses the concept of “unauthorized users” and distinguishes them from authorized users who are trying to control their own garage door. They explain their company’s policy of not blocking third party clients as long as they use a specific user agent and API key provided by the company. This allows the company to monitor excessive usage and prevent false alarms, while still providing flexibility to power users. The author emphasizes the importance of keeping power users satisfied and avoiding unnecessary conflict.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses how garage door opener apps are not just used to open doors, but also to display ads and encourage users to purchase additional services. The author questions the effectiveness of these ads, suggesting that it is unlikely that someone waiting to open or close their garage door would click on an ad to make a purchase. The article also critiques other aspects of current IoT approaches, such as the need for third-party apps and cloud servers, as well as concerns about security.
5. Oh my poor business logic
Total comment counts : 32
Summary
The article discusses the issue of companies becoming too focused on technical tools and processes, rather than prioritizing the core business problems. It describes two types of companies - one that only cares about measurable outcomes and blames engineers for any issues, and another that gets caught up in technical trends without considering the practicality. The article suggests that while the first type is often criticized, the second type is equally problematic but less recognized. The author points out that the introduction of pointless metrics and the obsession with complex tools can hinder developers from focusing on improving the actual business logic. The article also mentions the negative effects of adopting trendy approaches like microservices or GraphQL without considering the organization’s specific needs. The author concludes by acknowledging the lack of a perfect solution and invites technical leads, managers, and business owners to share their strategies for finding a balance between technical innovation and practicality.
Top 1 Comment Summary
This article suggests that developers should prioritize being close to the business in order to focus on the business logic. This means being in direct contact with business people and customers, rather than being separated by organizational layers like architects and business analysts. By being part of a team responsible for delivering a specific product to customers, developers can better understand and contribute to the business value.
Top 2 Comment Summary
This article discusses the challenge of finding a middle ground for developers to focus on core business logic without incurring technical debt. The author, who is a technical lead, business owner, and ex-manager, shares their experience working with a small development team and using “old” technology with up-to-date tooling. They prioritize simplicity, maintainability, and shipping products in order to move the business forward. The author acknowledges that their approach may not be transferable to other contexts and suggests that finding the right balance for each organization can be challenging.
6. Interactive examples for learning jq
Total comment counts : 25
Summary
The article introduces a tool called jq, which is a powerful data processing tool for handling JSON files. It provides various scenarios where jq can be useful, such as integrating with APIs, converting data formats, managing configuration files, extracting data from websites, parsing server logs, and working with Infra as Code tools. The article explains the syntax and features of jq, including filters, iteration, selection, mapping, splitting strings, filtering null values, and formatting output. It also covers advanced functionalities like recursive traversal, statistical analysis, grouping, reducing, and conditional operations. The article concludes by encouraging readers to explore and utilize jq in their workflows.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author finds bash and jq to be difficult to remember even after spending time working with them. They need to refer to their bookmarks, Kagi results, and now even chatGPT to recall how to perform tasks they previously found easy.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses the use of JQ, a command-line tool for processing JSON data. The author initially struggled with understanding JQ but found that it makes sense once you understand its building blocks. They provide examples of selecting elements using dot notation and array indexing. The article also explains how to create new objects and lists using array and object constructors. Filters and pipes can be used to build complex transformations, with built-ins like map() and select() being useful for transforming arrays. The article concludes with an example query that fetches GitHub issues, transforms them, filters, sorts, and wraps the results, showcasing the chaining capabilities of JQ’s query language.
7. Tumble Forth
Total comment counts : 4
Summary
The author, Virgil Dupras, introduces a series of articles aimed at guiding web developers into the world of low level programming in order to broaden their perspectives on computing. The goal is to provide step-by-step guidance and include a corny joke in each episode. The target reader is someone with programming experience but lacking knowledge in low level programming. The article outlines a “pilot” story arc that starts with examining the complexity of modern software and then delves into low level development, including building a Forth from scratch and a partial C compiler.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author expresses their enjoyment in exploring other people’s implementations of forth and examining the trade-offs they have made. They mention looking at the model used, such as threaded or token, before shifting their focus to flags, dictionary layout, and the assembler, if available. The author also shares their favorite implementation, f83, which they consider to be a masterpiece.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses the idea of abandoning all business and application software in the event of a civilization collapse. The author ponders whether it would be better to follow the best practices of the late 70s and 80s without patent limitations, rather than relying on modern software. They suggest creating a base model for early personal computers and bootstrapping a combination of FreeDOS and a Unix-like operating system, allowing users to log in using terminals. Initially, the CollapseOS project aimed to follow the BASIC model but later shifted focus to Forth.
8. How Wikipedia became the last good place on the internet
Total comment counts : 52
Summary
The article discusses the process of institutional change on the English Wikipedia. It argues that change in institutions can occur endogenously through population loss, as winners remain and losers become demotivated and leave. The article provides a detailed demonstration of this process on Wikipedia, showing how it transformed from a dubious source of information to a reliable one over time. The transformation was driven by disputes over rule interpretations, with winners shaping the understanding and implementation of the rules. The article uses qualitative content analysis, archival research, and process tracing to support its claims. It concludes that population loss can be an important mechanism for consequential institutional change.
Top 1 Comment Summary
Wikipedia prioritizes verifiability over seeking the absolute truth, allowing non-expert editors to contribute. This approach shifts the burden of truth to the sources, making Wikipedia a useful platform.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author’s personal impression of Wikipedia is that the objectivity of its content varies depending on the subject, especially regarding more recent historical events and public/political figures. The author finds the objectivity to be debatable in these areas, based on their own familiarity with the subjects.
9. Major outages across ChatGPT and API
Total comment counts : 83
Summary
This article is a notification to subscribe to updates for a major outage across ChatGPT and API. By subscribing, users will receive email notifications when incidents are updated and text message notifications whenever OpenAI creates or resolves an incident.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The user used Google Bard because ChatGPT was not available. They found Google Bard to be fine but noticed a slight difference in tone compared to ChatGPT.
Top 2 Comment Summary
Phind is a coding tool that is effective for coding and has been trained on billions of extra code tokens. It is still available on the website https://www.phind.com/s.
10. Spain lives in flats: why we have built our cities vertically
Total comment counts : 40
Summary
The article discusses the history and development of high-rise buildings and population density in Spanish cities. It highlights the trend of urban sprawl and the construction of single-family homes in the outskirts of cities. The article also explores the concept of compact and cohesive cities, as well as the need for good commuter rail networks. It emphasizes the importance of balancing density, diversity of land uses, and social cohesion in urban planning. The data used in the article was collected from the Spanish Cadastre and analyzed by elDiario.es.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the high rise movement in Spain and highlights some important factors that have shaped the urban landscape. It mentions the role of draconian land laws and the influence of Spain’s young democracy. The article also mentions that changes in government parties have led to constraints and favoritism in zoning changes and subsidies for public housing. It discusses the lack of property taxes in Spain and how this has led to unplanned growth driven by speculation. The article also notes the cultural preference for buying rather than renting, which has contributed to the demand for more flats. On a positive note, the article mentions that Spain has a relatively wide economic demographic in its cities, which sets it apart from other major cities around the world.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses a reader’s surprise at seeing a comprehensive infographic that covers the whole of Spain, rather than just focusing on specific regions like Madrid and Barcelona. The reader compliments the team at El Diario for their effort in creating a detailed infographic.