feature flags diagram

A Quick Look at Feature Flags

Braden Niswonger Articles, Development Technologies & Tools, Programming 3 Comments

Using feature flags, also known as feature toggles or switches, is a software technique that allows segments of code to be toggled during runtime, without the need for redeploying.

Feature flags can be a powerful tool for teams utilizing continuous integration practices, allowing code to be deployed in a dormant state and enabled later on. At a basic level, they provide the ability to conditionally render or activate features at will.

In the blog, Iโ€™ll cover feature flags. Weโ€™ll start by discussing why and when we use them, and then weโ€™ll move into an overview of what it looks like to develop with them. Letโ€™s dive in!

Application Security Whitepaper

White Paper: Security Best Practices in Application Development

Keyhole Software Articles, Consulting, Keyhole Creations, Security Leave a Comment

This white paper provides key takeaways for application stewards and software leaders to improve application security, with examples of common application security liabilities and suggestions for remediation. Topics include:

An in-depth look into Security Culture and the importance of the people element in adopting a security-first outlook.
An explanation of common application practices we frequently see in the wild that can be inherently risky, with suggestions for best practices.
A security checklist to determine critical areas of higher risk to prioritize in your journey to a more secure application.
Anย explanation of the security Surface Area and how to minimize it starting from your source code.
Strategies to protect Authentication and Authorization and a comparison between Third-Party solutions and rolling your own auth.
A deep dive into built-in Application Security and an exploration of strategies that might help your business, including Network-Level Security, WAF, Payload Encryption, SSL, Cloud Configuration, and SIEM…

Adding Autocompletion to Bash Scripts

Adding Autocompletion to Bash Scripts

Jake Everhart Articles, Automation, Development Technologies & Tools, Programming, Tutorial Leave a Comment

If you have ever mashed the Tab key to finish typing a filename or to show you the available flags to use when running a program, you know that autocompletion can be a great improvement for a command-line tool. But how easy is this to implement for your own executables?

This blog is a guide providing an overview of how autocompletion can be achieved through bash. We will see some of the core concepts in action, focusing on how they interact with each other and the behavior that results.

Application Security

Top Security Mistakes to Avoid in AppDev

Zach Gardner All Industries, Architecture, Articles, Financial, Healthcare, Insurance, Manufacturing, Security, Spring, Supply Chain & Logistics Leave a Comment

Developing custom applications is one of the hardest professional endeavors, and making them secure is even harder. Malicious actors are constantly changing tactics and strategies, which, unfortunately, makes it impossible to completely eliminate any security threat.

There needs to be a balance between delivering features quickly to meet business objectives and mitigating security risks. Thankfully, these two goals are not mutually exclusive. This blog post dives into the top mistakes that can be made while developing custom applications.

These recommendations are different from what would commonly be seen in an OWASP list, and they should be used in addition to whatever security practices and procedures are already in place by an organizationโ€™s infosec department. These recommendations are also written from an application architectโ€™s (rather than an enterprise infrastructure) perspective, so most of them arenโ€™t covered by existing security checklists.

GINQ for the win

Using Groovy 4: GINQ for the Win

Rik Scarborough Articles, Development Technologies & Tools, Groovy, Java, Programming 4 Comments

In my last blog post Back in the Groovy 4, I briefly mentioned Groovy-Integrated Query (GINQ). I’ve been wanting to write about how I would use this new feature, and I decided to take this opportunity to do so.

In this post, I will be describing two examples in which I used GINQ. The first requirement I faced on a recent project of mine and demonstrating how I used GINQ to fulfill it. A quick disclaimer: this is not a tutorial on GINQ. This blog is merely a discussion of how I’ve used GINQ and how I plan on making it part of my toolkit.