Fortana's Engineering Reading/Exercise List

Hello Fortana engineers! Make your own branch (with your name) in this repo and check things off as you read/do them. If you want to add, or remove, or replace, or add observations to something, submit a PR against master.

This list should change as the company changes. We should talk about things on this list!

Quick Reads

Frontend

• React
  • https://marmelab.com/blog/2019/03/13/react-dependency-injection.html
  • https://reactjs.org/docs/thinking-in-react.html
• Redux and managing state
  • https://marmelab.com/blog/2017/02/06/react-is-slow-react-is-fast.html
• Caching API responses
  • https://github.com/kylebebak/talks-start-using-typescript
• TypeScript
  • https://github.com/fortana-co/request.js
  • https://github.com/fortana-co/react-dropzone-uploader
  • https://github.com/kylebebak/talks-start-using-typescript
• Promises
  • https://medium.com/javascript-scene/master-the-javascript-interview-what-is-a-promise-27fc71e77261
  • https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Promise
• GraphQL
  • https://github.com/kylebebak/talks-start-using-typescript
• Polling and real-time web, websockets
  • https://www.figma.com/blog/how-figmas-multiplayer-technology-works/, everything in this blog is worth reading
  • https://www.figma.com/blog/realtime-editing-of-ordered-sequences/
  • https://www.figma.com/blog/rust-in-production-at-figma/, limitations of a single-threaded event loop for async servers
  • https://github.com/elementary-robotics/cloud-frontend, Video.tsx and StreamListener.tsx
  • CRDTs
• File uploads
  • https://react-dropzone-uploader.js.org
• HTML, CSS, SASS, Flexbox, CSS modules
• Application folder structure
  • KISS: src directory in root of repo, with source code
  • https://github.com/elementary-robotics/cloud-frontend
• Pre-rendering for SPAs
  • https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/dynamic-rendering

Backend

• API design
  • https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4024271/rest-api-best-practices-where-to-put-parameters
  • https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16086513/using-query-string-in-rest-web-services
  • https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3868705/implementing-url-slug-functionality-in-a-website?rq=1
  • https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.2/topics/cache/
  • pagination, cursors: https://www.django-rest-framework.org/api-guide/pagination/#cursorpagination
• DRF
  • http://www.cdrf.co/
  • http://www.django-rest-framework.org/
• FastAPI, Asyncio
  • https://stackoverflow.com/questions/49005651/how-does-asyncio-actually-work
  • https://github.com/kylebebak/fastapi_graphql
• GraphQL
  • https://github.com/kylebebak/fastapi_graphql
• Mypy
  • http://mypy-lang.org/
• Redis (pub/sub, streams)
  • https://redis.io/topics/streams-intro
• Docker
  • https://www.caktusgroup.com/blog/2017/03/14/production-ready-dockerfile-your-python-django-app/

Databases

• SQL, specifically for Postgres
  • http://postgresguide.com/
• Database design
  • https://lagunita.stanford.edu/courses/Engineering/db/2014_1/about
• Indexes, UUIDs, full-text search
  • https://czep.net/17/full-text-search.html
  • http://rachbelaid.com/postgres-full-text-search-is-good-enough/
  • https://tomharrisonjr.com/uuid-or-guid-as-primary-keys-be-careful-7b2aa3dcb439
• Data migrations
  • https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.2/topics/migrations/#data-migrations

Algorithms and Performance

• Data structures (lists, queues, stacks and dicts)
  • https://github.com/kylebebak/python_algorithms
  • https://wiki.python.org/moin/TimeComplexity
  • https://anandology.com/python-practice-book/
• Performance (database, back end, front end)
  • https://marmelab.com/blog/2017/02/06/react-is-slow-react-is-fast.html
  • https://kylebebak.github.io/post/clustering-location-history-records
  • https://wiki.python.org/moin/TimeComplexity
• Algorithms
  • https://anandology.com/python-practice-book/
  • https://projecteuler.net
  • https://algs4.cs.princeton.edu/code/
  • https://www.coursera.org/learn/algorithms-part1

Web Security (CORS, SOP, CSRF, XSS)

• https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/97825/is-cors-helping-in-anyway-against-cross-site-forgery
• https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/216605/how-do-web-servers-enforce-the-same-origin-policy
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13897472/how-do-third-party-tracking-cookies-work
• https://kylebebak.github.io/post/browser-security-worse-is-better
• http://cryto.net/~joepie91/blog/2016/06/13/stop-using-jwt-for-sessions/
• https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ieinternals/2009/08/28/same-origin-policy-part-1-no-peeking/
• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/CORS#Access-Control-Allow-Origin
• https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Cross-site_Scripting_(XSS)
• https://blog.codinghorror.com/protecting-your-cookies-httponly/

Testing

• API testing
  • https://www.django-rest-framework.org/api-guide/testing/
• Integration tests
  • https://github.com/kylebebak/Requester/tree/master/tests
  • https://rbcs-us.com/documents/Why-Most-Unit-Testing-is-Waste.pdf
  • https://kylebebak.github.io/post/cargo-cult-testing
  • if you want good coverage you need integration tests
• Tests that never fail don't tell you anything
• Test behavior, not implementation
• Test coverage percentage is meaningless on its own, and there's no such thing as 100% test coverage
• Prioritize unit tests for functions that are subtle, difficult, or crucial to the system

General

• Text editor
  • master your text editor, because you use it more than anything else
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20170401165039/https://fluff.info/terrible/
• Git
  • after your text editor, Git is probably the most important tool to master
  • compare files, travel through time, rewrite history and undo mistakes: log, reflog, branch, diff, checkout, reset, reset --hard, reset --soft, cherry-pick, revert, stash, stash pop, and just maybe rebase
  • forking projects: remote, remote add, remote remove
• Debugging
  • more than anything, this depends on experience, and setting up a really short feedback loop for doing experiments with your code
  • it's worth the up-front cost to set up a good dev environment
• Choosing libraries
  • number of meaningful contributors, number of issues, ratio of open issues to closed issues, handling of important issues, recent commits, documentation, live examples, TypeScript compatibility
  • clone the repo, open it in your text editor, and yarn start or yarn dev or whatever
• Documentation and comments
  • https://blog.codinghorror.com/when-good-comments-go-bad/
  • https://blog.codinghorror.com/coding-without-comments/
  • comments explain why, not how (the code explains how)
• What makes software good (or bad)?
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20170401165039/https://fluff.info/terrible/
  • https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0020/
  • https://blog.bradfieldcs.com/you-are-not-google-84912cf44afb
  • https://www.dreamsongs.com/RiseOfWorseIsBetter.html
  • https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-test-12-steps-to-better-code/
  • https://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/
  • https://rbcs-us.com/documents/Why-Most-Unit-Testing-is-Waste.pdf
  • http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm
• Other
  • http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2998215/if-python-is-interpreted-what-are-pyc-files/2998544

Courses

• Algorithms, Part I and Part 2: https://www.coursera.org/learn/algorithms-part1
• Introduction to Databases: https://lagunita.stanford.edu/courses/Engineering/db/2014_1/about

Books

• The Mythical Man Month (Fred Brooks)
  • a classic on the human elements of software development
• Symbols, Signals and Noise (J.R. Pierce)
  • an overview of information theory and its founder Claude Shannon; storage, compression, and transmission of information
• Sets, Functions, and Logic (Keith Devlin)
  • sets, logic, number theory, problem-solving
• How to Prove It (Daniel J. Velleman)
  • deeper dive into sets, logic, number theory and problem-solving
• Don't Make Me Think (Steve Krug)
  • a classic on product design and UX