All Things Open, a expertise convention held in October yearly, is all the time a beautiful studying expertise. For 2020, the convention shifted to an internet format, which had its ups and downs. The probability encounters with acquaintances within the hallways and having lunch with mates have been noticeably absent, however the studying expertise was nearly as good as all the time. Honestly, in some methods, it was higher as a result of everybody obtained a front-row seat, and there have been no standing-room-only talks.
One main benefit of the web format was that all the talks have been recorded, so individuals who missed the convention can watch the tons of of talks accessible in an All Things Open 2020 playlist on YouTube.
Hundreds of talks is loads, so to supply some options of the place to begin, I am going to briefly cowl seven of the talks I attended. I additionally attended a wonderful discuss by Opensource.com’s Jen Wike Huger about the best way to write an article, however I’ll let her clarify her discuss in her own words.
The talks I attended made for an informative and jam-packed two-day convention expertise however are solely a tiny fraction of what All Things Open 2020 supplied. I hope you’ll take the chance to look at among the talks under and discover the convention’s choices for different talks that curiosity you.
If you watched one other discuss that actually you, please share it in a remark in order that others can profit out of your suggestion.
This prolonged, 90-minute discuss by Dave Stokes explores the “very dry” (his phrases) components of working with MySQL databases. Everyone notices when the database runs too sluggish, however no one complains when the database is just too quick. Stokes explains the best way to use indexes, histograms, locking choices, and different strategies to enhance the efficiency of queries in a MySQL database.
As Stokes notes in his introduction, this discuss covers plenty of info, so with the ability to pause, rewind, and rewatch may be very useful. However, it’s also price noting that Stokes assumes that the individual watching the discuss has stage of expertise with MySQL and databases basically. As such, he didn’t cowl primary optimizations like normalizing information nor lower-level system-configuration optimizations on the working system stage. Intentional limits apart, this discuss remains to be very, very deep. If you have an interest in database optimization, you’ll most likely wish to watch this discuss a number of occasions.
If you’re employed with Linux containers and know your manner round Docker and related instruments however don’t but have a deep understanding of what’s going on beneath the floor, Brent Laster’s in-depth speak about how containers work is the discuss for you. It covers what containers are and their advantages; how containers are constructed; the variations between layers, photographs, and containers; what immutability actually means; the core Linux functionalities that containers are based mostly on; and extra. This discuss covers loads in solely 43 minutes however supplies an in depth, technical overview of every matter.
Separately, Laster introduced a for much longer, extra detailed speak about containers that stretches over 4 classes. This three-and-half hour prolonged session, All things containers—Docker, Kubernetes, Helm, Istio, GitOps, and more, is price watching if you wish to discover containers by following a hands-on tutorial.
How does PostgreSQL, a database undertaking with a historical past courting to 1989, stack as much as newer opponents? Craig Kerstiens supplies a solution to that query in his discuss protecting the historical past and present options of PostgreSQL.
Kerstiens covers datatypes, indexing, extensions, international information wrappers, and extra in his succinct but thorough overview of what PostgresSQL has to supply. He explains how PostgreSQL added assist for JSON and discusses a number of different supported datatypes, together with “money,” which dates again to when the “world was flat.” It is fascinating and refreshing to see newer options described alongside sincere critiques of legacy options. He additionally explains full-text search assist, the PostGIS extension for offering geospatial database assist, and different fascinating superior options.
I’ve used PostgreSQL loads over time, however I nonetheless realized many new issues by watching this discuss. Most of my database work with PostgreSQL has been very conservative, pretty primary SQL database sorts of issues, so I actually look ahead to making an attempt out among the issues I realized about on this discuss.
Using one area of interest factor to clarify one other area of interest factor can both go horribly improper or be completely sensible. If you’ve even a passing familiarity with Dungeons & Dragons and wish to study graph databases, particularly RedisGraph, Guy Royse’s discuss is within the sensible class. Royse’s methodology of utilizing a dungeon crawl to relay the benefits of a graph database is an effective way to explain the important thing ideas.
Royse begins by explaining what a graph is on this context through the use of a 20-sided die for example; a graph is manufactured from vertices and edges, with the vertices being the factors the place the edges of the die meet and the sides being the strains connecting the factors. The discuss then makes use of the ideas of discovering all of the loot and slaying all of the monsters in a dungeon as examples to clarify a wide range of options. To additional clarify the benefits of utilizing graph databases, Royse supplies examples of how a standard SQL database may construction the identical queries.
Although this discuss is super-niche, it was extraordinarily enjoyable. It is not going to be for everybody, but it surely makes studying about graph databases simple if you’re accustomed to the subject material used within the examples. Even if you’re not into Dungeons & Dragons (or related role-playing video games), the examples are clear sufficient however may not resonate with you as a lot as different examples may.
This discuss by Matthias Crauwels covers the options of MySQL 8.0, Community Server Edition and among the variations between MySQL, MariaDB, and the Percona Distribution for MySQL. Unfortunately, within the video, the 45-minute session is lowered to a 25-minute video and skips from Crauwels saying hi there all the way in which to slip 21. The parts of the discuss within the video cowl MyISAM vs. InnoDB storage engines, different storage engines, replication, binary logs, and world transaction IDs.
Some of the variations between MySQL and MariaDB which might be mentioned are how MySQL doesn’t assist PL/SQL whereas MariaDB understands a subset of PL/SQL and the way MySQL and MariaDB have totally different implementations for world transaction IDs.
The New York Times has an archive of images that covers 125 years. To say its archival assortment is large can be an understatement. In this discuss, Suman Roy and William P. Davis focus on the work concerned in digitizing that assortment to make it extra accessible.
The bodily picture archives at The New York Times are organized utilizing conventional archival organizational strategies, that are just like, however not precisely like, the cardboard catalogs that was present in libraries. This makes discovering issues within the archives a time-consuming expertise. By shifting the gathering into the digital realm, the gathering turns into simpler and faster to make use of.
Roy and Davis cowl most of the technical points concerned within the digitization course of. Most notably, they describe varied scanning and optical character recognition (OCR) points. While most individuals won’t ever have to digitize a set anyplace close to the dimensions of The New York Times’ archive, the insights the audio system share apply to digitization initiatives of any dimension.
Ricardo Ferreira brings some much-needed interactivity to this yr’s on-line All Things Open along with his demonstration of ksqlDB, a streaming database for Apache Kafka, utilizing an internet Pac-Man recreation. During the discuss, he had the viewers play Pac-Man, confirmed how the data from our video games was being tracked, and used that information to assemble an internet leaderboard for the sport whereas we watched. Sadly, watching the video is not going to have the identical impact, and the Pac-Man recreation linked within the discuss is now not on-line, however this discuss remains to be a really fascinating and informative approach to clarify streaming databases.
All Things Open’s subsequent scheduled occasion is Open Source 101, March 20, 2021, in Austin, Texas. Click the hyperlink to be taught extra about this one-day instructional convention protecting the processes and instruments foundational to open supply, open tech, and the open net.