Coding Blocks

We couldn’t decide if we wanted to gather around the water cooler or talk about some cool APIs, so we opted to do both, while Joe promises there’s a W in his name, Allen doesn’t want to say graph, and Michael isn’t calling out applets.

For all our listeners that read this via their podcast player, this episode’s show notes can be found at https://www.codingblocks.net/episode159, where you can join the conversation.

Sponsors

  • Datadog –  Sign up today for a free 14 day trial and get a free Datadog t-shirt after creating your first dashboard.
  • Linode – Sign up for $100 in free credit and simplify your infrastructure with Linode’s Linux virtual machines.
  • ConfigCat – The feature flag and config management service that lets you turn features ON after deployment or target specific groups of users with different features.

Survey Says

How often do you leetcode?

Take the survey at: https://www.codingblocks.net/episode159.

News

  • Thank you all for the latest reviews:
    • iTunes: Lp1876
    • Audible: Jon, Lee

Overheard around the Water Cooler

  • Where do you draw the line before you use a hammer to solve every problem?
  • When is it worth bringing in another technology?
  • Can you have too many tools?

APIs of Interest

Joe’s Picks

  • Video game related APIs
    • RAWG – The Biggest Video Game Database on RAWG – Video Game Discovery Service (rawg.io)
    • PS: Your favorite video games might have an API:
  • Satellite imagery related APIs
  • Get into the affiliate game

Allen’s Picks

Michael’s Picks

  • Alpha Vantage – Free Stock APIs (alphavantage.co)
  • Why so serious?
    • icanhazdadjoke – The largest selection of dad jokes on the Internet (icanhazdadjoke.com)
    • Channel your inner Stuart Smalley with affirmations. (affirmations.dev)
    • HTTP Cats – The ultimate source for HTTP status code images. (http.cat)
  • Relevant call backs from episode 127:
    • Random User Generator – A free, open-source API for generating random user data. (randomuser.me)
    • Remember the API – Programmer gifts and merchandise (remembertheapi.com)

Resources We Like

  • ReDoc – OpenAPI/Swagger-generated API Reference Documentation (GitHub)
  • Google Earth – The world’s most detailed globe. (google.com/earth)
  • Google Sky – Traveling to the stars has never been easier. (google.com/sky)
  • apitracker.io – Discover the best APIs and SaaS products to integrate with. (apitracker.io)
  • ProgrammableWeb – The leading source of news and information about Internet-based APIs.(ProgrammableWeb.com)
  • NASA APIs – NASA data, including imagery, accessible to developers. (api.nasa.gov)
  • RapidAPI – The Next-Generation API Platform (rapidapi.com)
  • Stuart Smalley (Wikipedia)
  • Al Franken (Wikipedia)
  • Muzzle – A simple Mac app to silence embarrassing notifications while screensharing. (MuzzleApp.com)

Tip of the Week

  • Not sure what project to do? Google for an API or check out RapidAPI for a consistent way to farm ideas:
    • RAWG Video Games Database API Documentation (rapidapi.com)
  • Press F12 in Firefox, Chrome, or Edge, then go to the Elements tab (or Inspector in Firefox) to start hacking away at the DOM for immediate prototyping.
  • All things K9s
    • Getting Started with K9s – A Love Letter to K9s
    • Use K9s to easily monitor your Kubernetes cluster
    • Not only does K9s support skins and themes, but supports *cluster specific* skins (k9scli.io)
  • If you like xkcd, Monkey User is for you!
    • xkcd – A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language. (xkcd.com)
    • Monkey User – Created out of a desire to bring joy to people working in IT. (MonkeyUser.com)
  • Remap Windows Terminal to use CTRL+D, another keyboard customizations. (docs.microsoft.com)
  • PostgreSQL and Foreign Data (postgresql.org)
    • A listing of available foreign data wrappers for PostgreSQL on the wiki. (wiki.postgresql.org)
  • Cheerio – Fast, flexible & lean implementation of core jQuery designed specifically for the server. (npmjs.com)
  • JetBrains MPS (Meta Programming System) – Create your own domain-specific language (JetBrains)
    • Case study – Domain-specific languages to implement Dutch tax legislation and process changes of that legislation. (JetBrains)
Direct download: coding-blocks-episode-159.mp3
Category:Software Development -- posted at: 10:14pm EDT

We talk about the various ways we can get paid with code while Michael failed the Costco test, Allen doesn’t understand multiple choice questions, and Joe has a familiar pen name.

This episode’s show notes can be found at https://www.codingblocks.net/episode158, where you can join the conversation, for those reading this via their podcast player.

Sponsors

  • Datadog –  Sign up today for a free 14 day trial and get a free Datadog t-shirt after creating your first dashboard.
  • Linode – Sign up for $100 in free credit and simplify your infrastructure with Linode’s Linux virtual machines.

Survey Says

Do you want to run your own business?

Take the survey at: https://www.codingblocks.net/episode158.

News

  • Thank you all for the latest reviews:
    • iTunes: PriestRabbitWalkIntoBloodBank, Sock-puppet Sophist sez, Rogspug, DhokeDev, Dan110024
    • Audible: Aiden

Show Me the Money

Active Income

  • Active income is income earned by exchanging time for money. This typically includes salary and hourly employment, as well as contracting.
  • Some types of active income blur the lines.
  • Way to find active income can include job sites like Stack Overflow JobsIndeedUpwork, etc.
    • Government grants and jobs are out there as well.
  • Active income is typically has some ceiling, such as your time.

Passive Income

  • Passive income is income earned on an investment, any kind of investment, such as stock markets, affiliate networks, content sales for things like books, music, courses, etc.
  • The work you do for the passive income can blur lines, especially when that work is promotion.
  • Passive income is generally not tied to your time.

Passive Income Options

  • Create a SaaS platform to keep people coming back. Don’t let the term SaaS scare you off. This can be something smaller like a regex validator.
  • Affiliate links are a great example of passive income because you need to invest the time once to create the link.
  • Ads and sponsors: typically, the more targeted the audience is for the ad, the more the ad is worth.
  • Donations via services like Ko-fi, Patreon, and PayPal.
  • Apps, plugins, website templates/themes
  • Create content, such as books, courses, videos, etc. Self-publishing can have a bigger reward and offer more freedom, but doesn’t come with the built-in audience and marketing team that a publisher can offer.
  • Arbitrage between markets.
  • Grow an audience, be it on YouTube, Twitch, podcasting, blogging, etc.

Things to Consider

  • What’s the up-front effort and/or investment?
  • How much maintenance can you afford?
  • How much will it cost you?
  • Who gets hurt if you choose to quit?
  • What can you realistically keep up with?
  • What are the legal and tax liabilities?

Resources We Like

Tip of the Week

  • Google developer documentation style guide: Word list (developers.google.com)
  • In Windows Terminal, use CTRL+SHIFT+W to close a tab or the window.
  • The GitHub CLI manual (cli.github.com)
    • Use gh pr create --fill to create a pull request using your last commit message as the title and body of the PR.
    • We’ve discussed the GitHub CLI in episode 142 and episode 155.
  • How to get a dependency tree for an artifact? (Stack Overflow)
  • xltrail – Version control for Excel workbooks (xltrail.com)
  • Spring Initializr (start.spring.io)
    • You can leverage the same thing in IntelliJ with Spring.
Direct download: coding-blocks-episode-158.mp3
Category:Software Development -- posted at: 11:16pm EDT

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