Meet your new two-factor authenticator: your Commodore 64

Taking off with Nix at FlightAware

The evolution of scalable CSS

Issue #291

11/14/2022

{{PreviewText}} 

Hey-yo
Hope you all had a lovely weekend. Nothing eventful happened for me, so not much to say. Oh, thanks to whoever left a comment in the last issue about enjoying the new format with the three bullet points. I appreciate any feedback good or bad. Will I always apply it? Nope, but I'll always listen! One of the biggest joys of making something is sharing it with other people (at least for me), so getting any kind of response back is always heartwarming.
Anyway, here's the issue.

====================================================================

Meet your new two-factor authenticator: your Commodore 64

Published: 12 November 2022
Tags: hardware, low level

Multi-factor authentication is a method of confirming a user's identity by utilizing a combination of two or more independent credentials. In this article, ClassicHasClass generates 2FA keys using a Commodore 64.
Some highlights:

  • A Time-Based One-Time Password Algorithm (TOTP) requires a SHA-1 hasher, an HMAC generator, and UNIX time
  • "When you're writing code for a constrained platform that requires heavyweight computation, what's at least as important as using good algorithms is finding good shortcuts. You simply want to do the minimum amount of work possible."
  • Dealing with time, as always, is a big pain in the ass


====================================================================

Taking off with Nix at FlightAware

Published: 11 November 2022
Tags: nix

Andrew Brooks talks about how the company FlightAware decided to adopt the Nix package manager in order to solve some day-to-day problems they were having.
Some highlights:

  • "Nix is a package manager, a domain-specific language (DSL) used by that package manager, and a command line toolset based around the previous two"
  • Nix isn't very complicated, but is very different from other package managers since it has its own DSL (which is functional in nature)
  • Docs for Nix aren't great


====================================================================

The evolution of scalable CSS

Published: 12 November 2022
Tags: css, history

Over time, the way we write and think about CSS has changed significantly. Remy Sharp outlines the history of CSS, how it has evolved, best practices, and some of the challenges of managing it at scale.
Some highlights:

  • CSS is a tricksy hobbitses to manage
  • Best practices have kind of come full circle, with no external style sheets, then having them introduced, and now inline being preferred again for libraries like Tailwind
  • There is no correct answer to what the best way to manage CSS is (sHocKer)


How did I do?

5 4 3 2 1
Amazing


Bad

Want to help?
Thank you for reading! If you enjoy the newsletter, I would really appreciate you helping me spread the word by forwarding this to your friends and colleagues or sharing it on social media! Get cool stuff for your referrals using your link https://abyteofcoding.com.

Your referrals:


If you want to discuss or comment on this issue, head on over to this page at A Byte of Coding. You can also subscribe there if you're new!

Have comments or feedback? Just reply to this email or hit me up on Twitter @AByteOfCoding.

Email landed in your promotions tab? Please move it over to primary so you don't miss the latest issues in the future.
Thanks for your Support! 
Big thanks to all of the Patreon supports and company sponsors. If you want to support the newsletter you can checkout the Patreon page. It's not necessary, but it lets me know that I'm doing a good job and that you're finding value in the content.


Stats (updated daily)

Sent: 3004

Opens: 1405

Clicks: 225

Link Clicks Clicks % Unique Clicks Unique Clicks %
Meet your new two-factor authenticator: your Commodore 64 58 30.21% 60 29.27
Taking off with Nix at FlightAware 55 28.65% 64 31.22
The evolution of scalable CSS 79 41.15% 81 39.51

Previous

Back to Issues

Next