Software Engineering Radio - the podcast for professional software developers

Steve Summers speaks with SE Radio host Sam Taggart [https://se-radio.net/team/sam-taggart/] about securing test and measurement equipment. They start by differentiating between IT and OT (Operational Technology) and then discuss the threat model and how security has evolved in the OT space, including a look some of the key drivers. They then examine security challenges associated with a specific device called a CompactRIO, which combines a Linux real-time CPU with a field programmable gate array (FPGA) and some analog hardware for capturing signals and interacting with real-world devices. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society [https://www.computer.org/] and IEEE Software magazine [https://www.computer.org/software].

Ashley Peacock, the author of Serverless Apps on Cloudflare, speaks with host Jeremy Jung about content delivery networks (CDNs). Along the way, they examine dependency injection with bindings, local development, serverless, cold starts, the V8 runtime, AWS Lambda vs Cloudflare workers, WebAssembly limitations, and core services such as R2, D1, KV, and Pages. Ashley suggests why most users use an external database and discusses eventually consistent data stores, S3-to-R2 migration strategies, queues and workflows, inter-service communication, durable objects, and describes some example projects. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society [https://www.computer.org/] and IEEE Software magazine [https://www.computer.org/software].

Eran Yahav, Professor of Computer Science at Technion, Israel, and CTO of Tabnine, speaks with host Gregory M. Kapfhammer [https://se-radio.net/team/gregory-kapfhammer/] about the Tabnine AI coding assistant. They discuss how the design and implementation allows software engineers to use code completion and perform tasks such as automated code review while still maintaining developer privacy. Eran and Gregory also explore how research in the field of natural language processing (NLP) and large language models (LLMs) has informed the features in Tabnine. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society [https://www.computer.org/] and IEEE Software magazine [https://www.computer.org/software].

Malcolm Matalka, founder of Terrateam, joins host Giovanni Asproni [https://se-radio.net/team/giovanni-asproni/] to talk about the reasoning behind choosing a not-so-widespread language (OCaml) and (almost) totally avoiding frameworks for the development of Terrateam. While discussing the reasons for choosing this specific programming language and the advantages and disadvantages of using external frameworks, they also consider a range of related topics, including static vs. dynamic typing, the use of monorepos, and the advantages of choosing a single language that can be used both for web front ends and server back ends. The episode ends with lessons learned that can be applied to other contexts and projects. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society [https://www.computer.org/] and IEEE Software magazine [https://www.computer.org/software].

Emre Baran, CEO and co-founder of Cerbos, and Alex Olivier, CPO and co-founder, join SE Radio host Priyanka Raghavan [https://se-radio.net/team/priyanka-raghavan/] to explore “stateless decoupled authorization frameworks. The discussion begins with an introduction to key terms, including authorization, authorization models, and decoupled frameworks. They dive into the challenges of building decoupled authorization, as well as the benefits of this approach and the operational hurdles. The conversation shifts to Cerbos, an open-source policy-based access control framework, comparing it with OPA (Open Policy Agent). They also delve into Cerbos’s technical workings, including specification definitions, GitOps integration, examples of usage, and deployment strategies. The episode concludes with insights into potential trends in the authorization space. This episode is sponsored by Penn Carey L [https://law.upenn.edu?utm=seradio]aw school [https://law.upepenn.edu?utm=seradio]