Codesolvent Blog

*** This post is basically a pitch I send to folks whom I think will be interested in a modern approach to configuration management. I am posting it here so I can refer people to it without sending them a long email. *** One of the features of the Solvent (formerly HiveMind) platform is a smart object technology that solves the problem of dealing with hierarchical configuration information often represented in formats Like YAML,JSON, Java Properties,XML...etc The smart object technology allows developers/users to directly construct object graphs of any complexity. Once you have the actual object graph you can reverse the process back to representation in any one of the formats mentioned above.   I have setup a demo instance for trying it out @ http://demo.crudzilla.com:7000 Login with login info I sent you. Be nice, you have full system access :) To see an example representing the AWS IP list ( https://ip-ranges.amazonaws.c om/ip-ranges.json ): Navigate to: /c...

One of the consequences of refusing to drink the in vogue kool-aid is that you remain sober and take in the full brunt of the silliness going on around you. The technology industry overflows with such silliness, like any credible geek I spend too much time reading HackerNews even when I don't want to. One odd phenomenon I have observed over the past few years is the fact that there is a rather peculiar writing style in Silicon Valley, seemingly meant to make writing more efficient in conveying hype. Specifically, the desire to create emphasis when otherwise the point being made is prosaic has lead people in Silicon Valley to come up with this odd writing style where adverbs are deployed in ways that no decent writer would. Let's just say a good chunk of "influencers" in SV suffer from Hype-Nitis . I have gleefully collected a small sample of these gems on HackerNews over the past couple of years: atrociously bad crucially important astonishingly successful...

Language matters, just as saying the wrong word to the wrong person can leave you with one less front tooth, so too can the incorrect use of language in general create a cascade of confusion that pervades an entire industry. One of my pet peeves about the use of language in the software arena is the use of the word "Project". This usage as far as I know goes back to IDEs grouping software artifacts as projects. The notion of a project as the top level organizing construct for software projects (see what I did there?) is now a de facto standard. One problem with this is that it is a complete misuse of the notion of a project. A project is not a thing, it is a process! A project has (or at least should have) a well defined start and end. As a process, by its very nature, its essence is vague. So when something whose essence is precise (software) is called a project it leaves the reader wondering exactly what is being described. Whenever I come across a documentation describ...

Little boxes on the Laptop, Little boxes made of Javascript stacks, Little boxes on the Laptop, Little boxes all the same. There's a green one and a pink one And a blue one and a yellow one, And they're all made out of Javascript stacks And they all look just the same. And the developers in the industry All went to the IDEs, Where they were put in boxes And they came out all the same, And there's devOps and Rubyers, And micro services, And they're all made out of Javascript stacks And they all look just the same. And they all play on the GitHub And drink their Kool-aids dry, And they all have pretty syntax And the syntax go to HackNews, And the syntax get approval stamp And then to the IDEs, Where they are put in boxes And they come out all the same. And the bros go into business And marry and raise a VC round In boxes made of Javascript stacks And they all look just the same. There's a green one and a pink one And a blue one and a yellow one, And they're al...

Like it or not JSON is the data format of the web at the moment. It has found uses in application configuration, taxonomy management and pretty much any domain that used to be handled by XML is now increasingly being taken over by JSON. While our Hivemind product is first and foremost a web application delivery platform, it doubles as a full-blown Structured Information Manager and Publisher for JSON information. Both technical and non-technical users can use it to create and publish complex structured information without writing code. Hivemind has a sophisticated Smart Object technology that can be used to create complex objects that are then serialized as JSON. About Smart Objects Smart Objects are an executable construct on the Hivemind platform, in executable form the file format is itself JSON. You can see an example of a Smart Object executable here: http://crudzilla.s3.amazonaws.com/ip-range.json Smart Objects can invoke other Smart Objects in the way that any exec...

We're happy to announce the release of Hivemind 2.0. This release is a major UI upgrade with a design that conveys the modern approach to web application development that Hivemind is built for. As always your feedback is appreciated.

It's been two years since there's been a significant development of Hivemind, that is coming to an end. We are going to ratchet up development of the platform and ramp up business activity to get customer acquisition in high gear. To that end we are working on a major UI overhaul of the Hivemind platform. Hivemind is a very modern platform, the current UI is a bit dated. We are feverishly working on a modern UI upgrade to match the innovation of the platform. Below is a sneak preview of the new slick UI!: