OUTAGE... and the world of software engineering

The main John Meaney website is out of commission, but all is well in my world otherwise. Hope you're doing OK too, everyone. 

Since I live in the software engineering world when I'm not writing books, I find the CrowdStrike incident... interesting. These days, you expect testing to be automated (i.e. programs are used to test programs) in well established ways.

Those ways involve testing frameworks, such as JUnit or Cucumber for Java (there are others), or mocha or chai for JavaScript, depending on which level of testing you're aiming at.

Beyond that, running the tests can be embedded in the larger process of deploying to a live environment (production).

And that's for anything, even if it's a relatively small number of users. When your software is destined to be deployed on millions of devices, there are ways of mitigating against problems that escaped your test programs also, before the whole world gets your update.

(Before setting this post live, I used a preview feature to check it. And that's for a little old post with minimal consequences if there's an error.)

Software engineer David Farley asks the relevant questions here, if you're interested: https://youtu.be/MwjQVAwIATE?si=6_XMQSKzBMbNgX-N

And retired Microsoft software engineer Dave Plummer gives a really detailed analysis here: https://youtu.be/wAzEJxOo1ts?si=F2zGY3NIrwwJDPK7

By the way, all of the titles in my Case & Kat series, including the shorter pieces, are terms lifted directly from the world of software engineering:

 Destructor Function - how you get rid of an object you don't need anymore, if you're coding in C++.

 

Strategy Pattern - one of the original so-called Gang of Four design patterns: how to switch behaviour in an object dynamically, at runtime.

 

Concurrent Execution - executing code in parallel: one of the trickiest things to get right in software design and implementation.

 

Breakpoint Insertion - something you do in an IDE (code editor) before or while running code in debug mode, so it will stop at a breakpoint and you can see what the variable values are at this point.

Runtime Exception - error occurring only when you run the code: the compiler couldn't identify it beforehand.

And I haven't run out of jargon to use for new titles, either...

There will be more from the world of Case & Kat.

NEW NOVEL: TRISTOPOLIS CHASM

 From award-winning author John Meaney comes a thrilling tale of Tristopolis, a Gotham-like city beneath perpetually dark skies, where the bones of the dead fuel the reactor piles, indentured wraiths power the elevators, and daylight never shines.

A missing-person case has Donal Riordan searching for a crime lord while wraiths try to stop him, but every clue brings him closer to a different kind of danger aimed right at the heart of Tristopolis. The city must be protected – but what will be the cost?

I really, really loved writing this one! Hope it works for you...

NEW PILOTS STORY

Something of a YA story, in fact.

Jonquil is a fourteen year old with a secret, living in the city of New Vane that floats in the orange skies of planet Molsin. What should have been an ordinary school trip to the zoo becomes something far more deadly, with many lives at risk.
 

Can the daughter of undercover Pilots keep her secret? Or will she fail to survive the day?

An exciting hard-SF story, set in the Pilots universe, from award-winning author John Meaney.

Available on Amazon now.

NEW CASE STORY

 It's a prequel, technically a novelette, set in Oxford before Case joined IACS.

When a fellow postgrad student points the finger at a possible Chinese spy in Oxford, Case feels compelled to investigate... but can he trust his instincts when the affair turns deadly serious?

A novelette featuring Case in his Oxford days, after leaving 18 (UKSF) Signals Regiment, the cyber-savvy arm of UK Special Forces, and before he became an operative of IACS.

Another cyber thriller from award-winning author John Meaney, drawing on Meaney’s own experience of hardcore martial arts and leading-edge computing, and shadowy hints from the real-world special forces working the interzone between cyber and kinetic warfare.

Available on Amazon now.

HOLIDAY BARGAIN!

Based in North America or the UK and haven't read the Tristopolis Continuation books? Tristopolis Requiem will be available for 99c on amazon.com and 99p on amazon.co.uk (the Kindle edition) for a limited period.

Offer starts on Thursday 23rd November 2023 (from 08:00 PST on amazon.com, 08:00 GMT on amazon.co.uk), and ends at 08:00 on 30th November 2023. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!

The cop: Donal Riordan, undead, imprisoned in a coffin below ground. The city: Tristopolis, gothamesque and baroque, its unchanging sky deep purple, its elevators propelled by indentured wraiths, and its power produced by necroflux reactors, fuelled by the bones of the dead.

When powerful conspiracies threaten Tristopolis from the far side of the world, can a freed Donal find a way to stop them, and in the process find a reason to carry on existing?

 

I did in fact get back to the US earlier this year, in May. First flight anywhere for several years. Normally when travelling my workout area is just my hotel room (or the great outdoors), and when I'm at home I train in my study/office (where I have a kettlebell and resistance bands), on a recumbent bike in another room, or actually where I should train, which is my dojo in the garden, or in the garden itself.

Working out in a hotel gym in Arizona was therefore my first time lifting weights in a public gym for absolutely ages... I'm not really much for the whole selfie thing, but there ya go.

Not a sightseeing trip, but here are hot-air balloons rising over the desert in the morning...

I spent the actual summer months (here in the UK) teaching software engineering to some wonderfully energetic, bright people, which was my absolute privilege and honour. Good luck to everyone!

In this country, every day is Bloomin' Ungrateful Day... but if you're US-based, then Happy Thanksgiving for Thursday! Take care, all.