Alvin Alexander

Alaska was an amazing place to work, because during the summer you’re awake 20 hours a day, and during the winter it’s dark all the time, so you’re like, “I guess I’ll just stay in, make some coffee and fresh-baked cookies, and write a book.” :)

“It’s 420 miles south to Fairbanks, on a dirt road, I got a full tank of gas, it’s 4am, and I’m wearing sunglasses.” :)

I accidentally ran through a red light in Virginia Beach, and since I’m leaving soon, I thought it was best to just get it over with. So I called the police to turn myself in, but they wouldn't take me; I was not on their camera.

Okay, never mind. *These are not the droids you're looking for.* 😉

I don’t watch many movies, but my nieces made me watch Bridesmaids, and that eventually led to seeing this favorite quote about finding meaning in work.

YouTube video by Func Prog Sweden An Algebra of Thoughts: When Kyo effects meet LLMs by Flavio Brasil

If you haven’t seen Kyo yet, the first ~20 minutes of this video is a nice introduction. 👍👍

For instance, you’ll learn what this syntax means:

val s: String < IO =
IO(readFile(filename))

There’s also a nice map/flatMap surprise in there as well! 👏

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIjt...

#scala

My free Scala and Functional Programming video courses are now complete. We have 8 courses, totaling 266 videos, and since August, 2024, we have over 1,450 course registrations. 🥳

👉 www.learnscala.dev

#scala #functionalprogramming

One night in June or July — back when I lived in Palmer, Alaska — I went to Anchorage. This photo is from the drive back to Palmer ... at 3am.

You don’t really need your headlights on to see at this time, but you can put your lights on to help other drivers see you a little better.

#alaska

Warning: There will be no more warnings.

Life in #Alaska. :)

Woo-hoo, my final FREE video training course is now available:

“An Introduction to ZIO Kafka.” 🚀

This course features 14 short videos to help you get up and running with the ZIO Kafka library.

👉 www.learnscala.dev

#scala #functionalprogramming

I wrote a 1,400-word blog post titled “What The Heck Does flatMap Mean?”, but then I remembered that I don’t write anymore. :)

So instead of posting that, the extension method in this image might tell you what I had in mind, and it’s a lot shorter.

#scala #functionalprogramming

Could not agree more!

“I’m tired, boss ... Mostly I’m tired of people being ugly to each other. I’m tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world every day. There’s too much of it. It’s like pieces of glass in my head all the time. Can you understand?”

#Colorado sunsets are as pretty as you think they are. No filters required.

I slightly modified an example from the ZIO Streams website for my ZIO Streams course, and it ended up being one of the most fun and interesting examples I’ve ever worked with. Playing with the delay times and buffer sizes was a 😱🤯🤩 experience.

www.learnscala.dev

#scala

My “ZIO Streams” course is now up to 11 videos, including error handling, pipelines, and buffering! 🚀 And as always, it’s FREE:

👉 www.learnscala.dev

#scala #functionalprogramming

On this day in Colorado four years ago, we enjoyed 18” of snow.

If someone who was an enemy of the United States got in political power in the U.S., such as in the Manchurian Candidate, what types of things do you think they would do?

An A.I. answer:

I just added two more free ZIO Streams video lessons, and I’ll be adding more this weekend:

www.learnscala.dev

#scala #functionalprogramming

The next free video course is on ZIO Streams, and the first two videos are now available:

www.learnscala.dev

#scala #functionalprogramming

What? Another free video course? Coming soon? 🍿🥤

#scala

Over 200 FREE videos — no paywalls, no commercials — in six free Scala, Functional Programming, and ZIO training courses. And more coming soon ...

www.learnscala.dev

#scala #functionalprogramming

Yesterday I added a small-but-complete “ZIO HTTP, Database-Driven REST API Example” to my free videos.

I broke it into separate packages for configuration, model, repository/database, service, and API code so you can easily grow the example.

👉 www.learnscala.dev

#scala #functionalprogramming

Looking for a minimal yet fully functional ZIO HTTP + MySQL REST API example? This might be the smallest one in the known universe. 🚀

Includes ZIO HTTP, MySQL, a REST API handler, packaging to separate the concerns, logging, services, and ZLayers. All in just 16 minutes.

www.learnscala.dev

#scala

I’ve never written or created videos about Kyo because I didn’t really grok how to use it, so this video is a helpful step in that direction! 👍 #scala

Every February I think, “I’m glad I’m not in Alaska right now,” and then every March I’m ready to move back. :)

Part 2 of the “Introduction to Caliban” is now live. 🚀 In it I cover Caliban’s “Core Programming Concepts” — the steps you’ll follow in writing most Caliban applications.

After this, in the next video we’ll write our first Caliban application.

www.learnscala.dev

A terrific advantage of GraphQL — and therefore Caliban — is the ability to make precise queries that let you get the exact information you want in just ONE query (image).

If you’re used to making REST queries, you know what a huge difference this is.

www.learnscala.dev

#scala

Caliban, anyone? My first Caliban video is now up.

If you haven’t heard of it before, Caliban is a very cool GraphQL server that’s built on top of ZIO and ZIO HTTP.

👉 www.learnscala.dev

#scala #functionalprogramming

If you’re interested, here’s a list of all the books and video courses I have that are currently free:

alvinalexander.com/photos/alvin...

#scala

Next up in my free “ZIO HTTP” video series, we look at a Middleware solution to handling authentication.

As always, these videos are completely free thanks to Ziverge, who is kindly sponsoring them! 🙏

#scala #functionalprogramming