So this is… what I do for work, just now in my leisure time?

There’s a learning curve, but if you’re familiar with WAF’s it’s not hard.

If you want to DIY something, I have a bash script that builds OpenResty with NAXSI from source. Most of the web apps I write anymore are actually in Lua, for OpenResty, maybe with an API written in something else. But I also help other members of my team deploy their Node and Python apps and stuff, and I always just park those behind OpenResty with NAXSI, just doing a standard nginx reverse proxy.

Every computer I own is an autobot. My primary machine is always Optimus Prime, has been since 2008. Other machines get other names generally slightly inspired by their role / nature. Bumblebee and CliffJumper are miniPCs of various persuasions, Preceptor is my “mess around with AI” box, my big server that handles most of my data and network services is Wheeljack, my Macbook is Mirage, my backup server is Powerglide, my TV (which is an old Dell all in One running Linux Mint) is UltraMagnus.

try { useToiletPaper(); }catch(Exception $e){ cussWords($e); rinseHands(); dryHands(); useToiletPaper(); }

Although,

$Shower = new $Shower(); $Shower->washAnus();

may be an acceptable alternative under some circumstances.

does this issue not apply to other programming languages? dependency hell exists outside of python too yk…

This is like I have a swimming pool and a snapping turtle from the local estuary sometimes ends up camped out in it. But YOU have a swimming pool and it’s full of alligators. When I complain that I don’t wanna go in your swimming pool, you’re like “Doesn’t yours ALSO sometimes have dangerous reptiles?” And I’m like…dude…

I’m been a developer for a long time. I know what a normal amount of pain is. This stack causes an ABNORMAL amount of pain, like badly designed exercise equipment a bunch of sycophantic fitness bros keep pumping on social media, even though it regularly causes back injuries.

I think Python devs only think it’s normal because you’re used to it or something.

allso, I’m not using too many modules

Great, but you picked a stack in the middle of a toxic garbage dump. Maybe it’s the clean part of the garbage dump. IDK. I just wish people would stop, because there are so many awesome stacks out there, so I don’t have MORE reasons to have to wade back in here.

And THAT is the origin of the Facebook analogy (the only reason I have to keep using this is because EVERYBODY ELSE IS).

I’m LITERALLY going through Python dependency hell again right this very second, trying to deploy some shit we need for next week and I’m just like I swear to god, this motherfucking broken ass ecosystem

🚀💥

As long as I continue to sometimes waste hours of my life on irresolvable dependency hell, after exactly following the “deploy my project” instructions, trying with multiple environment managers (venv, conda, poetry), watching my system environment somehow get broken even though I’m using some kind of virtual environment (happened to me just last week), I will continue to AGGRESSIVELY have the opinion that

• The only reason we’re all still here is everybody else is.
• The only reason someone would actually voluntarily CHOOSE this tech stack, in 2025, is for comfort zone reasons, they don’t know any better reasons, their boss told them to reasons, or the libraries they need are ONLY here reasons.

Thus the Facebook of programming languages.

And oh yeah, “so use docker.” Dude, if your ecosystem only works reliably in carefully controlled containers, in 2025, the problem is your shitty shitty, stupid, chronically broken ecosystem, not me for being frustrated with it.

This problem IS AND HAS BEEN so bad that every few years someone does a WHOLE NOTHER BIG PROJECT to try to solve it, so now we have multiple buggy ass environment resolvers, non of which work well enough to be considered anything other than an embarrassment to the community, when compared with say the modern Lua or Rust ecosystems.

Like this stack ALL YOU WANT, I not only don’t get it, I’m (I believe justifiably) grumpy and frustrated because when I want to use your shit, now I have to use this crummy stack. Thanks for that Python advocates. I’m so grateful to you for that. Thanks so very very much.

THUS the Facebook of programming languages. Facebook is “fun” and “easy to get started with” too. Lua is JUST AS EASY to get started with, but its’ ecosystem doesn’t do this to me. Explain that, if you can.

I know you’re human beings like me and you deserve compassion, but damn it, I have wasted SO MUCH TIME trying to get your broken, buggy ass shit to work, and I’m VERY frustrated about it. You’re not gonna talk me down.

I don’t care about how easy or fun the syntax is. The syntax is irrelevant to me. I care about how borked up and bloated the ecosystem is, and how so many “here’s how you deploy my project” instructions fail horribly to work due to unexplainable dependency conflicts, and how fragile and unstable and specific and unforgiving the complex web of virtual environments (and their multiple different managers) are just to run some 5,000 line script someone wrote that requires shittylib 2.1.3 and pieceofgarbagemodule 0.5.1, but shittylib 2.1.3 requires abandonedproject 4.1.1 and pieceofgarbagemodule 0.5.1 requires abandonedproject 3.0.99 and “pip failed to resolve dependencies after 15 minutes of installing shit because we didn’t write it to do that, fuck you, hahaha, modify your requirements.txt to use a different version of abandonedproject lol!” That shit is unacceptable in the modern world, given the alternatives available.

I will die on this hill, regardless of hate and downvotes.

Neither did he last administration and neither will the next.

That’s like saying that neither tepid bath water nor boiling tea water are “cold.”

Ah Python, the Facebook of programming languages.

Saying it again here: The only infrastructure we can trust is our own.

Even if there are still a number of services that are strongly above average trustworthy, they are ALL under attack in multiple “free” countries.

It’s Trump-proofish

• I approve of Matrix and Nextcloud.
• Proton unfortunately is probably the easiest option for now. We need better self hosted / anonymous email servers, but spammers and scammers have probably ruined that for everybody forever and fuck them all to hell for that. Best option is to just abandon email for anything sensitive.
• All the alternative social media is better, but they can still absolutely feed the lot of it into an LLM and then ask the LLM to print out a list of “likely dissidents.” I would be shocked if this isn’t coming soon to a United States near you - then again, I’m one to talk posting this on Lemmy, using a username I’ve used for close to two decades, from an instance that runs on a server I rent from a corporate cloud host.
• OS should be Whonix, Tails or Qubes.
• Browser should be Tor Browser (or at least get a mention). PRACTICALLY, for most people, I would recommend Brave over LibreWolf (for reasons of stability, compatibility, more frequent security patches and the fact that the Mozilla project has been unfortunately going to shit lately). Yes the company sucks, but the browser consistently scores top marks on real world privacy and security tests.
• No mention of FDE or post quantum crypto. Quantum chips are coming effing fast, if they’re not already here. I have reason to believe both the US and China can currently make practical use of Shor’s algorithm, although only in a targeted and VERY expensive way… but Moore’s Law man, plus I can’t prove it and I can’t say more. Post quantum doesn’t seem to be on most people’s radar (most troublingly, the Tor project).
• Anything to do with phones is literally fucked, like “This is fine” dog level fucked. If you MUST be mobile (like basically everybody trying to do basically anything), you must accept you’re probably NOT really fascist proof, unless you go to some pretty extreme lengths and REALLY know what you’re doing.

As far as your average normie (or even above average competence tech saavy user) goes, this is close to as Trump proof as you’re likely to get right now without help and support. So great, but it has holes in it a fascist regime could drive a brigade of tanks through, and unless you EITHER have that help and support OR really know what you’re doing, you should be thinking about that REALLY hard, every day.

We collectively decided decades ago that centralized services are more convenient and better able to connect us to the people and content we want to be connected to (although we were very deliberately herded in that direction by oligarchs). Now we will pay the price.

tl:dr; The only infrastructure we can trust is our own. Not liking that, and not having the skills or resources to do anything practical about it (tragically, terrifyingly) doesn’t make it not true. Plus needing to stay connected to the people and resources we can ONLY access through third party services and infrastructure, continues to make us reliant on those services and infrastructure, unto our own ruin.

deleted by creator

I know a guy who worked on Unix in the '80s and he is very clear that Linux / MacOS are just Unix.

I host servers both out of my home, out my wife’s office and I also have some cloud servers at Digital Ocean.

If you’re worried about data loss (and you should be) you need offsite backups. I have actually lost data to a fire (in 2009) and to a hard disk crash when I didn’t learn my lesson the first time (in 2014). Never again.

I have backup servers at both my house and my wife’s office. If you don’t have a wife with a convenient office for this purpose, you could probably find a self host buddy to host your backup server (and maybe you could host your buddy’s back up server, a friend and I used to do this years ago). You could also encrypt everything and then back the encrypted files up to the cloud, secure that the fascists almost certainly can’t decrypt them, even if they get their hands on the raw data.

You can automate this. There are tools that can help. I’m kind of a power user and I just use rsync, scp, minio and database replication to automate my various backups, so I’m a bad person to ask about the easier to use tools that can do this. However, either of those communities I posted are full of people with better answers and I know that less DIY back up tools exist.

Whilst I’ll agree with your statement some people prefer a service to use rather than self hosted.

Great! They can prefer that. Lots of people (most people probably) even need services, because they lack the skills and / or equipment.

That doesn’t change the simple truth of “the only infrastructure we can trust is our own.” My goal with that statement is to educate people as much as possible NOT to trust the third party services they’re using, even if those services supposedly care about privacy and security.

I’ve also seen a huge outpouring in recent weeks of people who are suddenly very eager to learn about and use self hosted infrastructure (or get access to someone else’s self hosted infrastructure). For some reason, I wonder what that could be. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. I for one intend to encourage the shit out of it.

The barrier to entry to get Self Hosted Matrix working is unfortunately pretty high. Matrix is a great tool, but getting it working requires advanced skills and (in my limited experience) hours of troubleshooting.

That being said, I’m associated with an organization that wants to help activist groups self host matrix. If you know a group with need, check out https://rmfuni.org/.

Given everything going on in the world, I can’t say this often enough:

The only infrastructure we can trust is our own.

https://lemmy.ml/c/[email protected]

https://lemmy.world/c/[email protected]

Who says they aren’t? Elon has zero problems with double standards.

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I’m actually doing two classes on alternating weeks, but they’re both

“Here’s basic opsec principles and now we’ll talk about a bunch of tools that are useful specifically for activism in (against) the current political climate.”

I’m doing a basic class where we’ll just try to help people organize in safer ways (Telegram is like the number one organizational platform right now). One of our goals there is to try to set specific projects / organizations up with dedicated Matrix servers and help them get non-technical people to use them.

We’re also doing a more advanced class where we want to help people set up their own hardened laptops and (for those able to secure the hardware) GrapheneOS phones. That will probably be like Unit 2 of that class. We want to start with threat modeling and help people figure out the tools they specifically need to do their work.