2025-06-02 21:52:08
Hello again, Geeksters!
So if you read my Hello World blog (and didn’t fall asleep halfway), you probably know I’m still figuring out this whole Solidity thing.
But today, I’m back with another beginner-friendly smart contract. This time we’re building a Counter. A simple contract that counts up and down like a digital toddler learning numbers.
But first, what’s a Counter Contract?
A counter smart contract is one of the easiest ways to get your hands dirty with:
It's a tiny contract that holds a number and lets you increase or decrease it. Nothing fancy, but a solid way to practice.
Let’s Start:
Open Remix! Hop onto Remix IDE, that magical place where all smart contracts are born.
Create a new file called Counter.sol. Paste the following code:
// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
pragma solidity ^0.8.0;
contract Counter {
uint public count;
constructor() {
count = 0;
}
function increment() public {
count += 1;
}
function decrement() public {
require(count > 0, "Counter can't go below 0");
count -= 1;
}
}
So… What’s Happening Here?
Let’s break this down line by line because I like knowing why things work — not just copy-pasting and hoping Remix is in a good mood today.
-// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT - It tells people what license your code uses.
-pragma solidity ^0.8.0; - This tells Solidity: “Hey, I want you to compile this with version 0.8.0 or anything newer but not breaking.” We don’t want syntax tantrums later.
-contract Counter { - We’re creating a contract (like a class in Java or Python). Name? Counter. Duh.
-uint public count; - We’re making a public unsigned integer called count. Public means anyone (yes, anyone!) can view it without needing a separate function.
-constructor() { count = 0; } - When this contract is deployed, we set count to zero. Because a counter usually starts… well… at zero. Unless you’re a chaotic dev.
-function increment() public { count += 1; } - A simple function that adds 1 to our count. It’s public, so anyone can call it and bump the number.
-function decrement() public { require(count > 0, "Counter can't go below 0"); count -= 1; } - This one subtracts 1 but only if the count is above zero. We don’t want it to go negative — that’s not how counters work in normal human land.
Time to Deploy!
Final Thoughts
This might seem super basic — and it is — but that’s the point. I’m still at the “clumsy but curious” stage of learning Solidity, and small wins like this really help.
You don’t need to write the next DeFi app right away. You just need to start, mess up a little, and build one block at a time.
If you got your counter working, that’s HUGE. I’m proud of you. Let’s keep learning, one contract at a time!
See you in the next blog — and maybe we’ll build something even cooler.
2025-06-02 21:50:31
Originally published on patangrid.site
I kept seeing mentions of Opera Neon 2025 pop up — waitlists, AI buzz, and people calling it an AI-powered browser.
My first reaction? “Another browser? Why switch from Chrome?”
But once I realized this was an experimental browser from Opera testing out agent-like AI features, I figured it was worth a look.
I found the official info on Opera’s site. If you're trying to download Opera Neon, don’t get too excited — it's invite-only for now.
Opera’s been building browsers since the ’90s, but this might be their most ambitious idea yet.
The previews show a minimalist design and AI baked right in. It looks... different — in a good way.
The Opera Neon UI looks like it was designed to end tab chaos.
You get visual tabs that show a preview of each page, which makes jumping between websites feel more intuitive than just staring at a bunch of favicons.
There’s also a floating sidebar that holds key tools like bookmarks, workspace controls, and the AI assistant — all tucked neatly to the side without taking up valuable screen real estate.
And that’s just scratching the surface.
Want to know how Opera Neon uses AI to organize your tabs, issue distraction warnings, and even make activity-based suggestions?
Read the full deep dive here:
Opera Neon 2025: AI Browser Review
This article was originally published on patangrid.site and is syndicated here for broader reach.
2025-06-02 21:47:46
Crypto Borrow from WhiteBIT is a feature that enables users to borrow digital assets with collateral provided from their balance. This borrowed capital can then be used for trading, transfers, withdrawals, or investment products within the WhiteBIT ecosystem. For developers, especially those working on trading platforms, DeFi tools, or financial simulations, this functionality offers more than just liquidity—it enables realistic product prototyping and infrastructure testing under dynamic market conditions.
The system allows for the borrowing of crypto assets based on the available margin of the user’s account. The Collateral Balance acts as security and is assessed dynamically depending on open positions, unrealized P&L, and selected leverage levels.
For developers building in the blockchain and crypto space, the Crypto Borrow product provides a real-world testbed for financial applications. Whether you're simulating lending protocols, building margin trading tools, or constructing on-chain portfolio managers, this feature enables:
It abstracts away the need for building collateral and borrowing logic from scratch in a test environment—saving time, reducing errors, and increasing realism in prototype scenarios.
WhiteBIT’s Crypto Borrow is more than a user-focused feature—it’s a developer-accessible infrastructure tool for building, simulating, and deploying next-generation crypto products. The combination of flexible borrowing terms, full liquidity access, and programmable leverage makes it a serious asset for anyone working at the intersection of development and finance.
2025-06-02 21:44:40
In this series we build and run multi component backend systems in increasing complexity using RecursionTurtle. Each component is introduced out of real need to solve technical problem. Systems are implementations of real world uses cases — albeit simplified.
For the below system, you can go to: https://recursionturtle.com/collections/fundamentals/1 and press designed system to get the solution — run and test!
We’ll design and implement a simple backend service to manage a gaming leaderboard. The service needs to support:
Submitting Scores:
# Example API call to submit a player's score
requests.post(
"http://localhost:8000/scores",
json={"player_name": "player123", "score": 1500}
)
# Example API call to fetch the leaderboard
response = requests.get(
"http://localhost:8000/leaderboard",
params={"top_n": 3} # Fetch the top 3 players
)
print(response.json())
from fastapi import FastAPI, HTTPException
from pydantic import BaseModel
from typing import List, Optional
import uvicorn
app = FastAPI()
class ScoreSubmission(BaseModel):
player_name: str
score: int
class LeaderboardEntry(BaseModel):
player_name: str
score: int
# In-memory storage for leaderboard data (acting as a database)
leaderboard = []
# The simulator will call this endpoint to start the test, Please don't change this!
@app.get("/health", tags=["healthcheck"], summary="Perform a Health Check")
async def get_health():
return {"status": "OK"}
# Endpoint to submit a player's score
@app.post("/scores", status_code=201, summary="Submit a player's score")
async def submit_score(score_submission: ScoreSubmission):
if not score_submission.player_name or score_submission.score < 0:
raise HTTPException(status_code=400, detail="Invalid player name or score")
# Add or update the player's score in the leaderboard
for entry in leaderboard:
if entry.player_name == score_submission.player_name:
if score_submission.score > entry.score:
entry.score = score_submission.score # Update only if the new score is higher
return {"message": "Score submitted successfully"}
# If player not found, add a new entry
leaderboard.append(LeaderboardEntry(player_name=score_submission.player_name, score=score_submission.score))
return {"message": "Score submitted successfully"}
# Endpoint to retrieve the leaderboard
@app.get("/leaderboard", response_model=List[LeaderboardEntry], summary="Retrieve the top players")
async def get_leaderboard(top_n: Optional[int] = 10):
if top_n <= 0:
raise HTTPException(status_code=400, detail="top_n must be a positive integer")
# Sort leaderboard by score in descending order and return the top N players
sorted_leaderboard = sorted(leaderboard, key=lambda x: x.score, reverse=True)
return sorted_leaderboard[:top_n]
if __name__ == "__main__":
uvicorn.run(app, host='0.0.0.0', port=80)
2025-06-02 21:42:13
**
**
Artificial Intelligence is rapidly reshaping the global job market. While AI promises innovation and efficiency, it also presents significant challenges that require urgent attention.
Up to 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs risk displacement due to automation, with unemployment potentially rising to 20%, a rate not seen since the Great Depression (Anthropic CEO Dario Amod).
Currently, 14% of the global workforce—approximately 375 million workers—have been affected by AI through job losses or career changes, with around 5 million jobs lost worldwide.
The most impacted sectors include customer service (1.2 million jobs lost), IT services (850,000), warehousing and logistics (1.1 million), administrative and clerical roles (750,000), banking (400,000), and retail (300,000).
Women’s jobs are disproportionately vulnerable, with 41% of female roles at risk compared to 28% for men, reflecting the higher concentration of women in automatable sectors.
Attempts by companies like Clara and IBM to fully replace human roles with AI have demonstrated the limitations of automation, highlighting the continued importance of human skills.
Looking ahead, by 2026, AI is projected to displace 75 million jobs globally but create 133 million new jobs, emphasizing a shift toward roles requiring new and different skills.
This transition risks exacerbating inequality, favoring those with greater education and resources, and posing a challenge for inclusive economic growth.
The path forward requires coordinated action:
Accelerated workforce retraining and upskilling programs
Thoughtful regulation of AI adoption
Strategic planning to ensure equitable opportunities in the evolving job market
As AI continues to evolve, organizations and governments must collaborate to create a future of work that balances innovation with inclusivity and social responsibility.
How is your organization preparing for the impact of AI on jobs?
2025-06-02 21:40:32
As there's no single right way to implement GitOps, it can be tricky to work out which tools will deliver the best results for your team. In this article, we'll look at seven options that should be on your radar in 2025.
GitOps is a methodology for software development and infrastructure management that positions Git repositories as your workflow's single source of truth. Instead of manually running commands to apply changes, GitOps revolves around declarative config files that are versioned in your repositories. CI/CD-driven tooling then consumes the files to automatically create and update your resources.
Here's the GitOps workflow in a nutshell:
GitOps increases development velocity while guarding against the mistakes that can occur when DevOps teams directly interact with infrastructure. These compelling characteristics have led to rapid adoption across the industry, with 91% of respondents to a 2023 CNCF survey saying they're already using GitOps and a further 67% reporting they plan to start within the next year.
A GitOps tool provides a framework for automating software delivery using declarative configuration, IaC, and CI/CD, following GitOps principles. Although the exact features included vary significantly between choices, the overarching aim is to standardize how code moves from source repositories to live environments.
Many GitOps tools support an agent-driven pull-based architecture that makes it possible to fully automate deployments after new code changes are committed. The agent runs in your production environment; it periodically checks your repositories for new changes, then automatically applies them. This model requires less configuration and is more secure than classical CI/CD pipelines that connect to your infrastructure to "push" new changes.
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Now we've covered what a GitOps tool does and how to choose, let's examine seven leading options that are ready to use today.
Spacelift is an IaC management platform that uses GitOps to automate CI/CD for your infrastructure components. It supports OpenTofu, Terraform, Terragrunt, CloudFormation, Pulumi, Kubernetes, and Ansible.
The power of Spacelift lies in its fully automated hands-on approach. Once you've created a Spacelift stack for your project, changes to the IaC files in your repository will automatically be applied to your infrastructure.
Spacelift's pull request integrations keep everyone informed of what will change by displaying which resources are going to be affected by new merges. Spacelift also allows you to enforce policies and automated compliance checks that prevent dangerous oversights from occurring.
Spacelift includes drift detection capabilities that periodically check your infrastructure for discrepancies compared to your repository's state. It can then launch reconciliation jobs to restore the correct state, ensuring your infrastructure operates predictably and reliably.
Check out how to get started with Spacelift.
Pricing: Free tier for individual and small teams. Starter, Business, and Enterprise tiers starting at $399 per month.
Website: https://spacelift.io/
Use case example: How Spacelift Can Improve Your Infrastructure Orchestration
Argo CD is a GitOps-powered continuous delivery solution for Kubernetes. It synchronizes the Kubernetes manifests, Kustomize templates, and Helm charts in your Git repositories to your cluster, then ensures your deployed resources don't drift away from the defined state.
Once installed in your Kubernetes cluster, you can use Argo's powerful CLI and robust web interface to set up repository connections, manage projects, and check their sync statuses. Argo CI/CD can also be combined with the separate Argo Rollouts solution to achieve canary and blue-green releases that give you more deployment flexibility.
License: Open source (Apache 2.0)
Website: https://argoproj.github.io/cd/
Use case example: Getting Started With Argo CD
Flux CD is an alternative to Argo CD that has a narrower scope but more customization opportunities. It's a CNCF-supported toolkit designed to enable continuous progressive delivery to your Kubernetes clusters, with strong integrations with cloud providers and other services.
Flux takes a fully declarative approach to configuration. Its state is stored in a Git repository, allowing you to deploy equivalent installations in different environments. It's also auditable, compatible with multi-tenant workflows, and capable of deploying apps from a variety of sources including Git providers, S3-compatible object storage, and OCI container registries.
License: Open source (Apache 2.0)
Website: https://fluxcd.io
Use case example: FluxCD Tutorial With Examples
Codefresh is positioned as an enterprise-scale SaaS GitOps solution. It's free for teams with up to five developers.
Codefresh is designed to make GitOps workflows easier to manage by ensuring long-term scalability, security, and support. It's powered by Argo CD but provides additional management layers that ease the adoption of GitOps inside larger organizations with many projects.
Key capabilities include built-in monitoring dashboards, reusable configuration templates, and live debugging with breakpoint support.
Pricing: Free plan for up to 5 developers; Pro and Enterprise plans for bigger teams
Website: https://codefresh.io/
GitLab is one of the leading Git hosting solutions and CI/CD platforms, but it's also making inroads in the GitOps space through a native integration with Flux CD.
Installing a GitLab-provided agent component in your Kubernetes cluster allows you to automate the progressive delivery of your GitLab projects while reducing access management and configuration overheads.
Utilizing GitLab for GitOps lets you orient your entire development stack around a single platform, with all operations managed through GitLab. However, the functionality is still relatively young and has been changing significantly between GitLab releases. As the effort is mainly oriented around more closely combining Flux and GitLab, you'll still need to learn Flux in order to benefit.
Pricing: Free tier for personal projects; Premium and Ultimate tiers starting at $29 per user per month
Website: https://about.gitlab.com
Use case example: How to Implement GitLab CI/CD Pipeline with Terraform
Terraform is known as one of the leading IaC solutions, but its use often coincides with that of GitOps.
Terraform allows you to define your infrastructure's state in code. Changes to live resources are achieved by committing new files to your repository and then using the Terraform CLI to apply them to your environments. Common use cases include provisioning cloud compute nodes, network components, and Kubernetes clusters.
Although GitOps is often discussed in the context of app deployments, Terraform extends the methodology to encompass your infrastructure too. This enables the most powerful form of GitOps, where your entire stack is based on versioned states defined in code.
License: BSL
Website: https://www.terraform.io
Use case examples: How to Use Terraform with GitOps and adding GitOps support using Spacelift
OpenTofu is an open-source alternative to Terraform that focuses on community-driven development and maintaining an open-source identity. It was created as a response to HashiCorp's change to BSL and is developed under the Linux Foundation's umbrella. This involvement with the Linux Foundation demonstrates credibility and fosters a collaborative environment for continuous innovation and improvement in the field of IaC.
You can use solutions such as Flux's Tofu Controller to automatically sync your infrastructure's state to your repository's content, eliminating the need to run Terraform commands on-demand.
Same features as Terraform, plus:
License: MPL2.0 (open source)
Website: https://opentofu.org
Use case example: OpenTofu Getting Started, How to Install & Examples
Werf is an open-source CI/CD system that automates application delivery to Kubernetes clusters, enabling GitOps-driven deployment of the Dockerfiles and Helm charts that exist in your repositories. Werf automatically builds your images, pushes them to registries, and then launches a deployment in your Kubernetes cluster.
Werf is intended to be a simple solution that builds upon these familiar components, making them easier to use in practice without having to repeatedly run Docker or Helm commands. It integrates with your existing CI system, instead of providing its own pipeline mechanism. As there's no agent to install and maintain, Werf is an attractive candidate for existing projects that currently utilize a push-based deployment model.
License: Open source (Apache 2.0)
Website: https://werf.io
GitOps is simplifying how software is built and deployed for developers, operators, and platform teams. Using Git repositories as the source of truth for all your projects - from apps to cloud infrastructure configuration - enables more convenient automated workflows that are scalable, repeatable, and reliable. However, successful adoption depends on your team having access to the right tools.
We've explored eight great GitOps tools to try in 2025, but remember there are plenty more options available in the ecosystem. GitOps is still a relatively young field that's attracting significant innovation as more participants get involved.
Ready to begin your GitOps journey? Start for free with Spacelift or book a demo with one of our engineers to unify your IaC services and cloud providers with one sophisticated CI/CD platform.
Written by James Walker