Title: Issue #87: Welcome to Re:Invent!
Publication: Ready, Set, Cloud!
Series: Ready, Set, Cloud Picks of the Week
Author: Allen Helton
Published: November 27, 2023
URL: https://www.readysetcloud.io/newsletter/87/

It's a big week! The calm before the storm wrapped up last week as we get ready for the biggest tech conference of the year.


### Serverless Superhero

Our serverless superhero this week is [Dax Raad](https://twitter.com/thdxr), a man who likely needs no introduction in the serverless community. Dax is one of the builders of [SST](https://twitter.com/SST_dev) and co-host of [How About Tomorrow](https://tomorrow.fm). Dax is well-known for his slightly shocking, highly-intellectual tweets. He's fun to watch because of his bold statements that end up being right 99% of the time. Thank you Dax, for keeping it fresh and for the genuine contributions you're making to the tech community!

### Tutorials

[Jimmy](https://www.linkedin.com/in/gymie/) has been doing great work in the serverless/GenAI space lately. Last week he published an article on how to [stream an Amazon Bedrock response with Lambda](https://dev.to/aws-builders/stream-amazon-bedrock-response-with-aws-lambda-response-streaming-59en). It's surprisingly simple and the first time I read through the article I missed it entirely. Jimmy even shows you how to connect the stream in a browser for that true ChatGPT experience. It's great to see how easy this is, thanks Jimmy!

### Interesting Reads

I'm usually skeptical of services that claim to do things in "a new and better way" than we've done them before, but [Manoj Fernando](https://twitter.com/mjmrz) did an excellent job in his article last week convincing me otherwise. He wrote about [how to effectively share code between Lambda functions](https://blog.bitsrc.io/sharing-code-in-aws-lambda-functions-cb932b9b782e) using the service [Bit.dev](https://bit.dev/). It's a remote, decentralized code module hosting service that lets you run, update, and test reusable code from anywhere. I might give this one a shot, I'm intrigued.



I read a strongly opinionated piece by Phạm Văn Trung last week urging readers to [stop using API Gateway and use function urls instead](https://medium.com/@trungpv1601/stop-paying-3-5-million-requests-for-aws-api-gateway-v1-or-v2-use-lambda-function-url-instead-2fde014dc608). He makes a case for his claim and offers a matrix of feature comparisons between API Gateway and function urls. It's a detailed article but in my opinion, the price tag on API Gateway is well worth the functionality compared to all the workarounds with function urls.

[Yan Cui](https://twitter.com/theburningmonk) published a video about [caching in serverless applications](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jMPh5ukJbE). He talks about the different kinds of caching and where in your stack they live. Caching always sounds like a good idea, but it can be difficult to implement in practice if you don't know what you're doing. I like how Yan explains the differences and what your options are. Great video.

### Spotlight

If you're attending re:Invent, I have a surprise for you. We all know how people go crazy over swag - it's a huge part of what makes the conference so great. So I built a website that allows you to find and share the swag you find at the conference with everyone. Take a look at [SwagHunt](https://swaghunt.io), a fully serverless, AI-powered app that (hopefully) we'll see everyone using this week.

All you need to do is take a picture of the swag you found, type in who gave it to you and where you found it and hit submit! From there the back-end service will analyze your image, determine what kind of swag it is, and store it in the serverless [Momento vector index](https://www.gomomento.com/services/vector-index) for searching. I'll be talking about this app on various live streams this week but I'm happy to discuss it in person if you're interested!

### Tip of the Week

The last article I'll share is from one of my favorite people in serverless - [Sheen Brisals](https://twitter.com/sheenbrisals). He posed the question "is serverless hard to adopt" and answers it in a thought-provoking way. I love the way Sheen writes and the way he makes you think about things a little bit differently.



### New Releases

A new testing utility called the [AWS Integrated Application Test Kit](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2023/11/aws-integrated-application-test-kit-preview/) was released last week. This is an open-source tool that helps you write tests to validate EDA. Great to see AWS focusing on this area!

[Amazon CodeWhisperer made it to the command line](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2023/11/amazon-codewhisperer-command-line-preview/). You can get CLI completions with typeahead for your favorite CLIs but get this - you have access to a natural language-to-bash translation!

AWS Amplify hosting now allows developers to [build plugins for server-side rendering applications](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2023/11/aws-amplify-hosting-ssr-additional-frameworks/). We were previously limited to only Next.js, but now have support for any framework built on Nitro.js.

Amplify also released [Gen2 - its code-first developer experience](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2023/11/aws-amplify-next-generation-backend-capabilities/). This beta launch has so many features I can't list them all here. It's a genuine productivity boost for any developer looking for rapid app development.

Amazon released [CloudFront KeyValueStore - a global, low-latency, key-value data store](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2023/11/amazon-cloudfront-keyvaluestore-globally-managed-key-value-datastore/). You can use this in your CF functions as long as you build them in the new CloudFront runtime `cloudfront-js-2.0`.

### Last Words

This is going to be a busy week! If you're not attending the conference, hang in there! If you are attending the conference, brace yourself!

If you'd like to make a recommendation for the serverless superhero or for an article you found especially useful, send me a message on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/allenheltondev), [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/allenheltondev/), or [email](mailto:allenheltondev@gmail.com).

Happy Coding!

Allen