Inflight Magazine no. 7

The 7th issue of the Wing Inflight Magazine.

Hey folks!

We are back with another issue of the Wing Inflight Magazine and excited to share some updates about the Winglang project.

An open source programming language for the ☁️

Winglang combines infrastructure and runtime into a single programming model, making it easy for any developer to build serverless applications without having to become a DevOps expert.

Winglang compiles to Terraform + JavaScript and can be deployed on AWS, GCP and Azure (see support matrix).

Winglang is designed to be a familiar and friendly language to learn for developers who come from modern object-oriented background, so it will take you 5 minutes to learn.

Check out our getting started tutorial or hit the Wing Playground for an online experience.

In today's issue

• 🚀 New: Built-in support for .env files
• 🚀 New: GCP support in wing test
• 🔥 UX improvements to Wing Console
• 🔥 bring websockets
• 🎥 The Wingly Update
• 🎤 The Wingly Workshops
• 🎭 Winglang Community

Built-in support for .env files

.env files are now automatically loaded across all CLI workflows (run, test, compile).

Environment variables can be consumed only during preflight via util.env("VAR"), or tryEnv() for the risk-averse of us.

We also support interpolation:

BASE_URL=https://www.winglang.io
API_BASE_URL=${BASE_URL}/api

You can also override environment variables based on the the CLI subcommand:

• .env - Always loaded
• .env.[mode] - Only loaded in the specified mode (eg. run, compile, test, etc.)

❤️ Gary Sassano

GCP support in wing test

The Wing Test Framework is one of the coolest things about Wing. It allows developers to write tests that cover both infrastructure and runtime code and can run across multiple cloud platforms.

Now that Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is supported, wing test supports all built-in Terraform platforms (AWS, Azure and GCP).

For example, the following Wing program includes a test for the store() function:

bring cloud;
bring util;
bring expect;

let bucket = new cloud.Bucket();

let store = inflight (data: str) => {
  bucket.put("data.txt", data);
};

test "store puts data into the bucket" {
  let data = "my data " + util.uuidv4();
  store(data);

  expect.equal(bucket.get("data.txt"), data);
}

Now, we can run this test within the Wing Simulator (the sim target):

$ wing test main.w
pass ─ main.wsim » root/env0/test:store puts data into the bucket


Tests 1 passed (1)
Test Files 1 passed (1)
Duration 0m1.23s

The -t flag can be used to compile and deploy this test to the target platform:

$ wing test -t tf-gcp main.w
✔ Compiling main.w to tf-gcp...
⠋ terraform init
...

❤️ Tsuf Cohen

UX improvements to Wing Console

We've made some improvements to how Wing Console visualizes connections between nodes.

Before:

After:

❤️ Cristian Pallarés

bring websockets

A very cool winglib was born and already making the rounds on the internets.

You can now use the websockets library to deploy a WebSocket server. This works in the Wing Simulator and supported on the AWS platforms (tf-aws and awscdk) backed by API Gateway V2.

Check out the library's README for more details and examples.

npm i @winglibs/websockets

Here's a stupid little example:

bring websockets as ws;

let server = new ws.WebSocket(name: "my-server");

server.onConnect(inflight (id) => {
  log("client {id} connected");
});

server.onDisconnect(inflight (id) => {
  log("client {id} disconnected");
});

server.onMessage(inflight (id, message) => {
  log("client {id} sent {message}");
});

Common use case is tracking and maintaining connection pool.

bring ex;

let conections = new ex.DynamodbTable(
  name: "Connections",
  hashkey: "id",
  attributeDefinitions: {
    "id": "S",
  },
};

And here are few usages:

ws.onConnect(inflight(id) => {
  connections.putItem({
    item: {"id": id }
  });
});

ws.onDisconnect(inflight(id) => {
  connections.deleteItem({
    key: {"id": id }
  });
});

ws.onMessage(inflight(id, body) => {
  for conn in tb.scan().Items {
    ws.sendMessage(str.fromJson(conn.get("id")), body);
  }
});

❤️ Marcio Cruz

The Wingly Update

The Wingly Update is our weird biweekly stream where we share the latest developments of the project, chat with folks from the cloud industry, geek out and celebrate the beauty of the cloud.

If you haven't been able to catch our show, you can find the complete stack of all our episodes here.

Here are a few segments from the previous shows we thought might be interesting to check out:

• Containers are finally taking flight: In this video from our Wingly Update, Elad and Eyal are playing around with containers in Wing. They show how local simulation works with Docker and how apps can be seamlessly deployed to Kubernetes through Helm. Exciting times!
• Creating a FIFO Queue: Eyal and Elad are walking us through on how to create a FIfo Queue!
• Winglang - How to Build Resources: In this clip from The Wingly Update #21, Elad walks us through building resources in Winglang. Listen in to get some details on more advanced topics such as sim.State and tokens.

Winglang Workshops

• Deploy React + Winglang to the Cloud Workshop: In this workshop, Eyal constructs a full-fledged React.js application supported by Winglang, early from developing and bundling a React website up to deploying the site on Amazon S3 with AWS’s Content Delivery Network.

• Amazon Bedrock + Winglang Workshop: In the workshop, Eyal shows how to implement a GitHub bot from zero to hero using Amazon Bedrock & Winglang. In only 90 minutes, you can build an application that allows you to load any PDF file and ask questions about it using one of Amazon Bedrock's generative AI models.

If you are looking to interact more directly with the Wing team, we are hosting a bunch of recurring meetings. Feel free to pop in any time and hang out with us:

Winglang Community

Winglang Community Meeting is our bi-weekly gathering where members of our community showcase cool apps, demos, and other projects! The upcoming session is scheduled for Tuesday, December 19th, at 2:30 PM UTC. We look forward to seeing you there!

Monday Office Hours is our bi-weekly opportunity for you to share your feedback, thoughts, concerns, or simply drop by to say hi.

You can find details for all our events in the Wingnuts calendar! We'd love to see you at one or all of them :)

Summary

That's it for this edition!

If you're not already, stay updated on the latest changes in our repo.

You'll find us regularly on Discord, so feel free to say hello! Give winglang.io a visit and take Wing out for a spin.

Catch you in the next update!