Writing a new UDF

So, now that we've gotten a bit of an idea of what UDFs are and when we might want to use them, let's go ahead and create one.

Setting up your development environment

To write a new UDF or modify an existing UDF, we'll need the ability to build, test, and package the code. So, our first task is to ensure we have a development environment with the appropriate builder tools. These tools will include Apache Maven, the AWS CLI, and the AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM) build tool. The Apache Foundation describes Maven as a "software project management and comprehension tool." That's a fancy way of saying Maven helps automate dependency management, build orchestration, and a host of related activities that can be added or augmented via plugins. The AWS SAM build tool is one option for packaging and deploying our UDF for use with Lambda and Serverless Application Repository. And, of course, the AWS CLI will be there for when we...