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New Jan 3, 2025
The score takes care of itself
Less talking more...
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New Dec 30, 2024
Looking for beta readers
Wanna read my hardest engineering lessons learned? You're in...
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New Dec 24, 2024
Your next mountain, pt2
3+1 quick book recommendations to help you think about next...
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New Dec 21, 2024
What's your next mountain?
Life is a hill-climbing...
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New Dec 18, 2024
Why system design is my favorite interview
Without reading their resume, you'll see if a candidate is fresh or has been doing this a while. And you'll know their blind spots and their...
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New Dec 13, 2024
Atoms, molecules, organisms
Here it is: 20+ years of programming experience distilled into 378 words. From the book I'm...
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New Dec 10, 2024
Smart core, thin interfaces
Here's an approach to writing code that I've been using for years and couldn't quite put into words until now. One of those _"This feels wrong but I can't explain why"_. Now I...
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New Dec 6, 2024
Why learning and teaching the good stuff is hard
You can't learn to ride a bike from reading a...
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New Dec 3, 2024
Empirical evidence for code modularity
Few of your engineering decisions matter long-term. Software is soft. You can change your mind. But how you structure your components is here to...
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New Nov 27, 2024
Why even care about code structure
As long as it works,...
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New Nov 23, 2024
The anatomy of a React Island
A coworker asked how React Islands work and I realized it's a technique I've been using to modernize monolithic web codebases for years, but never wrote down how it...
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New Nov 21, 2024
Finding modules in a big ball of mud
Pulling modules out of a big ball of mud is like grabbing a slice of cheesy pizza. It's kinda separate but also not...
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New Nov 16, 2024
Why you need observability more than tests
Here's a short and sweet story about a Friday deploy. I love Friday...
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New Nov 11, 2024
The swarm doc
Here's a doc I like to use to structure the pre-work design chat that makes later code review a...
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New Nov 6, 2024
Big Ball of Mud – the world's most popular software architecture
Forget Gang of Four, here are the 7 architectural patterns real programmers...
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New Nov 1, 2024
Why software only moves forward
At scale there are no rollbacks and no cut-overs. Your software only moves...
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New Oct 29, 2024
Don't judge tech just because you're old
Your favorite way of doing things may just be an expression of tech limitations at the...
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New Oct 22, 2024
"Yes caviar is great, here's a ham sandwich"
Why do some projects ship and others seem to drag on forever? You need 3 people to get this...
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New Oct 17, 2024
Yes, AI will "take" your job. No, you won't mind
Is the job to get things done or to memorize trivia and solve cute coding...
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New Oct 12, 2024
It made me $500k but I think content is a bad business
Why I didn't become a full-time...
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New Oct 8, 2024
Make mistakes easy to fix
You can't prevent bugs. You'll burn out. Instead focus on making them quick to...
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New Sep 30, 2024
The Laws of Software Evolution
Manny Lehman was one of the first to notice that software is never done. It just continues to evolve...
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New Sep 25, 2024
The Series A inflection point
The Series A inflection point is the most fun time in a startup, if you ask me. Here's what it looks...
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New Sep 18, 2024
You can side-step a yak, they don't all need to be shaved
When yaks aren't procrastination, they might be tunnel vision. You're so focused on the right solution, you miss the good enough...
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New Sep 14, 2024
Better is good
A small improvement that lands is better than a large improvement stuck in...
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New Sep 10, 2024
How big up-front design fails
A long design phase without shipping kills many software projects. Here's a story from production I haven't shared...