Writing for engineers
who care about the
inside of the machine.
Long-form essays, postmortems, and field notes on systems, performance, AI, and the discipline of shipping.
Prompt Engineering: Or, The Art of Yelling at a Black Box Until It Behaves
Let's be real about
The Reluctant 'Handbook' to the Managed Configuration Processor (MCP)
After surviving another config cascade, someone asked for an MCP handbook. Fine. Here's a 'guide' to the Managed Configuration Processor: what it pretends to be, how to poke it, and why it'll still eat your weekend.
The Outbox Pattern: When 'Commit and Publish' Just Isn't Cutting It Anymore
We've all been there: a critical business event vanishing between a database commit and a message broker publish. The outbox pattern, born from distributed system pain, ensures your microservices don't lie about their state.
Cache Stampede: The Thundering Herd at 3 AM
Remember that sickening feeling when your database lights up like a Christmas tree, not from new traffic, but from expired cache keys? Yeah, that's the cache stampede. Let's talk about surviving it without losing more sleep.
Saga vs. Two-Phase Commit: Another Spin on Distributed Transaction Hell
Remember that 3 AM call where half your system thought a transaction committed and the other half didn't? Yeah, me too. Let's talk about the two main flavors of distributed transaction pain: Saga and Two-Phase Commit.
That Familiar Ache: Diagnosing the N+1 Query Problem When Your Database Just Can't Anymore
Ever had a simple page grind your database to a halt? The N+1 query problem is often the culprit, a silent killer hiding in plain sight, turning what should be one efficient query into a cascade of costly trips to the database.
Understanding Backpressure in Apache Kafka
Late-night debrief on Kafka backpressure: why your producers block, consumers lag, and how production systems truly buckle under load. It's not in the tutorials, it's what keeps you up at 3 AM.
When The Domain Fights Back: Untangling Production With Bounded Contexts
Ever stared at a stack trace at 3 AM and realized your "customer" means five different things across the codebase? That's the messy reality DDD's core concepts try to tame. This isn't about fancy patterns; it's about not getting punched in the face by your own system.
UML: Because Sometimes You Need a Map When the Ship's on Fire
We've all been there: staring at logs at 3 AM, wondering why
When Your ORM Calls In Sick: Surviving Production With Raw SQL
Remember that 3 AM call? When the ORM folded, and the DBA was unreachable? Yeah. This is about what saves your ass then: raw SQL, from CRUD to the dark magic of indexes and window functions.
When the ORM Gives Up: Navigating PL/SQL for Advanced Application Needs
Sometimes, your application's elegant ORM just can't cut it. We've all been there: staring down a performance bottleneck or a complex business rule that screams for database-level execution. This is where PL/SQL and advanced SQL get real.
Git and GitHub: Surviving the Source Control Gauntlet (and Beyond)
Cut through the noise and the terror of Git. This isn't a 'five easy steps' tutorial. This is about what actually matters when you're waist-deep in a production incident, trying to understand why a 'simple' change blew everything up.