Today’s post is a little bit different to usual. I want to address a discrepancy between how aficionados talk about serverless and how it’s covered in written material. In this post, I shall unashamedly extoll the subjective (perhaps even emotional) virtues of serverless software development. I shall draw on some quotes from members of the serverless community and discuss what it is about serverless that makes it so joyful.
Continue readingGoodbye GoDaddy! Hello SiteGround!
I’ve recently ditched GoDaddy for my personal hosting needs, moving my stuff (including this blog) to SiteGround. In this post, I talk about why I moved and the rewards for doing so. Also, I’ll share my initial experiences of using Let’s Encrypt and Cloudflare, which SiteGround has enabled.
Continue reading9 things Westworld can teach us about software engineering
Watching Westworld recently, I couldn’t stop seeing parallels with software engineering. In particular, the series is rife with cautionary tales about how not to do software development. In this article, I’ll share 9 lessons we can take from the show to improve the effectiveness of software engineering teams – and hopefully prevent them from going “full Westworld”…
Continue readingTools of the trade – COVID-19 edition
Back in 2017, I wrote about the tools I use at work and why good tools are important. I wrote about three bits of kit that back then and I still use two of them. In this post, I’ll introduce three new tools: noise-cancelling headphones, a USB-C monitor, and a standing desk.
Continue readingAggressively tuning Cosmos DB (the long way round)
How many ways are there to tune Cosmos DB? In our (eventually pretty desperate) attempts to coax it into scaling nicely, we tried 9 approaches. As they became more arcane, we saw diminishing returns. Some were flat-out counter-productive! The eventual solution in our case was a single-line fix (how embarrassing!), but the journey was really interesting. It’s this journey that I want to share today.
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