Principles From Twenty Years of Software Engineering
A Senior Staff Engineer's work principles from twenty years as a software engineer.
Read article →Writing on software and motorcycling.
My thoughts on software, AI, security, and leadership. Oh, and motorcycling.
Reading List
Some of my favorite articles along with their ChatGPT-produced summaries.
Read article →Thinking in Systems Summary
Ideas are easy. Execution is everything. Objectives and Key Results (OKR), popularized by Intel, Google, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Slack, Spotify, and...
Read article →Measure What Matters Summary
Ideas are easy. Execution is everything. Objectives and Key Results (OKR), popularized by Intel, Google, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Slack, Spotify, and...
Read article →When in Doubt, Iterate Faster
Iteration speed is crucial to startup success. Companies tend to add processes and get slower as they grow. You must actively combat this tendency...
Read article →How High is Your Technical Debt's Interest?
Moving fast is a crucial competitive advantage. However, this speed is sometimes translated to "ship as fast as possible and only fix the mess you create...
Read article →SQS Best Practices
Best practices for working with AWS's simple queue service (SQS).
Read article →PrivacyProtect: Securely Share Passwords and Store Sensitive Files in Convenient Locations
Securely share secret passwords over text messages, send end-to-end encrypted emails, or store password-protected files on USB and cloud drives.
Read article →Getting MMS Working on GrapheneOS With Google Fi
Solve "MMS delivery failure; please contact Google Fi Support", "Account access only" and "Your SIM card couldn't be read" errors on GrapheneOS with Google Fi.
Read article →Connecting to Private RDS Databases From Your Local Machine
Connect to Relational Database Service (RDS) database instances in private Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) subnets from a local machine using EC2 bastion hosts (jump boxes).
Read article →Why I Quit Drinking
On my son's first birthday, I stopped drinking with the goal of reassessing after four months. I get asked why a lot. Here's the answer.
Read article →A (Relatively Easy To Understand) Primer on Multi-Party Computation
A primer on digital signatures and multi-party computation, a threshold signature scheme used to, among other things, securely sign blockchain transactions.
Read article →The Importance of Cultivating a Deep Work Culture
Implementing a deep work culture and fostering it as companies grow gives startups strong competitive advantages over larger companies.
Read article →Death to (Synchronous) Standups
It's up to each team to decide if an async standup is right for them. Make sure the benefits of synchronous standups outweigh these costs.
Read article →OpenAPI Spec-First API Development
Recent APIs I've built follow both the OpenAPI (formerly known as Swagger) and JSON:API specs. The former allows us to generate server-side data models and A...
Read article →Rust: First Impressions
Scala is great for recent microservices I've written, enabling incredible velocity. However, certain scenarios benefit from lower-level languages. I have fi...
Read article →Running Linux GUI Apps in Docker on Mac
Run Linux apps in Docker on Mac using an X Window system to avoid cross compiling dependencies or to sandbox an app.
Read article →Start Local Services Fast in Zero Lines of Code with Docker Compose
...unless YAML counts as code. Many companies have home-grown scripts and tools to start services locally. In my experience, the scripts start as well-inten...
Read article →Git Fundamentals
Git can seem overwhelming, but while performing typical day-to-day tasks, you'll use only about ten commands. Here they are.
Read article →Full-Text Search Battle: PostgreSQL vs Elasticsearch
A comparison of PostgreSQL and Elasticsearch full-text search over 1.5 million key-value pairs containing strings, numbers, and dates.
Read article →Scala Best Practices
Rather than using random examples from Scala projects in the wild, these are meant as my evolving "best" way of doing things.
Read article →Scala Learning Resources
Like any new technology, Scala and its ecosystem take a while to master and can be frustrating at times. Don't get discouraged! Here are some resources to he...
Read article →Kotlin: First Impressions
I played around with Kotlin recently and was pretty impressed. It seems like they took the best parts of C#, Scala, and Go. Here's a quick rundown of some fe...
Read article →Scala: The Good Parts
Scala allows you to accomplish tasks in different ways. I recently gave a talk explaining some of the more readable, maintainable approaches while attempting...
Read article →When IntelliJ Loses Its Mind, Run This
Occasionally, IntelliJ goes haywire and won't run your project or tests. Next time this happens, close IntelliJ, run the script below in your project directo...
Read article →Use a Script to Call It a Day
One of the cons of working from home is deciding when enough is enough. It's all too easy to get sucked into a problem, lose track of time, and let hours sli...
Read article →Serverless Webhooks Talk
In March, Dwolla updated its webhooks to a serverless architecture, improving their timeliness, configurability, cost and reliability. Watch the talk I gave ...
Read article →Lessons Learned From Sending Millions of Serverless Webhooks
In March, Dwolla's engineering team launched an updated webhook notifications architecture, cutting delivery times during peak load from minutes to seconds...
Read article →Hashing vs Encryption
Encryption is a two-way function. You can encrypt data, like a file, and then later decrypt it provided you have the proper encryption key. This is useful wh...
Read article →Go Learning Resources
I've only dabbled with Go in my spare time, but compiled this list of resources I found helpful. Getting Started Take A Tour of Go brew update && brew inst...
Read article →Kingman to Los Angeles via Joshua Tree National Park
After my rest day, I'm anxious to get moving. I have two more days of riding planned. I'll head to Joshua Tree National Park today, camp overnight, and then ...
Read article →Flagstaff to Kingman via the Grand Canyon and Route 66
It's been over five months since this trip and I haven't finished the blog. But I'm not a quitter. I wake up in Flagstaff, quickly pack my things, and, be...
Read article →Show Low to Flagstaff, I Dropped the Bike
The long way through Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest looks like a good one as I'll be riding Pine tree-lined highway all day. I'm meeting two friends, the ...
Read article →Santa Fe to Show Low in the Snow and Rain
It's in the low 30s and snowing when I wake up in Santa Fe. I put on my warmest clothes including a scarf I bought 14 years ago at a ski resort in New Zealan...
Read article →Roswell to Santa Fe to Solve the Meow Wolf Mystery
I wake up in Roswell and attempt to put my shirt on. It's stiff from 12 days of absorbed sweat. It's finally time to retire it to my dirty clothes garbage ba...
Read article →Marfa to Roswell to Uncover the Truth About Aliens
When I spent time in El Cosmico's office yesterday, there was a steady stream of people coming in to check out. The office doesn't open for an hour, though, ...
Read article →Big Bend to Marfa Where I Struggle to Live Like a Hippie
In the middle of the night in the Terlingua, I wake up in complete darkness and think for a second I'm back home. Realizing where I am, I remember the stars ...
Read article →Del Rio to Big Bend, The Wild West
Waking up in Del Rio, I haul my stuff down to the bike, drop my key card in the motel office, and grab a half cup of coffee. It's been sitting for a while an...
Read article →Austin to Del Rio via the Best Motorcycle Road in America
I wake up after my second night in Austin ready to go. A month back, I bought Butler Motorcycle Maps for most states I'm passing through and today is the fir...
Read article →Houston to Austin Where I Rest My Bike to Bike
The sixth day starts like the last few, I wake up in a strange room and it takes me a second to remember which town I'm in. This Airbnb has a dorm-style setu...
Read article →New Orleans to Houston with Most of My Stuff
I wake up in New Orleans with every intention of staying a second night. I've never been downtown and Brad says he'll show me around. I sleep in and lazily c...
Read article →Gulf Shores to New Orleans is a Tale of Insect Mass Murder
I don't want to keep doing this, it takes too long. But my mom says I have to so in the spirit of Mother's Day, I shall. I wake up in Gulf Shores at 11 a....
Read article →Panama City to Gulf Shores via the Town from The Truman Show
Google Maps is the best app ever created. Should you choose to dispute this fact, you're wrong. To remedy the drag-and-drop issue from yesterday, you can set...
Read article →Cedar Key to Panama City Beach's Seediest of Motels
After quite a delay and a couple death threats from friends, I have some time sitting by Lady Bird Lake in Austin, TX to write about the past few days. My in...
Read article →Orlando to Cedar Key on a Bike Much Bigger Than Me
My one-way flight from San Francisco to Orlando arrived just before 5 p.m. on Saturday evening. The airport, I find, blocks Uber and Lyft so I wait in the ca...
Read article →The Test Ride Was a Near Disaster. And a Great Success.
Last weekend I rented the bike I had reserved for my trip because I'd never ridden it before and wanted to make sure I could handle it. I'm pleased that I di...
Read article →My Tentative Route Across the Country
I dismissed the idea of renting a motorcycle for this trip early on because it's expensive. I rented one for a visiting friend last year and the total for on...
Read article →Motorcycling Across America
Who doesn't love a good adventure? There's something fascinating about submerging yourself in new experiences and leaving the comfort of routine. Like my fir...
Read article →Prime Factors Kata in Scala
I like running through the Prime Factors Kata when learning a new language to help uncover the language's power. I've done this before in Clojure and now it'...
Read article →Test Before > Test After
By now, I hope we can all agree that unit tests are a good idea. I recently gave a presentation on why I think testing before writing production code (TDD) i...
Read article →Save Hours and Make Life Easier with these Free Apps
Inspired by the Lifehacker Pack, I created my own list of tools I use on a daily basis. I've listed Linux alternatives to the Windows-only tools, but I haven...
Read article →Fresh Hot 100: an App for Only the Most Recent Chart Toppers
I check Billboard's Hot 100 chart each Thursday to keep my playlist up-to-date. It was time consuming, however. Here were the steps I'd go through: 1. Go th...
Read article →Android Development: Casino Strategy v2.0
The first feature I wanted to add after I published v1.0 was the ability to change between Blackjack strategy cards by swiping rather than selecting from a m...
Read article →Prime Factors Kata in Clojure
I'm learning Clojure and thought doing the Prime Factors Kata would be a good way to dive in. For those unfamiliar with the Kata: > Write a static method pr...
Read article →Farewell to John Deere
Copied below is the e-mail to my John Deere coworkers. It's a bittersweet goodbye, but I'm excited for my future with Dwolla. After 6 years, I'm leaving Joh...
Read article →SOLID Principles to Code By
Uncle Bob's book Agile Software Development, Principles, Patterns, and Practices calls out 5 principles that aid greatly in Test-Driven Development and make ...
Read article →Android Development: Casino Strategy v1.0
Maybe it's because I'm listening to The Lean Startup, but I decided to create a minimum viable product (MVP) as the first version of my app. I went with the ...
Read article →Diving into Android Development in Java/Eclipse
I've always wanted to write a smartphone app and finally got the kick I needed from a coworker. The decision for OS was between iOS and Android. I hardly con...
Read article →Setting Linux System Time, Date, and Time Zone
Embedded systems sometimes require setting the system time, date, and time zone. On Linux, there are two clocks. The first is a hardware clock that is typica...
Read article →Command-Line Mercurial
I started using Mercurial, a distributed source control management tool similar to Git, about two years ago. I began interacting with it using TortoiseHg, a ...
Read article →Linux Bash Aliases
Bash aliases are essentially keyboard shortcuts or abbreviations for longer command sequences. If, for example, we include alias lm="ls -l | more" in ~/.bash...
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