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HOW WE MIGRATED OUR POSTGRESQL DATABASE WITH 11 SECONDS DOWNTIME

The migration of the GOV.UK Notify service's PostgreSQL database to an Amazon Web Services (AWS) account involved only 11 seconds of downtime. The migration was necessitated by the retirement of the GOV.UK’s original database platform. The upgrade was facilitated with the AWS Database Migration Service and a custom Python script.

A DEVELOPER’S SECOND BRAIN: REDUCING COMPLEXITY THROUGH PARTNERSHIP WITH AI

AI tools have been helpful in reducing cognitive burden on developers, particularly in handling tedious and repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on more interesting work. Developers are open to AI assistance, especially in tasks related to sense-making and creating plans of action. However, they remain cautious about AI handling decision-making and implementation autonomously. AI works best when partnered with developers rather than as a replacement for developers.

LAYERS OF CONTEXT

A Staff-plus engineer faced challenges in influencing peers due to missing context in his proposals. The layers of context involved here included the project's engineering team, product managers, infrastructure teams, and engineering leadership. It’s important to reason across all of these context layers for success. Taking an approach to problem-solving that prioritizes understanding others' perspectives is helpful.

HTMX IS COMPOSABLE??

Composable software components are like building blocks that can be assembled and reused in different configurations. This author believed that JSON-driven REST APIs were the only way to create composable web APIs, but they discovered that HTMX allowed them to build a powerful plugin system. HTMX’s unique HTML-based approach contributed to this composability.

THE AHA STACK

The AHA Stack is a full-stack web app approach that combines Astro, htmx, and Alpine.js. It lets you send HTML over the wire, replacing a JS-heavy approach with a simpler set of mental models and workflows.

REACT RESIZE DETECTOR

React Resize Detector detects element size changes through native browser ResizeObservers.

LESSONS LEARNED: 1,000 DAYS OF DISTRIBUTED AT ATLASSIAN

Atlassian’s approach to distributed work has led to high employee satisfaction (92%) and increased representation of women in certain geographies. The company uses data and experiments to enhance distributed work practices, along with having occasional in-person meetings for team bonding. Even with a distributed work environment, having physical office spaces has still played a key role for the company.

THE QUIET PLAN TO MAKE THE INTERNET FEEL FASTER

REACT, WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

React has been becoming more complex, especially since React Server Components were introduced.

LINKEDIN FOR DEVELOPERS: 4 EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES TO ENHANCE YOUR PERSONAL BRAND

To enhance your personal brand as a developer on LinkedIn, optimize your LinkedIn profile visually, engage with other developers on the site, and contribute to the platform if possible.

LEADING EFFECTIVE ENGINEERING TEAMS

Google found that psychological safety is the most important dynamic for an effective team. This was alongside other dynamics like dependability, role clarity, meaningful work, and impact.

5 CSS SNIPPETS EVERY FRONT-END DEVELOPER SHOULD KNOW IN 2024

Powerful CSS tips with showcases and code examples. Touches on topics like nesting, sub grid, container query units, and more.

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28 ADVANCED NEXTJS FEATURES EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW

HOW CLOUDFLARE PROCESSES A MILLION LOGS PER SECOND

CloudFlare processes millions of log lines per second with Kafka, the ELK stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana), and ClickHouse. The ELK stack and ClickHouse are used for long-term storage of logs to ensure high availability and efficient log management. Kafka is used to route logs to its core data centers, achieve fault tolerance, and allow for easy scalability.

WHEN YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING GOOD WORK BUT OTHERS DON’T

It’s all too common to feel you’re performing fantastically on your team just to later find out that others, especially those in leadership, don't perceive your work in the same way. Although it may be painful to hear such feedback at first, experiencing this scenario can give you an amazing opportunity for growth and improvement. This article offers five steps that will help you turn negative perceptions of your work around, such as actively listening, acknowledging mistakes, and reflecting on feedback.

LEVEL UP YOUR TECH CAREER BY DEVELOPING YOUR NON TECH SOFT SKILLS

Some software engineers spend years trying to get promoted, while others strategically take steps to successfully reach their desired level. There are five key people skills that these engineers focus on: collaboration, vulnerability, growing others, active listening, and working with feedback. It’s important to make your work visible, have a bias for action, and utilize your manager effectively to advance in your career.

PUBLISHING YOUR WORK INCREASES YOUR LUCK

Publishing your work can increase your chances of getting lucky, help establish credibility, build a track record, and build a reputation. Some examples of wins that have come as a result of one publishing their work include getting invited to speak at a conference, finding a new job, or having one’s products gain traction.

MARIMO

Marimo is a reactive notebook for Python that is interactive, shareable, reproducible, and Git-friendly. With this tool, you can quickly experiment with data and models and build notebooks as pipelines or interactive web apps.

PRIVY

Privy is a private coding assistant. It features an AI Chat feature that you can talk to about your code. Privy can also explain code, generate tests, diagnose errors, and find bugs.

FAST-CSV

Fast-csv is a library built using TypeScript that is made for parsing and formatting CSVs in nodes. Fast-csv offers flexible formatting and parsing options, making it easy to customize.

ASSET-LIGHT SOFTWARE BUSINESS: THE NEW PARADIGM FOR STARTUPS

Software is becoming commoditized and businesses are becoming more asset-light. As a result, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is shifting from fixed costs to variable costs. This can mean that traditional venture capital may not be suitable for all software businesses in the future.

MICROSOFT TAUGHT APPLE NOTHING

Apple’s current actions in protecting its App Store are similar to Microsoft's past monopolistic behavior. Apple owes its modern existence to the Department of Justice's actions against Microsoft in the late '90s, which led Microsoft to invest in Apple and save the struggling company. Apple's current approach to the App Store could alienate developers, just as Microsoft did in the past.

THE HACKER NEWS TOP 40 BOOKS OF 2023

The top books mentioned on Hacker News in 2023 include Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, Designing Data-Intensive Applications, and How to Win Friends and Influence People.

TYPES VS INTERFACES

TypeScript interfaces and types are nearly the same, but interfaces came first. There are no clear guidelines on when to use either.

REMOTE WORK DOESN’T SEEM TO AFFECT PRODUCTIVITY, FED STUDY FINDS

Research done by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco found that remote work hasn’t produced a boost or created a decline in productivity compared to in-person work.

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MEASURING DEVELOPER PRODUCTIVITY: REAL-WORLD EXAMPLES

Tech companies like Google and LinkedIn measure developer productivity in different ways. Common metrics in the industry that are commonly tracked as proxies for productivity are ease of delivery, experiment velocity, and the stability of services and apps. However, quantitative metrics alone can’t describe the full picture. Teams should start with defining specific goals and problems first, then pick the right quantitative and qualitative metrics for those goals.

ARCHITECTING A LIVE LOOK AT RELIABILITY: STRIPE'S VIRAL BLACK FRIDAY SITE

Stripe built a real-time microsite for Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2023 to provide detailed insights into its core business using Vercel. The microsite displayed Stripe's reliability, transaction volumes, and global activity during this period. The company used Next.js, SWR, and ISR to create the site fast, and it used strategies like Stale-While-Revalidate (SWR) and Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) to manage real-time data and interactions while minimizing backend queries.

HOW TO CRAFT THE PERFECT DATA ENGINEER RESUME AND LINKEDIN PROFILE IN 2024

To make your LinkedIn profile better, you should have a high-quality profile picture and a detailed skills list. To stand out and build a stronger LinkedIn network, developers should engage with others and connect with people through direct messages. For the resume, one should focus on describing their measurable impacts at their job and showcase achievements.

I REGRET SELLING MY STARTUP

This author sold his successful startup because he was seeking freedom from certain aspects of the business. However, after the sale, he found himself lost. He started having trouble with his sense of self and purpose. Now, he recommends people to understand their motivations and values when starting something.

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TINYBENCH

Tinybench is a small, lightweight benchmarking library for JavaScript.

MAYBE

Maybe is an open-source personal finance app that used to be a (failed) startup. It features net worth tracking, financial account syncing, investment benchmarking, and more. The app is built with Next.js, Tailwind CSS, Node, Express, and Postgres.

EXPLORING THE REDUX SECOND GENERATION

Redux Toolkit has become the standard method for creating Redux apps, reducing boilerplate code and streamlining state management. The key changes in Redux Toolkit 2.0 include modernization, better workflow, dependency updates, and the introduction of new features like lazy loading slices and dynamic middleware.

PASSING NOTHING IS SURPRISINGLY DIFFICULT

It’s difficult to represent empty slices of memory in languages like C, C++, and Rust. The differences in rules and behaviors in these languages can cause compatibility issues when working with Foreign Function Interfaces (FFIs). To make empty slices less complicated, Rust needs to improve its slice representation and have FFI helpers introduced into its standard library.

HOW OPENAI IS BUILDING ITS MOAT

OpenAI built its initial moat on the cost of training large models because the general perception in the industry was that large models meant higher performance. However, the Chinchilla paper (published by Google DeepMind researchers) proved that bigger models are not necessarily better. Now, OpenAI is defending its moat by creating network effects around ChatGPT with the release of the GPT Store, ChatGPT Plugins, and the ChatGPT Team plan for enterprises.

U.S. DEVELOPERS CAN NOW OFFER NON-APP STORE PURCHASING OPTION, BUT APPLE WILL STILL COLLECT COMMISSIONS

Apple made a major change to its US iOS App Store policies that now allows developers to direct customers to non-App Store purchasing options for digital products. However, Apple still intends to collect a hefty 12-27% commission on revenue that’s brought in this way.

SUPERCHARGE WEB AI MODEL TESTING: WEBGPU, WEBGL, AND HEADLESS CHROME

Chrome for Developers provides a guide for automating browser testing for Web AI applications and other applications that utilize WebGPU and WebGL.

THE "MOM TEST" IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT: ASKING GOOD QUESTIONS WHEN EVERYONE IS LYING TO YOU

It’s important to dig deeper when asking questions to uncover users' true needs when building tools for developers. The litmus test for dev tools usually is if it exists in a big company but doesn’t externally.

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SLASHING DATA TRANSFER COSTS IN AWS BY 99%

AWS charges data transfer fees between regions and availability zones, which can add up to significant costs. By uploading data to Amazon S3 within the same region and then downloading it from S3, users can reduce their data transfer costs to near-zero levels, saving over 99% compared to standard data transfer methods. This article provides a detailed explanation and real-world experiments to demonstrate this cost-saving approach, where they performed a complete $21.49 data transfer job with only 8 cents.