Archive
DevelopmentOpinion
Maintaining a legacy web application is a challenge most developers eventually face, where migrations are too costly, rebuilds are impractical, and doing nothing means a growing list of security risks. This post covers practical considerations for keeping aging stacks alive while keeping technical debt in check.
DevelopmentOpinion
Building a URL shortener is a great project for exploring real-world concerns like unique ID generation, database modeling, and abuse prevention. This post covers the core mechanics using Node and MongoDB, focusing on the counter-based schema design that keeps short IDs truly short.
DevelopmentOpinion
Flask is a lightweight Python web framework that gets out of your way, but choosing the right supporting tools for your database, frontend, and dev environment is where the real decisions are made. This post walks through the key choices when building a full Flask application from scratch.
DevelopmentOpinion
When an application's core technology grows stale, mixing a modern frontend framework like Vue into an aging backend can be a practical step forward without a full rebuild. This post explores why decoupling your frontend from server-side rendering engines makes sense and how to do it incrementally.
TechnologyOpinion
After 12 months with a System76 Lemur Pro 9, a Linux-focused laptop with a metal chassis and user-replaceable internals, the experience has been a mix of genuine strengths and persistent hardware and software quirks. This post goes through each in detail.
StartupsOpinion
Running a SaaS startup serving thousands of users for just $10 a month is achievable by choosing a VPS over managed services, leaning on free tiers, and writing code instead of buying tools. This post breaks down the specific stack and frugal mindset behind keeping costs minimal without limiting what you can build.