Code for a Living Archives

code-for-a-living November 25, 2020

How to write an effective developer resume: Advice from a hiring manager

Based on reviewing hundreds of resumes per year and researching a book, here are the seven pieces of advice for engineers on writing a resume that represents you as fairly as possible.

Gergely Orosz

code-for-a-living November 23, 2020

The macro problem with microservices

In just 20 years, software engineering has shifted from architecting monoliths with a single database and centralized state to microservices where everything is distributed across multiple containers, servers, data centers, and even continents. Distributing things solves scaling concerns, but introduces a whole new world of problems, many of which were previously solved by monoliths.

Ryland Goldstein Head of Product at Temporal

code-for-a-living November 17, 2020

The complexities—and rewards—of open sourcing corporate software products

Two engineers at Salesforce talk about how they decoupled a complex library from old spaghetti logic, then open sourced that library by creating a new internal process where none existed before.

Demian Brecht and Drew Shafer

code-for-a-living November 9, 2020

Modern IDEs are magic. Why are so many coders still using Vim and Emacs?

The endless war between Vim and Emacs users has continued ad nauseam over the years. It's less a war at this point than a grumbling shuffle of ingrained habit and stubborn resistance to change.

John Biggs and Ryan Donovan

code-for-a-living November 5, 2020

How to lead with clarity and empathy in the remote world

2020 has brought changes and challenges for everyone—including those in leadership roles. Management style and decision-making have taken on new significance during these testing times as staff’s quality of life—as well as company growth—hang in the balance. In this newly remote world, it can be difficult to figure out the best ways to support and…

Medi Madelen Gwosdz and Ben Popper

code-for-a-living November 2, 2020

What’s so great about Go?

We explore the traits that have led to the rising popularity of the Go programming language.

John Biggs and Ben Popper

careers October 27, 2020

Making the most of your one-on-one with your manager or other leadership

As many offices go fully remote, learning how to approach key meetings with your manager can pay big dividends.

Teresa Dietrich

servers falling over like dominoes but getting an alert

code-for-a-living October 23, 2020

Failing over without falling over

You’ve gone through the motions and play-acted a disaster recovery scenario, but despite spending a lot on the production, it’s not real. What you have is a fairy tale: “Once upon a time, in theory, if everything works perfectly, we have a plan to survive the disasters we thought of in advance.” In practice, it’s more likely to be a nightmare.

Adrian Cockcroft

code-for-a-living October 19, 2020

How to communicate more deliberately and efficiently when working remotely

When you already know your co-workers and how they approach work, that is fine as they probably haven’t changed all that much since the start of the pandemic. You cannot safely transfer those assumptions to new team members, however, as people remain people, rather than the microservices that they may seem over the internet.

Matthew Gaiser Director of Content

code-for-a-living October 14, 2020

Improve database performance with connection pooling

We tend to rely on caching solutions to improve database performance. Caching frequently-accessed queries in memory or via a database can optimize write/read performance and reduce network latency, especially for heavy-workload applications, such as gaming services and Q&A portals. But you can further improve performance by pooling users’ connections to a database. Client users need…

Michael Aboagye

code-for-a-living October 12, 2020

How to put machine learning models into production

The goal of building a machine learning model is to solve a problem, and a machine learning model can only do so when it is in production and actively in use by consumers. As such, model deployment is as important as model building.

Rising Odegua