Blog Posts

MANY articles on a wide array of topics. You’ll find a lot of my newer content is going to my YouTube channel first, but I do still blog occasionally.

Die Hard is a Christmas Movie

Die Hard is a Christmas Movie

There is some debate about whether the movie Die Hard (1988) should be categorized as a Christmas movie. On the one side are those who point to its central Christmas theme, music, and messaging, all of which add to and …

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Data Deficient Messages

Data Deficient Messages

In distributed applications and microservices that send events or notifications to other apps or services, take care to include sufficient information in the messages themselves. Failure to do so will likely result in …

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Little's Law

Little's Law

Little's Law describes the relationship between throughput, wait time, and work-in-progress. Understanding it can help with designing and optimizing systems and processes.

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CAP Theorem, PACELC, and Microservices

CAP Theorem, PACELC, and Microservices

CAP Theorem generally applies to distribute databases. PACELC builds on CAP and describes system behavior when no network partition exists. Both of these can be applied in the context of microservices.

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GitHub Actions from CLI

GitHub Actions from CLI

If you're going to be using GitHub actions a lot, it may be worthwhile to create reusable templates you can create from the dotnet command line interface.

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Estimates Are Necessary

Estimates Are Necessary

Estimates are, unfortunately, sometimes necessary. Despite being wrong, frequently a waste of resources, having a short shelf life, and being non-transferable. Sometimes you just need them in order to make a plan.

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Shift Risk Left

Shift Risk Left

Unknowns are inherently risky. Known risks you can plan for; unknown risks you need to learn more about so that you can mitigate them. Shifting risk left means taking actions that allow you to de-risk unknowns now, …

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Estimates Are Temporary

Estimates Are Temporary

Estimates are perishable. As soon as they're made, new information makes them obsolete. Unless updated frequently, whatever value estimates provide quickly diminishes.

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