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3 min read
The Backend Is Not Boring. It Is Where Bad Decisions Get Expensive.
Frontend trends change every year. Backend mistakes keep charging interest long after the UI refresh ships.
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Topic Hub
Software engineering
Production lessons on architecture, debugging, maintainability, deployment workflows, and the tradeoffs that separate toy systems from durable ones.
This is the broadest bucket on the site, but it all comes back to one question: what still makes sense when the code has users, constraints, and consequences?
Start with these articles:
- Server-Sent Events: When WebSockets Are Overkill (And When They’re Not)
- Git Branching Strategies: Most Teams Pick Wrong (Here’s How to Choose)
- The Custom Framework You’re Building Will Break Your Team
- Stop Explaining JOINs with Venn Diagrams—Here’s What Actually Breaks
- Your Global Scope Is a Disaster (And It’s Breaking Production)
If your problems are mostly about systems getting harder to reason about, this is the lane to stay in.
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3 min read
Feature Flags Solve Problems Until They Become the Problem
Flags are great for rollout safety. They are terrible as a long-term strategy for avoiding cleaner decisions.
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3 min read
Why So Many Internal Tools Become Permanent Accidents
Internal tools are supposed to be quick fixes. Then the business starts depending on them and nobody wants to admit a prototype became infrastructure.
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3 min read
The Hidden Cost of "Just Ship It" Engineering
Shipping quickly is not the same thing as moving fast. Sometimes it is just deferred cleanup with better branding.
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3 min read
Your Architecture Is Probably Too Clever for the Team You Actually Have
Architecture should be designed for the team that has to operate it, not for the fantasy team you wish you had.
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14 min read
Rails Has Been Dying Since 2010. I'm Still Building Production On It in 2026.
Every couple of years someone publishes the Rails obituary. Every couple of years I ship another production system on it. The reason isn't loyalty — it's that nothing has actually replaced what Rails decided to do.
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