I recently finished reading PostgreSQL 14 Internals by Egor Rogov. It is one of the great books that teach applied computer science without watering down the difficult parts. One particularly interesting topic is PostgreSQL’s execution of UPDATE statements. Updates in relational databases are inherently complex. They can be affected by conflicts, anomalies, and deadlocks. However, some behavior is specific to PostgreSQL. This can lead to surprises. 1. Write Amplification PostgreSQL generally does not update rows in-place.

Having worked as a software engineer for a few years, it turns out software engineering is a profession like many others: you are part of a team with fellow humans, and working to achieve something in a collaborative fashion. I find it important that we enjoy working with each other. I would like to be a reliable, cooperative, and helpful coworker. In short, I would like to be a professional (but never boring) version of myself.

Recently, I was trying to deploy a backend API for my favorite party game Ryggio on Amazon Web Services (AWS). To my surprise, a comprehensive1 deployment guide was missing—which motivated this attempt to create one. This guide attempts to include everything for your API to be production-ready, including: Basic configuration of Amazon Elastic Beanstalk How to use a custom domain Securing your API using TLS encryption (HTTPS) The best of all this: Apart from the domain, you can get all of this for free2 using AWS Free Tier.

As a software engineer, you really need your focus time. Unfortunately, distractions are everywhere! It might be snowing outside, or you might be wondering if now is the perfect time to get a coffee. Then it happens—someone has used Slack’s @channel tag to completely interrupt everybody else, including you. This scenario may sound familiar. The reason is that Slack has given the nuclear codes to everyone in the company, allowing them to destroy productivity with one single command.

Welcome to my blog and bienvenid@s! I’ll publish emotional rants and other random thoughts here every sometimes. Until then, I’ll be enjoying the sun for a bit. Note: This post is not an April Fools' joke.