Matthew Lang avatar

Matthew Lang

Family guy and web developer

Monoliths make getting started easier

An advantage of a monolith code base that can go overlooked is the minimal entry barrier to getting up and running for junior developers or new members of the team.

Setting up a basic database and my application with a background process was a pretty defined process. I’d have the readme on Github, and often in an hour or maybe a few I’d be up and running when I started on a new project. Onboarding a new engineering, at least for an initial environment would be done in the first day. As we ventured into micro-services onboarding time skyrocketed. Yes, we have docker and orchestration such as K8s these days to help, but the time from start to up and running a K8s cluster just to onboard a new engineer is orders of magnitude larger than we saw a few years ago. For many junior engineers this is a burden that really is unnecessary complexity.

— Give me back my monolith by Craig Kerstiens

Even those in senior roles may struggle to hold in their head an entire stack composed of micro-services. Sure it becomes familiar over time, but it’s another learning curve that can be unnecessary. It’s why I love working in monoliths.

They are a one-stop stack that contains everything or at least most of the components that we need to know about. An engineer can get up and running in a matter of hours. Why make it more difficult to onboard engineers?

Maybe the hype-cycle for micro-services is finally passing.

Of all the apps that Setapp has on offer, I can’t find an alternative to Balsamiq. Oh well, back to pen and paper for protoyping.

What next for the web?

As the World Wide Web celebrates it’s 30th birthday, Sir Tim Berners-Lee reminds us that a better web for all can be achieved.

The fight for the web is one of the most important causes of our time. Today, half of the world is online. It is more urgent than ever to ensure the other half are not left behind offline, and that everyone contributes to a web that drives equality, opportunity and creativity.

The Contract for the Web must not be a list of quick fixes but a process that signals a shift in how we understand our relationship with our online community. It must be clear enough to act as a guiding star for the way forward but flexible enough to adapt to the rapid pace of change in technology. It’s our journey from digital adolescence to a more mature, responsible and inclusive future.

— 30 years on, what’s next #ForTheWeb?

Focus this week for Markcase is to add a registration screen that is only open until the number of accounts reaches a certain limit. The idea here is to allow a limited number of registrations without having to worry about scaling. Much easier than me handling invitations.

I need to learn the shortcut keys for Slack. The constant clicking between accounts is such a distraction. Three shortcuts to learn for the week that I think will make a difference. Quick switch (Cmd K), Browse DMs (Cmd Shift K) and All Unreads (Cmd Shift A).

The kettle is on, notebooks are out and I’m about to kick off a weekly planning session.

I’m already having to change the plans for today. Ethan’s golf coaching has been cancelled and there’s no way it looks like we’ll get out for a few holes either today thanks to the rain.

Me, Jennifer and the boys went to see Captain Marvel yesterday. A great and enjoyable movie as well as being something a bit different from many of the Marvel movies. A nice lead in to End Game next month. A nice hap tip to Stan Lee at the start as well.