September 21, 2021
On non-verbal communication for remote workers
Communication is hard. Bad communication leads to misunderstandings, stress, and bad things. Remote communication is even harder. What could go wrong? Can we do something about it?
A linguistic limitation
The language we use is crucial to get the right message through. The words we use have to be as specific as we can to avoid misunderstandings. It seems we have space for improvement, and we should be doing a better job.
Update me, please
We're so used to notifications that we probably never stopped to think about how to implement them. It might be trivial at first glance. However, in a distributed system, we might face more challenges requiring techniques we don't expect when implementing a notifications infrastructure.
Don't keep a saga in both camps
When it comes to distributed systems, autonomy is a guiding star, and coupling is the villain trying to sneak in at every step. Orchestration is a particularly subtle form of coupling, usually detected when it's too late. However, the root cause is somewhere else.
On working standing up, 8 years later
I started using a standing desk as my default setup eight years ago. It's time for a retrospective, to share some learnings, and to see what options the future holds.
Own the cache!
Caches are everywhere and power the internet. When it comes to distributed systems, they are an essential tool in our tool belt. However, special care needs to be put into defining who owns the cache.
There is no such thing as orchestration
Coupling is subtle and sneaks in from every hole. With long-running business processes, the overall business problem tends to take precedence over what seems to be a minor concern. Unfortunately, those choices might turn against us in the long run.