• Three small changes that will improve your style in Python

    I often come across code that works but it takes more effort to read because the author doesn’t know yet about parts of the language or library. Because the code works, it’s hard to improve on the style unless someone presents another way of writing the same thing. So here...

  • DevOps Tip: fast Postgres snapshots

    If you’re running your own installation of PostgreSQL and you ever wanted to take a snapshot to test something off, this tip is for you. You’ll have a writable snapshot of your database in a few seconds. Note: If you run in AWS, then RDS is your best option even...

  • What is DevOps

    The term DevOps is understood in multiple ways. Because I was asked what it is from my point of view, I drew this image. And for those who like written text, below are a few comments. ↑ My view of the DevOps landscape — click to enlarge. DevOps is a...

  • Flexible typing in a static world

    Sometimes, we see a heated debate about the benefits of static vs. dynamic typing. The debate becomes heated because IMHO there’s an unspoken assumption you can’t compromise. You have to take a side. The types are either fixed or they aren’t. Nowadays, we see a lot of examples that erode...

  • Data-driven decisions for scaling your application

    Your app is running mostly fine, only occasionally you see a burst in CPU or RAM usage. It handles requests well, only sometimes it feels sluggish for a few seconds, then it works well again. You’re quite confident the app handles current users fine but you rather buy some more...

  • Looking for a "modest data" streaming system

    Each system has its own trade-offs Big Data — that’s what’s cool and sexy. But Google’s problems often aren’t the same as your problems. If you’re a company that relies heavily on data processing, you need to scale parts of your pipelines and you don’t want to worry too much...

  • Reliably connecting Raspberry Pi to Internet — part 3

    In part 2, you can read about managing a fleet of small Linux embedded devices. But it assumes we already have them running. This post is about efficient and foolproof installation of the software to multiple devices. In the startup I was part of, we didn’t have thousands of devices....

  • Reliably connecting Raspberry Pi to Internet — part 2

    In part 1, we’ve seen how to connect Rasbperry Pi to Internet over multiple connections with different priorities. It also allowed us to create a WiFi hotspot so we could connect to the device when physically close to it. Internet of Things management platform We’ve evaluated several IoT management platforms,...

  • Reliably connecting Raspberry Pi to Internet — part 1

    This is a first post of a series of articles on managing connectivity for small Linux devices. I needed to quickly come up with a solution for managing connected embedded devices. Our prototype was running on Raspberry Pi and we were considering a few other embedded systems. Our devices were...