Technical debt is the amount of work needed to decrease the total cost of a product.Me dilbert.com The classical definition doesn't work Technical debt (TD) is intuitively easy to grasp as an inherent quality/complexity issue that makes a product hard to operate and change, which is a good description but not a good definition of … Continue reading Technical Debt
Author: george georgovassilis
parchive: protecting backups against data corruption
As time goes by, my [place appropriate interval] backups may not grow much, but the size of my entire data archive exceeds the largest available hard disks (don't ask). Taking into account correctness guarantees by hard disk manufacturers, transmission errors over the network and who knows what else, I don't feel confident that I'll flip … Continue reading parchive: protecting backups against data corruption
Book of dark arts: selective disclosure with CSS
Show and hide pages and page elements with declarative CSS instead of imperative code
Book of dark arts: storing data in the view
Pentagram, source Wikipedia. Towards the end of the year I'll indulge in the dark arts, join the goblins and leave my white architect hat under the Christmas tree where it belongs. I'm helping a friend (a technically minded, non-programmer) write his first mobile app . We wanted to keep everything simple: use technologies which can … Continue reading Book of dark arts: storing data in the view
Ubuntu on the ASUS VivoBook 17
Following the proud tradition [1],[2],[3] of documenting Linux installations on all the hardware I break, I'm happy to report that Ubuntu 18.04 works fine on the ASUS VivoBook 17 (model number X705U). Things I tested and that work: OS boots from USB and from harddisk Secure boot WLAN USB On board and external (USB) camera … Continue reading Ubuntu on the ASUS VivoBook 17
Thunderbird forgetting passwords
After a simultaneous Thunderbird upgrade and profile migration from Windows to Linux the mail program permanently forgets passwords. The setting: Thunderbird 52 on Windows Back up profile Restore profile to Thunderbird 60 on Linux Observe that all passwords to all accounts are lost even if entered again This seems to be some … Continue reading Thunderbird forgetting passwords
Software architecture for 5G networks
The 5G mobile network specification introduces network function virtualization [NFV] which enables mobile network operators (carriers henceforth) to expose network resources to business applications as PaaS solution building blocks [SBB]. Naturally, this moves 5G into the focus of software architecture. Unsurprisingly, the NFV specs detail services from the carrier's point of view, so they are … Continue reading Software architecture for 5G networks
About focus
There are three conceptual combinations of temporality, significance and impact which require our attention: urgency (I either deal with it now or not at all), importance (I can deal with it later, but I can’t afford to ignore it) and opportunity (I may safely ignore it, but there are significant benefits if I don't). While … Continue reading About focus
Cloud-specific software architecture patterns
This post is about software application architecture patterns that simplify application design by leveraging cloud features. New: Download the cloud pattern cheat sheet Packaged configuration Packaged configuration cue card What Configuration is packaged with deployment artefacts Motivation Simplify system, increase resilience by removing runtime dependency on configuration service How Configuration is managed in configuration repository, … Continue reading Cloud-specific software architecture patterns
HTTP compression and incremental rendering
TL;DR: HTTP compression can delay rendering of web resources HTTP permits content to be served with different encodings, some of which can be used to compress [1] the data volume transferred over the network, which has become a frequent suggestion [2] towards optimising websites for performance. It turns out that the deflation phase of the … Continue reading HTTP compression and incremental rendering
