Things for my later self

Things I’ve learned and want to keep.

• Engineering is about communication.

• Do it, then do it right, then do it better. Momentum creates clarity. Analysis paralysis creates nothing.

• Slop is what takes more human effort to consume than it took to produce.

• Java is a great language because it’s boring! So is Postgres.

• Monoliths remain good. Micro-services require justification.

• The best tool for the job is the least-worst tool across many jobs. Operating a zoo is the real tax.

• Every abstraction is a bet that you won’t need to understand what’s underneath.

• Corollary: Abstractions don’t remove complexity. They move it to the day you’re on call ‘-)

• There is no pride in managing or understanding complexity.

• ORMs are devil. Just write SQL.

• It’s very hard to beat decades of RDBMS research and improvements.

• Don’t re-write things that work.

• Code comments are NOT useless.

• Dwelling on variables you cannot control creates anxiety without agency.

• The fastest code is code that never runs.