Insights into Serverless and modern backends
Learning from tutorials is great! You follow some steps, learn a smol lesson, and feel like you got this. Then you go into an interview, get a question from the boss, or encounter a new situation and o-oh.
Shit, how does this work again? ๐
That's the problem with tutorials. They're not how the world works. Real software is a mess. A best-effort pile of duct tape and chewing gum. You need deep understanding, not recipes.
I've been building web backends since ~2004 when they were just called websites. With these curated essays I want to share the hard lessons learned. Leave your email and get the Serverless and Modern Backend email series.
Latest Serverless and Backend articles from Swizec
September 2020
Modern backend is a JavaScript function
Many engineers think server-side code is the scary domain of True Engineers. Something newbies, juniors, and frontend engineers shouldn't touch. They're wrong. Modern backend is a joy. โค๏ธ
August 2020
In 2020's, what is "frontend"? ๐คจ
"He's a frontend guy, is this even a fair question to ask?" The head of engineering was worried about our systems design question โฆ
March 2020
How you can start using GraphQL today without changing the backend
GraphQL for new projects looks great ... buuuut how do you use it with that old backend cobbled together in Rails over the last bazillion years?
October 2019
Is hot dog taco?
What if I told you modern tools let you build and launch a small webapp in 30 minutes? Complete with SSL, a .com domain, a database, a documented API, CDN hosting, fast static initial loads, and a hydrated SPA? That's the challenge I posed at Silicon Valley Code Camp this weekend. The audience didn't believe me, so it was time to perform some magic. ๐ง
September 2019
REST API best practice in a GraphQL world
GraphQL is taking the world by storm and it is wonderful. But in the real world, you're still dealing with REST APIs aren't you?
May 2019
TypeScript for serverless lambda backends ๐
A few months ago I inherited a Kotlin project. It was an unfinished prototype and all I had to do was wrap it up and deploy. Every time I touched the project, it broke. Nothing worked. Wouldn't run on my machine, wouldn't read API requests, couldn't get tests working, if I changed some code I broke it all. That's when I realized learning a new field is super hard
June 2014
My new favourite Javascript trick
Using returns and callbacks in the same function. Sounds like crazy talk I know, but hear me out, I have good reason. I think.