About
My name is Brandur Leach (@brandur). I'm an engineer at Stripe, and am interested in service engineering, APIs, Vim, Tmux, Ruby, Go, terminal productivity, running, fixed gear riding, history, urban design, and metal.
Articles
- Stability in a Chaotic World: How Postgres Makes Transactions Atomic
A dive into the mechanics that allow Postgres to provide strong atomic guarantees despite the chaotic entropy of production.
- Pseudo-HTML and Pidgin CSS: Building an Email Newsletter
Building a toolchain for sending a newsletter, and the dismal state of HTML and CSS in email.
- The Accidental Evangelist
Lets talk about the bad aspects of the technology we use as well as the good. Better information will lead to better decisions in the next generation of technical architecture.
- A Comparison of Advanced, Modern Cloud Databases
A non-exhaustive primer of modern cloud database solutions like Aurora, Cosmos, and Spanner.
- Building Robust Systems With ACID and Constraints
On ensuring system integrity, operability, and correctness through a solid foundational database, and how ACID transactions and strong constraints work in your favor. Why to prefer Postgres over MongoDB.
Older articles are available here.
Fragments
- A Year of Counting Calories
409 days of tracking all meals and exercise.
- Headspace
A month of meditating and reclaiming head space.
- The Long Road to Mongo's Durability
A data store's journey from data loss to durable storage.
- All Wires
On removing moving parts in my home media setup.
- Partitioning In MongoDB (or Lack Thereof)
A day in trench life.
Older fragments are available here.
