About
I'm @brandur, an occasional writer, and engineer at Stripe and previously Heroku.
I most often talk about web APIs, Postgres, Rust, software safety and resilience, efficient human interfaces, and running.
Articles
How to Manage Connections Efficiently in Postgres, or Any Database
Hitting the limit for maximum allowed connections is a common operational problem in Postgres. Here we look at a few techniques for managing connections and making efficient use of those that are available. October 15, 2018
A Missing Link in Postgres 11: Fast Column Creation with Defaults
How a seemingly minor enhancement in Postgres 11 fills one of the system's biggest operational holes. August 28, 2018
Tweeting for 10,000 Years: An Experiment in Autonomous Software
Using the design principles of a 10,000 year clock to build a program that's intended to run on a macro timescale. July 20, 2018
Older articles available here.
Fragments
The subtleties of API contracts, or how enabling HTTP/2 broke Go clients
A lesson in how API contracts can extend beyond function signatures. August 10, 2018
Older fragments available here.
