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
SortSupport: Sorting in Postgres at Speed
How Postgres makes sorting really fast by comparing small, memory-friendly abbreviated keys as proxies for arbitrarily large values on the heap. February 4, 2019
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
Older articles available here.
Fragments
A few notes on the passing of a fascinating cultural contributor and his even more fascinating approach to weight loss. February 20, 2019
Older fragments available here.
