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Engineering Insights & Guides

The best problem-solving writing in software engineering — databases, performance, security, frontend and distributed systems, in one feed.

11,845 articles
Engineering — I Fight For The Users

I Fight For The Users

If you haven’t been able to keep up with my blistering pace of one blog post per year, I don’t blame you. There’s a lot going on right now. It’s a busy time. But let’s pause and take a moment to celebrate that Elon Musk destroyed Twitter. I can’t possibly say it better than Paul Ford, so I’ll just refer you there: Every five or six minutes, someone in the social sciences publishes a PDF with a tit

JAJeff AtwoodJeff Atwood·November 30, 2023Engineering
Security — Securing our home labs: Home Assistant code review

Securing our home labs: Home Assistant code review

The GitHub Security Lab examined the most popular open source software running on our home labs, with the aim of enhancing its security. Here’s what we found and what you can do to better protect your own smart home.

AMAlvaro MunozAlvaro Munoz·November 30, 2023Security
Systems — Better debugging for Cloudflare Workers, now with breakpoints

Better debugging for Cloudflare Workers, now with breakpoints

We provide many tools to help you debug Cloudflare Workers; from your local environment all the way into production. In this post, we highlight some of the tools we currently offer, and do a deep dive into one specific area - breakpoint debugging - a tool we recently added into our workerd runtime

AMAdam Murray, Brendan CollAdam Murray, Brendan Coll·November 28, 2023Systems
Distributed — Managing Slack Connect

Managing Slack Connect

Slack Connect, AKA shared channels, allows communication between different Slack workspaces, via channels shared by participating organizations. Slack Connect has existed for a few years now, and the sheer volume of channels and external connections has increased significantly since the launch. The increased volume introduced scaling problems, but also highlighted that not all external connections

YLYuriy Loginov·November 28, 2023Distributed
Design & UX — Crafting A Killer Brand Identity For A Digital Product — Smashing Magazine

Crafting A Killer Brand Identity For A Digital Product — Smashing Magazine

In this article, Sasha guides you through crucial processes and factors to achieve a consistent brand presence across platforms. She offers an overview of the entire brand identity process, explores collaboration with UI teams, and provides essential details on the assets required for the successful implementation of a digital brand.

SDSasha DenisovaSasha Denisova·November 28, 2023Design & UX
Career & Teams — Steve Bray: Why I joined Cloudflare

Steve Bray: Why I joined Cloudflare

We're excited to introduce Steve Bray as Cloudflare's new Head of Australia and New Zealand, as we continue to build and grow our customers, partners, and team in the region

SBSteve BraySteve Bray·November 27, 2023Career & Teams
Performance — A Few Ways CSS Is Easier To Write In 2023 — Smashing Magazine

A Few Ways CSS Is Easier To Write In 2023 — Smashing Magazine

We’re living in somewhat of a CSS renaissance with new features, techniques, experiments, and ideas coming at us to an extent we haven’t seen since “CSS3”. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when your profession seems to be advancing at breakneck speed, but Geoff Graham considers the ways “modern” CSS in 2023 has actually made CSS “easier” to write.

GGGeoff GrahamGeoff Graham·November 24, 2023Performance
Networking — Catalog of Patterns of Distributed Systems

Catalog of Patterns of Distributed Systems

Distributed systems provide a particular challenge to program. They often require us to have multiple copies of data, which need to keep synchronized. Yet we cannot rely on processing nodes working reliably, and network delays can easily lead to inconsistencies. Despite this, many organizations rely on a range of core distributed software handling data storage, messaging, system management, and co

MFMartin Fowler·November 23, 2023Networking
Frontend — CSS Responsive Multi-Line Ribbon Shapes (Part 2) — Smashing Magazine

CSS Responsive Multi-Line Ribbon Shapes (Part 2) — Smashing Magazine

In Part 1 of the series, Temani Afif demonstrated how creating ribbon patterns in CSS has evolved with the availability of new CSS features. In this second installment of this brief two-part series, we look at two additional ribbon variations that introduce techniques for masking a repeated background gradient in CSS.

TATemani AfifTemani Afif·November 22, 2023Frontend