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

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Engineering — Welcome to Birthday Week 2020

Welcome to Birthday Week 2020

Each year we celebrate our launch on September 27, 2010 with a week of product announcements. We call this Birthday Week, but rather than receiving gifts, we give them away. This year is no different, except that it is… Cloudflare is 10 years old.

JGJohn Graham CummingJohn Graham Cumming·September 27, 2020Engineering
Performance — Cloudflare's 2020 Annual Founders' Letter

Cloudflare's 2020 Annual Founders' Letter

We continue to believe what we started Cloudflare believing 10 years ago: the Internet itself is a force for good worth fighting to defend. We need to keep striving to make the Internet itself better — always on, always fast, always secure, always private, and available to everyone.

MPMatthew Prince, Michelle ZatlynMatthew Prince, Michelle Zatlyn·September 27, 2020Performance
Security — Phishing Resistant SMS Autofill

Phishing Resistant SMS Autofill

We recently shipped support for the origin-bound draft standard for security codes delivered via SMS. This standard ensures security codes are entered in a phishing-resistant manner. It accomplishes this by binding an SMS with…

ZQZhongying QiaoZhongying Qiao·September 25, 2020Security
Career & Teams — GitHub Action Hero

GitHub Action Hero

GitHub Actions gives you the power to automate your workflow. Connect with the tools you know and love. Have more freedom to innovate and be creative. Deploy to any cloud,…

MDMichelle DukeMichelle Duke·September 25, 2020Career & Teams
Design & UX — Intuitive Design? No Such Thing! — Smashing Magazine

Intuitive Design? No Such Thing! — Smashing Magazine

“Intuitive design” is one of those overused phrases that we as designers hear all too often from stakeholders and their requirements. In this article, Carrie Webster explores what intuitive design actually means, why it doesn’t make sense, how we can better approach design solutions, and what the future of interfaces might look like. It is aimed at user experience designers and anyone interested e

CWCarrie WebsterCarrie Webster·September 25, 2020Design & UX
Security — A Year Later: Reflections on the ANZ Security Landscape

A Year Later: Reflections on the ANZ Security Landscape

It’s been one year since I joined Cloudflare as Head of Australia and New Zealand. Our team has been even more humbled by our mission to help build a better Internet and help organisations face the increased security threats COVID-19 has triggered.

RRaymondRaymond·September 24, 2020Security
Performance — Building even faster interpreters in Rust

Building even faster interpreters in Rust

Firewall Rules lets customers filter the traffic hitting their site, powered by our Wirefilter engine. We’re excited to share some in-depth optimizations we have recently made to improve the performance of our edge.

ZZakZak·September 24, 2020Performance
Engineering — Don't Compare Averages

Don't Compare Averages

In business meetings, it's common to compare groups of numbers by comparing their averages. But doing so often hides important information in the distribution of the numbers in those groups. There are a number of data visualizations that shine a light on this information. These include strip charts, histograms, density plots, box plots, and violin plots. These are easy to produce with freely avail

MFMartin Fowler·September 24, 2020Engineering
SRE & Ops — Lightning Q&A: DevSecOps in five with Maya Kaczorowski

Lightning Q&A: DevSecOps in five with Maya Kaczorowski

In this interview, we dig deeper with Maya Kaczorowski on what DevSecOps is, and how to apply it. It’s a mindset shift in how development teams think about security. DevSecOps is about making all parties who are part of the application development lifecycle accountable for security of the application.

GMGrace MadlingerGrace Madlinger·September 24, 2020SRE & Ops
Engineering — Unexpected Learnings From Coding Artwork Every Day For Five Years — Smashing Magazine

Unexpected Learnings From Coding Artwork Every Day For Five Years — Smashing Magazine

Coding thousands of pieces of artwork teaches you a thing or two about the creative process. Whether you want to overcome perfectionism, learn new skills, or simply explore the playful side of coding, regular projects may be just what you need. In this article, Saskia Freeke will share her thoughts and experience. We hope to yield the inspiration you need to start similar projects of your own.

SFSaskia FreekeSaskia Freeke·September 24, 2020Engineering
Engineering — A better logs experience with GitHub Actions

A better logs experience with GitHub Actions

It’s now even easier to review logs from your GitHub Actions workflow runs. We’ve introduced several improvements to make the experience more performant, precise, and pleasing to use. Why these…

AMAdrian Mato GondelleAdrian Mato Gondelle·September 23, 2020Engineering