The Road Unmapped: Why Aspiring Full-Stack Engineers Should Forge Their Own Path

The siren song of the full-stack developer beckons many, promising versatility, independence, and mastery of the digital landscape. These well-intentioned roadmaps, while offering a comforting illusion of certainty and efficiency, risk obscuring the true essence of full-stack mastery and leaving aspiring engineers feeling overwhelmed and uninspi... Read more 23 Jan 2024 by Alan Tai

How not to host your React app on a supercomputer

Downsizing your cloud service like a savvy Brit

Right, kettle on, crumpets in the toaster, a client with a static React app as basic as a cuppa. Just HTML, CSS, and enough JavaScript to animate a loading spinner. Yet, somehow, they are convinced to deploy this digital daisy to the world of Kubernetes cluster with enough power to launch a SpaceX rocket… yep, just another day in the life of a b... Read more 12 Jan 2024 by Alan Tai

Create your own personal VPN with Tailscale on AWS using Terraform

Introduction In today’s digital age, where our online activities are constantly being tracked and monitored, it is more important than ever to take steps to protect our privacy and security. One of the most effective ways to do this is to use a personal VPN. A VPN, or virtual private network, is an invaluable tool for protecting your online act... Read more 15 Nov 2023 by Alan Tai

Are you getting the Test Pyramid wrong?

The Test Pyramid has been and is still a popular “go-to” testing strategy since Mike Cohn introduced it in his book Succeeding with Agile in 2009. It emphasises the importance of writing a large number of unit tests, a smaller number of integration tests, and an even smaller number of end-to-end tests. The Test Pyramid is a great idea, and many ... Read more 19 Oct 2023 by Alan Tai

84% of all integration projects failed. This is what I did to integrate unknown systems and avoided common problems.

IT projects often cost more, take a longer time, and have fewer benefits than planned. According to some studies (Forbes 2016; BCG 2020), as many as 70-84% of all digital transformation efforts ended in partial or total failure. Research has shown that large projects having a large amount of information that requires integration have a failure r... Read more 30 Aug 2022 by Alan Tai