The Link List

February 2026

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 00:00:00 -0600

This newsletter is a place of no judgment. The title says February, my calendar says February, let’s just conveniently ignore the 27th part. There’s still plenty of time for a buzzer-beater collection of links. After this, I might as well start working on March right away. Sometimes, life gets busy. Let’s dive into some links.

1. Perl’s decline was cultural (26 minutes)

A longer read, but if you enjoy getting a behind-the-scenes perspective, I highly recommend it. Colin Strickland talks about Perl’s cultural conservatism and how it drove internal fractures within the community. A culture that encouraged telling newcomers to “RTFM” or tolerated abrasive behaviours that were “technically right”. If you’ve spent a significant amount of time in tech, you’ve no doubt come across these attitudes before. Reading this makes me more thankful than ever for Python’s approach to community.

January 2026

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 00:00:00 -0600

It’s January, and that means we can all post our brand new resolutions! I’ll go first, don’t be late posting my newsletters. Whoops! Well, at least that’s one less thing to worry about, fail fast they say! Let’s dive into some links.

1. Frameworks for Understanding Databases(12 minutes)

Before working at Parse.ly, my entire universe revolved around Relational Databases. It wasn’t until I had to deal with Big Data™ that I started to understand the requirements for different databases. In this post, Almog Gavra gives a quick whirlwind tour of useful frameworks for thinking about databases. Extremely valuable to anyone trying to grok the high-level tradeoffs between each one. He also recommends Designing Data-Intensive Applications, which I also agree with. If you are interested in learning more about this field, it is the canonical source.

December 2025

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0600

It’s December, and Christmas is almost here! I can finally unlock the cozy section of my wardrobe and bask in the glory of oversized sweaters. Time for the annual viewing of Elf and a good helping of eggnog. Let’s see what Santa has in his big bag of links:

1. PX: from laptop to cloud cluster within seconds (15 minutes)

What’s the use of having a newsletter if you can’t do a little self-promotion from time to time? I’m excited to share the tool I’ve been working on with Andrew Montalenti and Nelson Monseratte: PX. Instead of trying to explain it here, I’ll let Andrew’s launch post do the talking. If you enjoy tooling that turns working local code into live production reality, this one’s for you.

November 2025

Fri, 07 Nov 2025 00:00:00 -0600

Today, the first signs of winter are falling from the sky. We can’t avoid winter forever, although it was pleasant that it showed up after halloween. Also very fortunate that I changed my winter tires earlier this week. Maybe I jinxed this whole thing by putting them on. Anyways, let’s jump into some links.

1. Let’s Build A Web Server. Part 2. (20 minutes)

Have you ever wondered what happens under the hood of a WSGI server? WSGI is the glue that makes your python web framework available to the web. Ruslan Spivak walks us through what is all involved with pictures and code examples. It’s easy to take the tech we use daily for granted. Sometimes it’s fun to pull back the sheet and see what’s lurking underneath.

October 2025

Wed, 08 Oct 2025 00:00:00 -0600

Hope everyone out there is having a fun and spooky October. I’m enjoying the cool weather, but could do without the sun glaring in my eyes. Soon enough, I’ll be complaining how it feels like there is never any sun. It’s a never-ending cycle here in the Great White North. Let’s jump into some links.

1. Optimizing Django Docker Builds with Astral’s uv (12 minutes)

Astral’s uv tool is great for making life as a Python developer a little less painful. It’s also great at making development with Docker take less time. Rob Hudson talks about some of the ways you can better utilized uv in your Docker setup. Being able to separate out dev/prod dependencies is so nice for slimming down image sizes. I was also intrigued by his use of caching between builds. I’ll have to borrow a few of these ideas.

September 2025

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0600

Welcome to September’s wrangle of links I find interesting. The cool chill in the air has unlocked the sweater portion of my wardrobe, and I couldn’t be happier. It does get annoying having to switch out halfway through the day when it gets too hot. But I do enjoy Pumpkin Spice on all the things, so many mixed emotions. Anyways, let’s jump into some links.

1. How to Be Great? Just Be Good, Repeatably (20 minutes)

August 2025

Wed, 06 Aug 2025 00:00:00 -0600

August is here and so is another exciting digest of links that made my brain tick. The summer is nearing on it’s second half but I was able to get some time in visiting family near Climax, Saskatchewan. Where the people are few, the skies are grand, and the slogan “Please Come Again” is painting on the sign as you leave town. But enough about that, let’s talk about some links.

July 2025

Sat, 05 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0600

It’s already July and the summer is flying. Thankfully the weather has been nice and the sunburns minimal. Tonight is cool enough to warrant wearing a flannel. But enough about the weather, let’s talk software.

1. Kind Engineering (14 minutes)

This is a website by Evan Smith based on a previous talk. I’ve been lucky enough to have spent time on a team that prioritized these suggestions and it was a game changer. Trust is the foundation of high performing team, and trust grows with kindness. Want people to tell you when things are going wrong? Better work on your Psychological Safety.

June 2025

Tue, 03 Jun 2025 00:00:00 -0600

It’s Juuuuuuune! Another round of hot links fresh of the press. We’ve got complexity, we’ve got focusing on what matters, what more could you ask for? Let’s Go!

1. Carving The Scheduler Out Of Our Orchestrator (26 minutes)

This blog post details how fly.io transitioned from using Hashicorp’s Nomad scheduler to their own. I’m a huge fan of Nomad so it’s interesting to read on where it falls short. Nomad’s centralized scheduling approach was not something I would have anticipated creating so many issues. Good engineering practice says it’s good to avoid re-inventing the wheel. But if it’s a problem core to the business, it makes sense to invest your focus there. See link 6 about choosing boring technology.

May 2025

Sun, 04 May 2025 00:00:00 -0600

May the fourth be with you. And if you are wondering, yes, I waited until today to make that joke. If you don’t like Star Wars, that’s ok! None of the following links will contain any more references.

1. Done, and Gets Things Smart (20 minutes)

This is one of my favorites from Steve. It’s not a quick read, but I think it’s a good one for engineers looking to make an impact. He critiques the hiring mantra “Smart and Gets Things Done” and instead pushes for “Done, and Gets Things Smart”. The idea is that you want engineers who can get things done and then evolve the system. He then talks about how crucial these engineers are to the success of a company.

April 2025

Sat, 05 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0600

It’s April and the Easter bunny has come early with a basket full of links. The bunny has also brought warm weather which means I can start going for bike rides again. Let’s check out some fun links.

1. The Tyranny of Stuctureless (23 minutes)

Have you ever wondered what the downside to having a flat organization is? Well, wonder no more! I’ve read this one a couple of times but it never fails to hold my interest. The article is even cited under “Criticisms” on the Wikipedia page for Flat Organization. I see some overlap with one of last month’s links, Embrace Complexity, talking about nominal vs emergent structures. Some interesting quotes:

March 2025

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 00:00:00 -0600

It is March! That means another exciting roundup of all the things I think are neat. Let’s go.

1. Collection of insane and fun facts about SQLite (5 minutes)

Did you know SQLite is the most deployed and most used database? That three people maintain it? Or, that it’s so fast it competes with fopen. This article reshaped my expectations of SQLite and what it’s capable of. It’s also interesting when paired with the work fly.io is doing on LiteFS (a FUSE file system that replicates SQLite transactions over a network). SQLite is not the little toy database engine I mistook it for.

February 2025

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 00:00:00 -0600

Welcome to the inaugural edition of thelinklist.dev’s first email. I’ve rounded up some thought-provoking, inspiring, and entertaining links that I hope you’ll enjoy. Let’s dive in!

1. Lessons Learned From Payments Startups

The lessons here aren’t specific to payment startups, they appeal to a much broader audience. He talks about optimizing for change, comprehensive testing and continuous deployment to help maintain simplicity. The section on decision logs is something I’m considering how to better implement in my daily work.