I will be in Korea for 6 weeks after Thanksgiving. I will be so bored without my gaming PC, so I am giving a go at Microsoft’s XBOX Game Streaming and ordered a Bluetooth enabled controller. It is mindblowing that I can play triple-A titles like Witcher 3 and Fifa 20 on my tiny Pixel 3, not to mention that my game saves will be synced across devices. All I need now is this one controller.

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Software Engineering ⚙️

How Netflix Scales its API with GraphQL Federation (Part 1) – Netflix

My close colleagues published my org’s journey into GraphQL Federation. I’ve worked on paving the path for UI engineers to adopt the new federated graph and building the right schema that will stand the test of time. I liked that the article gives a thorough context on why we decided to build the federated graph.

Operator Lookup – Josh Comeau

I always had a hard time remembering names like “Nullish Coalescing” (which is ??). This simple site makes it easy to find the names.

Systematically removing code – Henrik Nyh

While static type checking and tools like ts-prune help, I still need to remove code manually daily. I learned to be methodical like this article so that I don’t have to rush a CSS hotfix.

Small Copy, Big Impact – Allen Pike

Since our designers are time-constrained, a lot of the copy work falls onto the engineers. That led to inconsiderate success messages like “Success” or incorrect error messages. I will at least keep this in mind:

Are there verbs that could be more thoughtfully named? Is there any generic “Continue” or “OK” buttons that could be clearer or more compelling?

People ❤️

Kill Your Heroes, Stop Doing it Harder – Will Larson

“Projects fail slowly, fixing them takes time too.” struck me. A broken system that forces people to work in a crunch will repeatedly do so. There won’t be an overnight fix, an individual heroic act saving the day. We have to fix the process.

Business 💸

Apple Silicon M1 Chip in MacBook Air Outperforms High-End 16-Inch MacBook Pro – MacRumors

The highly anticipated MacBook Air will become available tomorrow. Intel’s fall and the rises of Apple and TSMC are clear in these benchmarks where the low-end Air with M1 beats the previous high-end devices with Intel chips.

Why IPOs, Direct Listings, and SPACs Will Flourish in Startupland – Tomasz Tunguz

A short analysis of why there have been many tech IPOs despite the uncertainty. tl;dr:

raising capital in the public markets is now less expensive than in the private markets.