I’ve always been a big fan of ThoughtWorks’s Technology Radar as it succinctly summarizes the technology landscape and helps me discover what I missed. The company recently published a tool to build your radar. While it was first used on technology, I believe it can be used anywhere. So I tried putting a few ideas and technologies that I’ve been tracking on my radar (image below). I found it refreshing to organize my interests using this framework and hope it directs my energy to where I find the most value.

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Software Engineering ⚙️

Scaling the Practice of Architecture, Conversationally

As more teams are organized to be independent and self-sufficient, a way to build a cohesive architecture also needs to change. This article recommends several techniques, some of which I’ve seen at Netflix and Square: decision records, architecture advisory forums, architectural principles, and tech radars.

Apollo Federation Contracts

When the entire GraphQL schema is exposed to a 3rd party, the company risks disclosing unfinished or private features. Apollo Federation Contracts are a mechanism to hide sections of schema based on the consumers’ roles.

Reliability as a Product Feature

This article emphasizes that even when we talk about seemingly engineering-driven qualities like reliability, we need to make sure improving reliability will improve our customers’ lives.

Deno joins TC39

Deno, an alternate Javascript runtime, has joined TC39. This news made the project a bit more credible in my eyes.

Measuring Web Performance at Airbnb

I’ve always been dumbfounded by how difficult it is to measure UI performance. So I am grateful that Airbnb published how they measure their website’s performance.

People ❤️

OSS Simple Sabotage Manual, Sections 11, 12

This declassified document from the Second World War describes several ways an individual can sap an organization’s energy. Most of those behaviors still can be found around us, such as “Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to reopen the question of the advisability of that decision.”

Business 💰

Async, not avatars: Slack’s Stewart Butterfield on the future of work

This quote struck me: “There’s a lot of effort and energy and attention that goes into [physical offices], and relatively little, in most organizations, into the digital side of it, and how we expect people to work together.” Currently, we suffer from constant interruptions when we work digitally, a problem Slack is also part of.

PayPal says ‘buy now, pay later’ volumes surged 400% on Black Friday

Three stories from PayPal’s CEO: first, buy now, pay later services are becoming more popular. Second, PayPal is open to new acquisition opportunities. Third, PayPal is interested in new utilities cryptocurrencies could provide.