The hottest Substack posts of engineercodex

And their main takeaways

How Fireship became YouTube's favorite programmer

635 implied HN points • 09 Oct 24
🕹 Technology Software Education Media Trends Content creation
  1. Fireship's videos are short and fast-paced. This keeps viewers engaged and encourages them to watch more.
  2. He uses humor to make learning fun. His jokes and memes help explain complex topics in a way that's easy to understand.
  3. Fireship combines trending topics with timeless content. This strategy helps him attract a lot of views both right away and over time.

7 simple habits of the top 1% of engineers

5437 implied HN points • 11 Sep 23
  1. Code for humans, not just computers.
  2. Be unattached to your code; don't fear starting over for a better result.
  3. Use consistent coding standards and write simple, clean code.

How Apple built iCloud to store billions of databases

1865 implied HN points • 14 Jan 24
  1. Apple uses FoundationDB and Cassandra for their CloudKit service, storing billions of databases with extreme multi-tenancy
  2. Lessons learned include using asynchronous processing, stateless architecture, logical resource isolation, and simple scalability for diverse needs
  3. FoundationDB helped Apple overcome scalability limitations encountered with Cassandra, solving issues like high-concurrency zones, latency queries, and conflicting transactions

How Google takes the pain out of code reviews, with 97% dev satisfaction

2361 implied HN points • 04 Dec 23
  1. Google's Critique code review tool has high satisfaction among Google software engineers.
  2. Google's code review guidelines prioritize continuous improvement over perfection and professionalism.
  3. Critique's AI-powered tools and tight integration with Google's workflow make it a standout choice for developers.

How Instagram scaled to 14 million users with only 3 engineers

2698 implied HN points • 15 Sep 23
  1. Instagram scaled from 0 to 14 million users in just over a year with only 3 engineers.
  2. They followed key principles like keeping things simple and using proven technologies.
  3. Their tech stack included AWS, EC2, Django, Postgres, Redis, and Memcached for efficient operations.
Get a weekly roundup of the best Substack posts, by hacker news affinity:

How to burnout a software engineer, in 3 easy steps

1865 implied HN points • 16 Oct 23
  1. Micromanaging engineers can lead to burnout.
  2. Introducing unnecessary processes can waste time and increase frustration.
  3. Not shipping code to customers can cause engineers to feel their work doesn't matter.

The most valuable trait of top software engineers

1369 implied HN points • 27 Oct 23
  1. Being product-minded makes you an extremely valuable engineer.
  2. In product engineering, user experience and feedback are prioritized.
  3. Great engineers can balance being tech-oriented and product-focused.

How one line of code caused a $60 million loss

1170 implied HN points • 13 Nov 23
  1. One line of code caused a $60 million loss at AT&T
  2. A coding error in a software update led to data overwrites and system resets
  3. Engineers took 9 hours to fix the system by rolling back to a previous code version

How Pinterest scaled to 11 million users with only 6 engineers

1349 implied HN points • 02 Oct 23
  1. Use known, proven technologies to avoid issues like data corruption.
  2. Simplify your architecture and avoid getting too creative.
  3. Consider sharding databases over clustering for reduced data transfer and simpler scalability.

Clever code is probably the worst code you could write

1012 implied HN points • 20 Nov 23
  1. Clever code may not be the best approach in programming.
  2. Writing clear and readable code is actually a challenging task.
  3. Great code is often clear, readable, and well-structured.

Meta reveals their serverless platform processing trillions of function calls a day

932 implied HN points • 22 Oct 23
  1. Meta's XFaaS platform processes trillions of function calls daily, claiming to be more efficient than other major serverless options.
  2. XFaaS aims to optimize hardware usage to enhance serverless performance and utilizes unique strategies like delaying less time-critical functions.
  3. XFaaS focuses on load efficiency and global load balancing to improve CPU utilization, operating with unique optimizations like running multiple functions in the same process.

10 lessons from successful one-person startups

932 implied HN points • 28 Sep 23
  1. There's a growing niche of full-time software engineers with side hustles and indie hackers
  2. Successful indie hackers focus on shipping fast, marketing well, and persisting through failure
  3. Side hustles allow software engineers to balance stability and income of a full-time job with entrepreneurship

How Google writes clean, maintainable code

813 implied HN points • 06 Oct 23
  1. Google uses a readability process called Readability to ensure clean code.
  2. Readable code follows best practices and style guides for the programming language.
  3. Google's readability process has benefits like keeping code understandable, enforcing best practices, and promoting mentorship.

How Airbnb Scaled by Moving Away from a Monolith

654 implied HN points • 11 Oct 23
  1. Undoing work is normal, stay detached from it
  2. Splitting out services allows teams to move at different speeds
  3. Make the move to new architecture when necessary

3 predictions on the future of software after AI

476 implied HN points • 28 Nov 23
  1. A multi-model strategy is becoming necessary in software after AI.
  2. There is a growing need for AI-specific infrastructure and tooling.
  3. Abstraction layers like LLMs are creating more work, not less, in software development.

How Facebook created the largest Memcached system in the world

535 implied HN points • 25 Sep 23
  1. Facebook efficiently handled billions of requests per second by scaling their Memcached system
  2. They focused on simplicity and prioritized uptime and availability in their architecture
  3. Facebook contributed to the research community and embraced open source culture

4 lessons from small teams that ship fast

436 implied HN points • 18 Sep 23
  1. Small teams in software engineering can generate significant value and impact a large number of users
  2. Examples of small teams like OpenAI, Bun, and Meta's Threads demonstrate fast shipping with limited resources
  3. Lessons for fast shipping include keeping things simple, reusing code liberally, and building upon the work of others