31 Aug 2026
Do Database Migrations Always Require Downtime?
Sometimes you need zero downtime migrations. Sometimes a simple maintenance window is completely fine.
6 min · Databases · Migrations · Backend
notebook / writing
Notes to myself, published
I write these to find out what I actually think about something. Deep dives when I have built the thing, shorter notes when I have only just understood it.
02 pieces · 16 min total · Databases · Migrations · Backend
19 Apr 2026
i read the kafka paper, then rebuilt it badly
A month of reimplementing Kafka's log layer from the design paper, and the storage engine I had to rewrite three times because I skipped the parts I didn't understand.
10 min · Distributed Systems · Storage · Go · Java