Welcome to the first issue of TL;DR Weekly - your weekly dose of tech insights.
In each issue we’ll share a curated blend of latest tech news and revisit timeless classics from blogs, talks and books. Presenting it all in a clear and concise format - key points and why we care about them.
Blog Spotlight - Taxonomy of Tech Debt
Opening blog spotlight is Riot Engineering with their article on Tech Debt.
Tech debt is code or data that future developers will pay a cost for. But not all tech debt is created equal. When deciding what tech debt to fix and when (if ever), Riot Engineering are using three metrics:
Impact - user-facing issues (bugs, missing features, unexpected behavior) and developer-facing issues (slower implementation, workflow issues, random useless things to remember)
Fix cost - what is the time and the risk of fixing the issue
Contagion - if this tech debt is allowed to continue to exist, how much will it spread?
The first two metrics are commonly considered, while contagion is most often neglected. The main takeaway of this article - always think whether your tech debt will spread. A well-contained tech debt will maintain a consistent fix cost over time, whereas a contagious tech debt could escalate in complexity and impact, making it progressively challenging to address.
News Highlights
1. Node.js 21 is now available!
Node.js 21 to replace Node.js 20 as the ‘Current’ release line later this month.
Highlights include fetch
and WebStreams
being promoted from experimental to stable, a new experimental flag to flip module defaults, a built-in WebSocket client and more.
2. Layoffs still rocking the tech industry
Tech layoffs are continuing as we go into the second half of October, with some notable mentions:
LinkedIn cuts 668 jobs (3%), following 716 layoffs in May
Stack Overflow lays off over 100 people (28%) as the AI coding boom continues
Profitability has now taken centre stage, becoming the new priority, overtaking growth and market dominance, which were once considered the ultimate objectives.
Is this the conclusion of the Unicorn era and the beginning of the Camel era?
3. Microsoft closes $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard
UK regulators have cleared the way for Microsoft to complete its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, one of the biggest such deals in decades.
This marks another milestone in the Great Consolidation of the Video Game Industry.
The industry seems to be moving from the more classic, IP-centric acquisitions to a more complex agenda, ranging from platform plays to community building and metaverse investments.
Wherever the road leads, it seems to be a win-win situation for both the fans of gaming and people working in the industry, as the money continues to poor into the gaming space.
4. X to start charging new users $1 per year in two countries
X, previously known as Twitter, to introduce a $1 annual subscription fee for new users in New Zealand and the Philippines joining via its website. This move, part of the "Not A Bot" program, aims to curb spam, manipulation and bot activity on the platform. New users from these countries will also need to verify their accounts with a phone number and those opting out of the subscription will have "read only" access.
Regardless of the reasoning, this marks the first instance of a major social network introducing a usage fee for their product. If this experiment proves successful, will we see a similar move from Meta?
Sustainable Engineering Series: #1 Instagram
In the market still being shaken by waves of layoffs, sustainable engineering is emerging as a theme to replace blitzscaling and excessive growth. To help build awareness, we are starting our first issue with a mini-series about small teams that managed to achieve great things. We’ll delve into their motivation to stay small and the key factors which contributed to their success.
First in the series is Instagram and how they’ve scaled to 14M users with just 3 engineers.
Instagram rapidly grew from 0 to 14 million users between October 2010 and December 2011 with a lean team of three engineers and a strategic tech stack. What allowed them to get to this significant milestone and stay small was adhering to these core principles:
Keep things very simple
Don’t re-invent the wheel
Use proven, solid technologies when possible
This involved keeping the user journey as minimal as possible - starting from the mobile app, jumping straight into the feed and keeping overall features to a minimum.
When it came to their tech stack - they kept onto technologies which where tested and true: AWS, PostgreSQL, nginx, Redis. Choosing cloud over on-premise (remember it was 2010), because they did not have capacity to maintain the infrastructure themselves. And even sticking with a previous Ubuntu Linux version, which by then was stable and predictable.
Instagram’s remarkable growth trajectory is just the first example, which illustrates that a lean, focused team of engineers, armed with clear principles and effective tools, can successfully manage and scale a world-class digital product. Keep posted for more.
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