Nadeesha Cabral
@segfaulte.bsky.social
Reformed and rehabilitated former CTO from Melbourne, Australia.
I think it's untrue that most startups want the best people working for them. Highly competent people come with opinions, often times conflicting.
Every startup operates on useful fiction. What you want is cohesion.
Every startup operates on useful fiction. What you want is cohesion.
June 21, 2025 at 1:18 AM
I think it's untrue that most startups want the best people working for them. Highly competent people come with opinions, often times conflicting.
Every startup operates on useful fiction. What you want is cohesion.
Every startup operates on useful fiction. What you want is cohesion.
"The first rule of distributed systems"
January 24, 2025 at 8:00 PM
"The first rule of distributed systems"
Unpopular opinion: If you need distributed transactions, you probably designed your system boundaries wrong.
And this is coming from a person who avoids `BEGIN` like the plague.
And this is coming from a person who avoids `BEGIN` like the plague.
January 23, 2025 at 9:00 PM
Unpopular opinion: If you need distributed transactions, you probably designed your system boundaries wrong.
And this is coming from a person who avoids `BEGIN` like the plague.
And this is coming from a person who avoids `BEGIN` like the plague.
Caching in most cases isn't a performance optimization. It's a data consistency problem wearing a performance hat.
January 23, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Caching in most cases isn't a performance optimization. It's a data consistency problem wearing a performance hat.
Unpopular Opinion: Most applications would be better off with strong consistency in a few critical places than eventual consistency everywhere.
January 22, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Unpopular Opinion: Most applications would be better off with strong consistency in a few critical places than eventual consistency everywhere.
Hell is implementing a perfect sharding strategy and then living to see the access patterns change - Jean-Paul Sartre
January 21, 2025 at 9:00 PM
Hell is implementing a perfect sharding strategy and then living to see the access patterns change - Jean-Paul Sartre
Realizing that most 'enterprise' event-driven architectures are just distributed monoliths connected by unreliable message queues
January 21, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Realizing that most 'enterprise' event-driven architectures are just distributed monoliths connected by unreliable message queues
Linearizable consistency is like trying to get everyone in a zoom call to clap at exactly the same time.
January 20, 2025 at 9:00 PM
Linearizable consistency is like trying to get everyone in a zoom call to clap at exactly the same time.
Eventual consistency isn't a bug, it's a feature. Use the force. It can give you both performance and availability when you need it the most.
January 20, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Eventual consistency isn't a bug, it's a feature. Use the force. It can give you both performance and availability when you need it the most.
The reason why test time scaling is a big thing right now is that by far, it's the most affordable means of improving the outcome.
January 7, 2025 at 5:17 AM
The reason why test time scaling is a big thing right now is that by far, it's the most affordable means of improving the outcome.
TIL that node is getting native sqlite. Now we're cooking!
January 5, 2025 at 10:08 PM
TIL that node is getting native sqlite. Now we're cooking!
I don't think there has ever been a more exciting time to be a software engineer than now.
In my >10 YoE, I've never enjoyed building things more than I do now.
And I've never felt more productive.
In my >10 YoE, I've never enjoyed building things more than I do now.
And I've never felt more productive.
January 5, 2025 at 9:08 PM
I don't think there has ever been a more exciting time to be a software engineer than now.
In my >10 YoE, I've never enjoyed building things more than I do now.
And I've never felt more productive.
In my >10 YoE, I've never enjoyed building things more than I do now.
And I've never felt more productive.
I'm not the biggest fan or "LLM as judge" - but it's better than the alternative - which is - do nothing.
In this case, Cursor detected the logical error and fixed it without any explicit inputs from me.
In this case, Cursor detected the logical error and fixed it without any explicit inputs from me.
January 4, 2025 at 9:00 PM
I'm not the biggest fan or "LLM as judge" - but it's better than the alternative - which is - do nothing.
In this case, Cursor detected the logical error and fixed it without any explicit inputs from me.
In this case, Cursor detected the logical error and fixed it without any explicit inputs from me.
I've been trying to wrangle xState (great lib!) to model some state transitions handled by some imperative SQL queries on Postgres.
January 4, 2025 at 7:38 PM
I've been trying to wrangle xState (great lib!) to model some state transitions handled by some imperative SQL queries on Postgres.
bingo.
enshittification of SaaS - right after the covid times are a indirect result of companies having more money than they need, to hire the people that they could do without, to do the things they shouldn't be doing.
enshittification of SaaS - right after the covid times are a indirect result of companies having more money than they need, to hire the people that they could do without, to do the things they shouldn't be doing.
January 3, 2025 at 11:30 PM
bingo.
enshittification of SaaS - right after the covid times are a indirect result of companies having more money than they need, to hire the people that they could do without, to do the things they shouldn't be doing.
enshittification of SaaS - right after the covid times are a indirect result of companies having more money than they need, to hire the people that they could do without, to do the things they shouldn't be doing.
discriminated unions are so underrated. they solve so many problems that programmers are too lazy to handle top of the funnel that obviously turn into 3am incidents given enough volume.
January 2, 2025 at 10:00 PM
discriminated unions are so underrated. they solve so many problems that programmers are too lazy to handle top of the funnel that obviously turn into 3am incidents given enough volume.
i've noticed that a lot of LLMs make this error on the first go. given the bias towards javascript, java, c# vs. *sh, it makes sense.
also, it's the strongest evidence i have for the need of small, fast domain specific LLMs that trump your big clunky ones.
also, it's the strongest evidence i have for the need of small, fast domain specific LLMs that trump your big clunky ones.
January 2, 2025 at 7:21 PM
i've noticed that a lot of LLMs make this error on the first go. given the bias towards javascript, java, c# vs. *sh, it makes sense.
also, it's the strongest evidence i have for the need of small, fast domain specific LLMs that trump your big clunky ones.
also, it's the strongest evidence i have for the need of small, fast domain specific LLMs that trump your big clunky ones.
Hacker News is an immune system in overdrive rn.
I don't necessarily think the hacker news crowd dislikes AI. But I think that crowd definitely has a violent allergic reaction against anything deemed "mostly hype".
I don't necessarily think the hacker news crowd dislikes AI. But I think that crowd definitely has a violent allergic reaction against anything deemed "mostly hype".
December 17, 2024 at 9:00 AM
Hacker News is an immune system in overdrive rn.
I don't necessarily think the hacker news crowd dislikes AI. But I think that crowd definitely has a violent allergic reaction against anything deemed "mostly hype".
I don't necessarily think the hacker news crowd dislikes AI. But I think that crowd definitely has a violent allergic reaction against anything deemed "mostly hype".
Also - a lot of places are bot infested -> some people mistake bots for people -> people mimic people -> people mimic bots.
All the while, bots try to mimic people.
I don't know what to call this. A reverse arms race?
All the while, bots try to mimic people.
I don't know what to call this. A reverse arms race?
I do think a lot of people just genuinely post and reply like bots
December 8, 2024 at 9:03 PM
Also - a lot of places are bot infested -> some people mistake bots for people -> people mimic people -> people mimic bots.
All the while, bots try to mimic people.
I don't know what to call this. A reverse arms race?
All the while, bots try to mimic people.
I don't know what to call this. A reverse arms race?