bytes.zone

đź‘‹ Hey there!

I'm Brian Hicks, a programmer and author from St. Louis, MO. You've found my site!

latest post: platform engineers work on the meta-product

In what is platform engineering?, I gave this definition:

Platform engineering, as a discipline, takes a coherent approach to improving an engineering organization's output in ways that the rest of the business can see and understand.

I've had some thoughts and discussions since then, though, and I think that definition needs revising. Specifically, I tried to be very clear in the last post that I didn't think platform engineering could/should be gatekept. Problem is, that previous definition has some scoping issues—mostly around vagueness—that could work against that goal.

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currently: Local-First From Scratch

I'm working on a book about writing local-first software. Instead of doing a survey of all the libraries available, I'm taking a first principles approach. That means doing a lot of explaining CRDTs, syncing, and the like, but I'm having a ton of fun with it so far.

As of late December 2024, I have the introduction and first chapter done, and I'm working on the implementation that will end up being built up throughout the book. I hope to be at the place where beta readers can look at the book early in 2025!

This and 16 other projects →

latest micropost: LFFS: Simplicity vs Efficiency

I knew it was gonna happen, just knew it: I finally hit the first part of writing the book where I have to make a choice between something being easy to describe and understand up front vs long-term efficiency or flexibility.

Let me explain.

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Made with Love in St. Louis, MO. Have a wonderful day! ❤️