Tests as Institutional Memory
Integration tests aren't just a good practice, they're fundamental to retaining fragile knowledge.
Reverse-Engineering Legacy Search with Integration Tests
How I used integration tests to document and understand an OpenSearch query system nobody could explain -- and caught a breaking change within a week.
The Data Race Hiding Behind Correct Atomics
The metrics system used atomic.Pointer and atomic.AddUint64 everywhere -- except for one bare int index in a circular buffer. A textbook data race hiding in plain sight.
The Boring Deploy: make deploy, systemd, and Nothing Else
A deployment process that fits in a Makefile -- build Tailwind, compile Go, scp the binary, restart systemd. No containers, no CI pipeline, no Kubernetes.
File-Based Blog System with Hot Reload
How dropping a markdown file into a directory makes it live in seconds -- file discovery, frontmatter parsing, and why RWMutex is the right primitive here when atomic.Pointer was the right one for metrics.
Building This Site: Go, HTMX, and Zero JavaScript Frameworks
The technical decisions behind a personal site built with Go, Chi, HTMX, and Tailwind -- and why I skipped React entirely.