Welcome to my blog! I hope you find it interesting :)

• Embracing Matrix and Element as a replacement of WhatsApp

  Posted on December 6, 2024

  Some months ago I started walking my path towards replacing all proprietary software with free, open-source software. Some of my older posts cover how I embraced Jekyll to get rid of Medium, and how I stopped using GitHub in favor of Gitea. Those projects were fun, but I still had... [Read More]

  Tags:

  • SelfHosting
  • Element
  • Matrix
  • ntfy
  • FOSS

• Some thoughts about software development, TDD, and refactoring

  Posted on June 24, 2024

  In this blog post I will try to explain some ideas that I try to keep in mind when I am maintaining any piece of software. By no means I am a coding guru, but I have noticed that the quality of my code deliverables increases when I follow certain... [Read More]

  Tags:

  • Refactoring
  • Software engineering
  • Software development
  • TDD

• Replaced GitHub with Gitea

  Posted on June 16, 2024

  Some months ago I made a list of proprietary software I wanted to get rid of. I easily replaced some and wrote an article specifically on that topic. However, I found it hard to stop using tools that had been part of my day-to-day for too many years. [Read More]

  Tags:

  • GitHub
  • Gitea
  • SelfHosting
  • FOSS

• Bye bye Medium, welcome Jekyll

  Posted on March 18, 2024

  

  

  The activity of this blog has been significantly reduced over the past months. Not because I was not learning anything new, but because the topic I was discovering was so broad I needed some time to digest and make a 180-degree turn on some technical aspects of my life. [Read More]

  Tags:

  • Open source
  • Privacy
  • Nextcloud
  • Graphene OS
  • Jekyll

• Keep model attributes in sync using Rails and Postgres

  Posted on December 23, 2023

  

  

  In this article I explain how I built a gem that facilitates the synchronization of columns between different models, facilitating certain database maintenance processes and improving data consistency in denormalized databases. [Read More]

  Tags:

  • Postgres
  • Rails
  • Ruby
  • Database
  • Consistency

• Defining aggregated attributes with ActiveRecord

  Posted on October 7, 2023

  

  

  ActiveRecord is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful tools bundled with Rails. Dealing with ruby objects and collections instead of plain rows and SQL queries is very convenient in most cases. The query interface is just wonderful. However, we sometimes find a conflict between what we would like... [Read More]

  Tags:

  • ActiveRecord
  • Postgres
  • Rails
  • Ruby
  • Performance

• An experimental approach to table partitioning in Postgres

  Posted on October 1, 2023

  

  

  Table partitioning is a database optimization technique that involves dividing a large database table into smaller, more manageable segments or partitions based on predefined criteria, such as a range of values in a specific column (e.g., dates or numerical ranges). Each partition is essentially a separate sub-table with its own... [Read More]

  Tags:

  • Postgres
  • Partition
  • Database
  • Performance
  • Database administration

• Adding null constraints to columns — the safe way

  Posted on September 13, 2023

  

  

  In today’s article, I’d like to cover a fairly common situation in relational database design. Yep, we are talking about columns that should have been marked as NOT NULL, but they were not. [Read More]

  Tags:

  • Postgres
  • Rails
  • Maintenance
  • Migration
  • Performance

• It’s not too late to use polymorphic associations

  Posted on September 1, 2023

  

  

  Oftentimes, we make bad decisions while developing software. Depending on the nature, the cost of reverting these decisions may not be affordable, and you will have to live with that forever. [Read More]

  Tags:

  • Rails
  • ActiveRecord
  • Postgres
  • UUID
  • Polymorphic association

• Migrating integer primary keys to UUIDs using Rails + Postgres

  Posted on July 22, 2023

  

  

  TL; DR. It is now possible to easily migrate integer primary keys to UUIDs. The full story is interesting, though 😉. [Read More]

  Tags:

  • Ruby
  • UUID
  • Postgres
  • Migration
  • Rails

• Dealing with parallelism and ActiveRecord connections

  Posted on July 17, 2023

  

  

  Some years ago, I was working on a Rails application that made multiple HTTP requests to a third party in one of its use cases. The initial implementation can be drafted with the following pseudo-code: [Read More]

  Tags:

  • Concurrency
  • Rails
  • ActiveRecord
  • Ruby
  • Databases

• Stop using VARCHAR to store UUIDs

  Posted on July 11, 2023

  

  

  UUIDs are 128-bit labels that usually become an alternative to serial IDs for identifying resources. Since the risk of generating duplicated UUIDs is negligible and their generation does not require a centralized authority, their use is widespread in distributed systems. [Read More]

  Tags:

  • Postgres
  • Database
  • Performance
  • UUID

• My path toward contributing to Ruby

  Posted on July 5, 2023

  

  

  I’d like to introduce the first article in this blog by sharing a personal experience. [Read More]

  Tags:

  • Ruby
  • Personal development
  • Community