Feb 13, 2022Comparing Data Solutions on AWS and GCP in 2021 (2022?), part 2I have been putting off writing this. Mostly because I wrote part 1 shortly after passing the AWS/GCP Data Engineer/Data Analytics certifications, where I noted that “I expect this to be outdated really soon”. Sure enough, AWS:reinvent 2021 rolled around, and brought a host of new things to the fore. …Database5 min readDatabase5 min read
Jan 5, 2022The Single Best Indicator of Software Quality Is Automated TestingIn my hometown of Penang, near where I lived south of the Penang bridge, lay a Free Industrial Zone, home to factories like Intel, Broadcom, Kingston, Western Digital, Jabil, and many others. When I was fresh out of high school about to choose a degree to enroll in at university…Architecture5 min readArchitecture5 min read
Nov 18, 2021Comparing Data Solutions on AWS and GCP in 2021, part 1I passed both the AWS Data Analytics Specialty and GCP Data Engineer Professional certifications recently, and have held both AWS/GCP Professional Architect certs as well. Choosing between cloud providers is an important task, with their data capabilities often being a critical factor, so I wanted to jot down my thoughts…Google Cloud Platform10 min readGoogle Cloud Platform10 min read
May 26, 2021How I would have designed the JKJAVMY AstraZeneca appointment databaseThe third round of registration in Malaysia for the AstraZeneca vaccine closed leaving many (including myself and loved ones) in frustration because the system was (again) unable to handle the load — “frustration” a bit understated here given how Malaysia is now leading the world in Covid cases per million. …Astrazeneca4 min readAstrazeneca4 min read
Jan 24, 2021My latest project — Periuk.my, a content site with near-zero costs and near-100% PageSpeed: Part 2In part 1 I wrote about the challenge of minimizing costs for content websites, in this piece I focus on maximizing performance. Frontend development is a curious beast. Much has been said of the proliferation of Javascript libraries and frameworks — my favourite quip (I can’t remember the source) being…Core Web Vitals6 min readCore Web Vitals6 min read
Jan 23, 2021My latest project — Periuk.my, a content site with near-zero costs and near-100% PageSpeed: Part 1When some friends approached me recently to build a new site, I thought it would be a good chance to try out some development techniques that I had been itching to validate. After working off and on over the past couple months and in overdrive over the new year holidays…Gatsbyjs5 min readGatsbyjs5 min read
Aug 24, 2019Docker on Google Compute Engine: the easiest way to deploy a Gitlab runnerGitlab CE is one of the best options available today for self-hosting Git, and one of its best features is Gitlab CI, its continuous integration service. Gitlab CI works off decentralized runners. …Docker6 min readDocker6 min read
Oct 20, 2018Why all developers should know Array.reduce()Instead of just for loops — Frontend Malaysia recently highlighted a post titled You don’t need Array.reduce() which attracted some minor controversy. The author tries to argue that Array.reduce() is always better simplified using simple for loops. In the example he cited, a dataset of trips needed to be summed up, with the result being the…Functional Programming6 min readFunctional Programming6 min read
Sep 19, 20187 Things I Learnt From Building Pulangmengundi.comBehind the scenes at carpool.pulangmengundi.com — In the run-up to the 14th General Elections, I was part of pulangmengundi.com, an initiative created for Malaysians helping Malaysians home to vote. …Web Development7 min readWeb Development7 min read
May 25, 2018Enterprise-Ready Laravel with OpenshiftThis post was written for the Laravel Blog Contest , see the entries here and vote if you find this interesting! For small projects, pretty much anything will do to host Laravel. For larger organizations or complex apps spanning multiple services, these problems become common: How do you provision clusters…Docker8 min readDocker8 min read
