Reid Burke

  • Sharding & IDs at Instagram (2012)

    Back in 2012, Instagram Engineering wrote about sharding & IDs. I re-read it yesterday and this particular requirement for their ID generation system still stands out:

    The system should introduce as few new ‘moving parts’ as possible—a large part of how we’ve been able to scale Instagram with very few engineers is by choosing simple, easy-to-understand solutions that we trust.

    “Simple, easy-to-understand solutions that we trust.” Their solution skipped fancier alternatives for something that worked. Remember: you’re paid to write code that works.

  • Why Small Choices Count

    Brett & Kate McKay explain why our everyday choices make or break our integrity.

    Once you commit one dishonest act, your moral standards loosen, your self-perception as an honest person gets a little hazier, your ability to rationalize goes up, and your fudge factor margin increases. Where you draw the line between ethical and unethical, honest and dishonest, moves outward. […]

    What this means is that if you want to maintain your integrity, the best thing you can do is to never take that first dishonest step. No matter how small and inconsequential a choice may seem at the time, it may start you down a path that tarnishes your moral compass, leads you to commit more serious misdeeds, and causes you to compromise your fundamental principles.

    On my desk, I have a piece of foundational Lego that sits under my monitor.

    Foundation Lego. Yes, that speck bothers me too, and it's there because my camera is damaged. Done is better than perfect.

    Years ago a friend told me that we cannot simply hope we will be honest and true in big decisions. It’s the private and mundane decisions that prepare us for bigger responsibilities. These everyday choices are the foundation for our big decisions. He gave me and a hundred others a similar Lego piece as a reminder.

    Applying this principle daily has made a big difference in my life.

  • Serve Del Mar: Timelapse

    http://www.vimeo.com/71856107

    I was on gum-removal duty last Saturday (so I’m not in this video), but this is a really cool timelapse of another Serve Del Mar project that renovated the school’s teacher’s lounge. Via Jay Kim.

  • Contempt for humanity?

    There is a very real danger of our drifting into an attitude of contempt for humanity. We know quite well that we have no right to do so, and that it would lead us into the most sterile relation to our fellow-men. […] Nothing that we despise in the other man is entirely absent from ourselves. We often expect from others more than we are willing to do ourselves. […] We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer. The only profitable relationship to others — and especially to our weaker brethren — is one of love, and that means the will to hold fellowship with them. God himself did not despise humanity, but became man for men’s sake. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison (1997), p. 9

  • Medium and Being Your Own Platform

    Marco Arment on Medium:

    Treat places like Medium the way you’d treat writing for someone else’s magazine, for free.

    I think it’s important to own your own domain, publish content there, and even receive email there. But if not, you’re surely helping somebody for nothing.