John Henry at the Keyboard
_Part 3 of 3: Reflections on 30 Years in Technology_ _Part 1: The Short Bus and the Fairway | Part 2: The Fear of Being Included_
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Software engineering blog covering serverless, Rust, Go, AWS CDK, and cloud architecture by Benjamen Pyle
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The Fear of Being Included
Introversion in tech is far more nuanced than antisocial stereotypes suggest, and online community can extend real life rather than replace it.
The Short Bus and the Fairway
Thirty years in technology taught me that resilience, mentorship, and an analytical mindset matter far more than mastering any single technical skill.
Master Dapr Microservices: Ultimate Guide to Dapr, Kubernetes, and OpenTelemetry Tracing
Adaptability is a critical characteristic of software systems that developers and architects constantly strive to achieve. However, it's a delicate balance between productivity, performance, maintaina
Linkerd Service Mesh on AWS EKS
I've been writing for a while now on setting up Kubernetes specifically with AWS' EKS. I love how EKS gives me the flexibility to install the standard and custom Kubernetes resources that I need and w
KEDA to build Event-Driven Applications on EKS
Event-driven applications aren't new, but the patterns and discussion in the context of the cloud are hard to miss these days. It's hard to argue with the patterns and practices because with events, I
Establishing Datadog on Kubernetes with EKS
Over the past few years I've spent a great deal of time writing and building with Datadog. I find that their platform gives me as a builder the right insight and tools to diagnose things quickly, make
Building an API Gateway with Istio and EKS
Working with Kubernetes opens a world of possibilities in a software project. That's one of its biggest appeals to me as a developer. And when building with distributed systems, one of the components
4 Benefits to using a Service Mesh
I've been spending a great deal of time lately working with Service Meshes and after having a few of the same conversations over and over (in a good way), I wanted to codify some of the reasons why th
Complete Helm Tutorial: Kubernetes Package Management Guide
Clicks, copies, and pasting. That's an approach to deploying your applications in Kubernetes. Anyone who's worked with Kubernetes for more than 5 minutes knows that this is not a recipe for repeatabil
Connecting Rust Lambda Functions with OpenTelemetry and Datadog
Tracing Lambda Functions with observability code is the basement level of instrumentation that should exist when writing Serverless Applications. So many times, even in Lambda Functions, there are tim
Momento Token Vending Machine with Rust, Lambda, and Datadog
Working with browser hosted code (UI) requires a developer to be cautious about exposing secrets and tokens. A less than trustworthy person could take these secrets and do things that the user doesn't
Stepping Out, 1 Year Later
Career independence after one year of leaving a CTO role, with lessons on family, sales pipeline, finances, and building a consulting business.
DSQL Part 2 - More Rust and a Momento Cache
**UPDATE: I had a missing index on my DSQL table. If you read the article before, please go back and check the metrics and graphs**
AWS DSQL Tutorial: Serverless SQL Database with Lambda and Rust
Serverless developers that use Lambda as their compute of choice have long had to make a trade-off in AWS when it comes to storing their application data. Do I use a purely serverless database in Dyna
Orchestrating a Serverless API Workflow with Kestra
Kestra workflow orchestration demonstrated with AWS Lambda and DynamoDB, covering HTTP tasks, database queries, and the control plane interface.
Quit Tomorrow - Navigating Struggles in a Tech Career
So you finished that degree, boot camp, or course work and are ready to enter the workforce. It's the day you've dreamed of for years or perhaps just the day you hoped for as you transition roles in y
Evaluating 2 Popular Service Meshes
The decision to add a Service Mesh to an application comes down to how your application communicates between itself. If for instance your design is heavily asynchronous and relies on events and me
Datadog RUM Provides Deep Application Insights
Observability is a user experience concern. Let that sync in for a minute. When you reach a certain amount of scale, it's not practical for a developer to take feedback from each and every user and th
Taking Local K8s for a Spin with Minikube and ArgoCD
In the beginning there were punched cards. And since that beginning, technologists have continued to find better and better ways to deploy code to bring end user value. And as those new techniques hav
Build the Perfect Compliment to DynamoDB with Typesense
A modern web application can take many shapes and forms from an architecture and design standpoint. With the launch of AWS Lambda in 2014, the cloud vendor thrust the capabilities of Serverless into a
Powerful Visibility with Rust, Lambda, Datadog, and OpenTelemetry
As much as I love Rust and especially Rust on serverless, it would be hard for me to recommend Rust and Lambda to a company without a plan for Observability. I've written about this topic before and t
3 Proven Steps to Becoming a Mentor
I talk to my kids about this all the time. The difference between influence and manipulation that is. It's a subtle distinction but something that makes all the difference when creating content that i
ServiceConnect with CDK builds Strong Service Affinity
Containers are a fantastic way to package up your application code and its dependencies. I'm on the record as a huge fan and probably write more production code in containers than I do with Lambda Fun
Strong Performance with EC2, Lambda, and the Momento SDK for Rust
Momento SDK for Rust delivers 2ms topic latency on EC2 and near-instant webhooks on Lambda, proving serverless caching performs at any scale.
My Flow and Productivity has Improved with the Simplicity of Neovim
Neovim setup with LazyVim, tmux, and Wezterm creates a simplified terminal workflow that boosts developer flow and productivity for daily coding.
Mind Boggling Speed when Caching with Momento and Rust
Summer is here and in the northern hemisphere, temperatures are heating up. Living in North Texas, you get used to the heat and humidity but somehow it still always seems to sneak up on me. As I start
Does Serverless Still Matter?
Serverless as a corporate-backed movement may be fading, but its value, community, and impact on cloud computing will endure for years to come.
The Neighborhood Domain will Quickly Improve your Modeling Skills
Neighborhood domain modeling maps bounded contexts to familiar concepts like houses and HOAs, making microservice architecture easier to understand.
Secure Pattern for Deploying WASM on S3
Picking up where I left off from the last article, I'd built a simple WASM project with Rust and walked through how to generate a publishable distribution. In this edition, which is probably the penul
Surprisingly Powerful - Serverless WASM with Rust Article 1
It's been a while since I wrote a series going back almost 9 months to my Building Serverless Applications. I enjoyed that so much that I have been wanting to write another, but just didn't have a con
Guaranteed Safety using Blue Green with ECS and CDK
Buckle up for this one as it's going to be a lengthy piece. I love writing articles like this one because they contain complete infrastructure builds that highlight some best practices to put multiple
3 Proven Patterns for Reporting with Serverless
Serverless architecture has given developers, architects, and business problem solvers new capabilities to deliver value to customers. It feels like we are in the age of maturation of serverless in so
An Allow List Lambda Function in Rust is 1 Guaranteed Way to Improve CORS
Some time ago I wrote an article about Cross-Origin Resource Sharing with API Gateway that talks about custom allow lists. I wanted to revisit that implementation not because the code doesn't work, bu
A Proven and Comprehensive Pattern for Building an API with Rust and Lambda
Rust and Lambda API tutorial walking through a complete CRUD implementation with DynamoDB, Cargo workspaces, and CDK for deployment to AWS.
4 Inspiring Tips to Think like a Consultant
Consultant mindset tips that elevate your influence by mastering four skills: listening, adding value, working backwards, and making tradeoffs.
Embrace that a Career isn't always Measured by Climbing the Technology Ladder
Career growth in technology does not require climbing the corporate ladder, and discovering your why can reshape how you measure true success.
People Matter more than Technology when Building Serverless Applications
I've been hitting the gas pretty hard on Rust lately and doubling down on my desire to see more Rust in Serverless. I feel strongly though that balance is important in anything in life. For every peri
Blazing Fast Change Data Capture with DynamoDB Streams and Rust
Propagating changes in an event-driven system can be accomplished in many different ways with many different tools. Do I work with transaction logs, put events on an event bus or do something else? Fo
My Personal Serverless Rust Developer Experience. It's Better Than You Think
Serverless Rust developer experience guide covers the complete workflow from IDE setup and Cargo Lambda to local debugging and CDK deployments.
Open Telemetry and Lambda
Open Telemetry and Lambda are topics that I've spent a lot of brain cycles on over the past few weeks. Most of my work with these topics has been with Rust but I want to take a look at where my opinio
Cognito Starter Kit with Rust and Lambda
Welcome to the Cognito Starter Kit with a large helping of Rust seasoned with some CDK. I'm a big believer in Cognito and the power it gives builders to customize the various signup and authentication
Rust and Lambda Performance
I made a statement on LinkedIn that if you have enough traffic hitting your Lambdas you might want to consider a different programming language. And if you've been reading my content lately, you won't
Leveraging the SDK to Publish an Event to EventBridge with Lambda and Rust
Following up on my popular Rust and Lambda article, I wanted to explore how to put an event on an AWS EventBridge Bus. If you aren't familiar with AWS' EventBridge, think of it as a highly scalable Ev
How to Build with Rust and Lambda
Rust and Lambda are new friends. Sure, there's a great deal of momentum lately around Rust but the language has been around for almost 20 years. It struggled to take off early on but has seen its adop
Serverless and Agile
Agile and Serverless go together like peanut butter and jelly. Ham and eggs. Coffee and creamer. Tea and milk. Name your favorite combination that resonates best in your head. But the truth is this, A
Customize a Cognito Access Token with Rust
Identity and Access Management is a critical part of any application. And having a solution that provides customization can also be super important. Take for instance the ability to customize a Cognit
Web API with Rust and Fargate
Rust web API on AWS Fargate built with Axum, DynamoDB, and Docker, covering local development with Docker Compose and ECS cloud deployment.
Becoming a Leader in Tech
I had several conversations at re:Invent that have got me thinking since I returned. No names or details will be given about those whom I spoke with, but I have been processing the how and why of one'
Gratitude. A look back at re:Invent
Gratitude and community shaped an unforgettable re:Invent 2023 experience, from favorite announcements to meaningful connections with builders.