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All Posts By “Kevin Jalbert“


@kevinjalbertwebgithub

Migrating PostgreSQL to Aurora with near Zero-Downtime

The goal here is to migrate an Amazon Web Services Relational Database Service PostgreSQL Database to Aurora with as little downtime as possible. The following documents the initial strategy that was considered using read replica promotion, followed by the end result using AWS's Database Migration Service.

19 min read
databaseaurorapostgresqlaws

Make the most of your Chat Channels

Persisted chat channels communication platform, which by its nature, has little guidance in how you organize channels. To ensure that everyone is making the most of channels, I'll provided some tips and suggestions based on my experiences.

7 min read
communicationlearningproductivity

Cut Code Review Noise on GitHub

Code reviews on GitHub can be noisy and contain a lot of unnecessary chatter. We explore how to effectively coordinate code reviewing a pull request using GitHub's reactions and request review features.

8 min read
githubcode reviewcollaboration

Keep on Learning, but don't Forget to Remember

As developers we are constantly learning tips, tricks and new ways to accomplish our work. We continue to accumulate these tips daily, but at the same time we potentially forget the less used but relevant ones. A system is presented that ensures that these tips are remembered.

3 min read
self-improvementshell

Defined Methods in Rake Tasks; You're Gonna Have a Bad Time

Do you define methods within your Rake Tasks? You might want to reconsider that, or you're gonna have a bad time down the road. Walkthrough an example which illustrates a tricky gotcha and solutions to avoiding it.

5 min read
rubyrakerails

Respect HTTP Caching

API developers put a lot of time and effort to ensure that their API can scale. One effective way to mitigate load is to use HTTP caching. As developers we need to respect HTTP caching to not waste efforts.

6 min read
httpcaching

Faster RSpec Regression Testing

Explore two approaches for testing along with a suggested workflow. The goal is to improve the time spent during regression testing. The described technique can apply to other testing frameworks, assuming they have similar mechanisms to RSpec's `it` blocks.

6 min read
rspectesting

Share Your Bag of Tricks

Everyone has a bag of tricks in the form of tips and shortcuts that they use throughout their lives. In general, there is no harm in sharing this knowledge. This post encourages sharing ones bag of tricks to others, as well as discusses various benefits.

5 min read
self-improvement

No Excuses: Verifying RSpec Test Doubles

RSpec 3.0 introduces new verifying doubles that offer the ability to verify received messages against the underlying class/object. Learn how using verifying doubles offer more robust tests with little effort.

6 min read
rspectesting