New blog post: Graceful behavior at capacity
New blog post out: Graceful behavior at capacity
This one got a little bit away from me, although I'm fairly happy with the result. It originated as a series of messages on IRC when a friend asked for a word to characterize a particular failure mode of a system they were working on; I found myself wanting to dump the entire mental model I had in my head of systems at or near capacity. I started writing a draft and had 1500 words before I knew it; Over the next month or two I kept expanding it and now it weighs in at nearly 5000 words. It's a bit of a tome, but I think it's a pretty good attempt to systematize and put into words how I think about debugging and improving systems that are falling apart under load: a task which I've found myself dealing with, in some form, for much of my career.
I hope you find it interesting, and that perhaps it helps others struggling with versions of this problem.
The Ranger Photo
The deal, at least for now, is that the perk for subscribing via buttondown (instead of RSS or whatever), is the bonus Ranger photos. So, here you go: Ranger encountering his first-ever (I think) balloon. It's like a ball but … different? It rolls funny? He is confused.
- Nelson