An online textbook about designing applications at scale.
I don’t want this to be Vega’s Opinionated Big Ass Book To Give You An All-In-One Education, both because VegaOpBABTGYAAIOEdu is far less catchy, and because I don’t even think it’s possible. The more I write on this the more I value input of others and other resources I find, and the more happy I am that I called this project Opinionated Guides.
A Guide. That’s what I want this to be. I want OpGuides to be a resource that’s like your friend you can come back to for advice on where to go next, and I think that’s something the internet really needs. Search engines are were awesome for finding information, but only when you know what to look for, so I figure OpGuides can be a sort of curated information source, with the crappy results filtered out, the best resources I know of included, and a healthy mix of entertainment in the education so that it’s not a chore to read.
An updated and curated list of readings to illustrate best practices and patterns in building scalable, available, stable, performant, and intelligent large-scale systems. Concepts are explained in the articles of prominent engineers and credible references. Case studies are taken from battle-tested systems that serve millions to billions of users.
A website with lots of different conversion utilities. Plug in the values, get the answers, and get on with your life.
A site that tells you why keeping a changelog is important and how to keep an informative changelog.
Download a PDF, print it out, instant graph paper.
David MacKay has put the textbook he wrote online for everyone to download in a variety of formats. If you find it useful, consider buying a copy.
A permalink to a post at the Global Nerdy blog explaining the Laws of Software Development.
Not as mysterious as you might think..
A suite of open source electronic design tools. Uses a GUI for schematic capture. Also capable of analog and digital simulation, generation of parts lists and export of PCB designs for fabrication.
A user-created database of chip and component pinouts. Faster than reading data sheets!
A publisher reprinting rare, forgotten, and unusual texts. Download them as .pdfs or purchase them online. Many categories are represented, from epic sagas to classical fiction, drama to architecture, history to technology.
A wiki full of information pertaining to the construction of sustainable communities, from engineering to water purification, construction, and agriculture.
A pair of books licensed in the Creative Commons (BY) which talk about the architecture of open source software. The core developers of four dozen projects talk about how their software is structured, and most importantly why. They were written so that F/OSS developers wouldn't have to learn by reinventing the wheel, instead there would be a reference.
There are two books, which you can read online and download for free. Or you can buy them as Kindle editions (the proceeds go to Amnesty International).
This company sells conductive fabrics, woven not out of fiber but very, very fine wires. They seem ideal for sourcing primary components for building shielding - say, you're constructing an RF testing facility and you want to minimize leakage (or intrusive external signals). Or you're building yourself a Faraday cage for some reason.
RepRap is an open-source (hardware, software, and documentation) desktop fabrication system which lets you construct arbitrary objects (or parts for assembling more complex systems). It's unique in that you can construct one yourself for about $400us, and it is fully capable of making duplicates of itself.
A browseable online database of servomotors and their operational specs.