Soldier's 5

Implementing a team topology

Any organisation that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organisation’s communication structure. — Melvin E. Conway Introduction Team...

Posted by Alex on February 24, 2021

SQL Joins with Sequelize

While working on an API for my day job last week, I needed to do a SQL Inner Join with Sequelize and Typescript in a web API. Here’s how I achieved it. Environment: Things move quickly in the JS ...

Posted by Alex on October 11, 2020

Running Deployments with Github Actions

In a previous article I wrote about Getting Started with Github Actions. In it, I talk about the basics of Actions, how they work, what the language looks like and how you can get started. If you’...

Posted by Alex on July 13, 2020

Getting Started with Github Actions

Continuous Delivery is a foundational skill that your organisation needs to be good at if it is to remain responsive and ‘lowercase a’ agile. A full solution for continuous delivery tends to inclu...

Posted by Alex on May 28, 2020

Spring Boot - Comparing Liquibase and Flyway

What are Spring Boot, Liquibase and Flyway? The Spring Ecosystem When you need to create a web application or an API in Java, be that RESTful, SOAP or GraphQL; whether you’re looking at synchrono...

Posted by Alex on April 23, 2020

Remaining Effective in a Pressure Cooker

One thing the Army is good at is teaching you how to function under immense pressure, for extended periods. Speaking briefly about my credentials in this area, I’ve spent just under five years in t...

Posted by Alex on March 26, 2020

When everything is digital, nothing is

Digital Transformation, Digital Experience, Digital Thought Leader, Digital Coffee Table, Digital DevOps Team, Digital Dystopia Some of these things are not like the others. Have you heard the ph...

Posted by Alex on November 30, 2018

Why digital transformations should be dead

Digital transformations don’t work. Everyone wants to talk about digital-led businesses. Every business is a software business, even when they aren’t, people will tell you. But the focus on big ba...

Posted by Alex on November 3, 2018

Low Maintenance Home Labs

How do you keep up to date with changes in technology? How do you get your startup off the ground from a technical standpoint? What can you do to build out your tools and processes in a sustainable...

Posted by Alex on September 7, 2018

SCIENCE! in the workplace

What do when you don’t know what to do? Even worse: What do you do when people are paying you to do things, and expect you to do things, but you don’t know what to do? Are you in a brand new domain...

Posted by Alex on September 5, 2018