The archive

Every chapter so far

21 articles, newest first.

2026 17 articles

11 Oct 2026 Vol. 06 · Hype Check · Chapter #1 The Indie Software Gold Rush Was Always a Lottery. AI Just Sold More Tickets. AI made building software almost free, so everyone's building. Here's what that does to the people trying to make a living from it. 6 min · an espresso ai · indie hacking · saas · software industry 11 Oct 2026 Vol. 06 · Hype Check · Chapter #2 Vibe Coding Won't Kill Photoshop. It's Killing Something Else. Everyone's angry at Adobe and Sony, and anyone can build an app in a weekend now. So why are the incumbents posting record revenue? 6 min · an espresso ai · vibe coding · software industry · creative tools 27 Sep 2026 Vol. 02 · Software Architecture · Chapter #4 Monoliths, Microservices, and the Space In Between Microservices aren't a promotion. How to pick the shape of your system, and how to split it later without regret. 8 min · a cup software architecture · monolith · microservices · systems design 27 Sep 2026 Vol. 02 · Software Architecture · Chapter #5 Who Owns the Data? Splitting code is the easy part. Splitting data is where systems quietly fall apart, and how to keep yours together. 7 min · a cup software architecture · databases · distributed systems · sagas 27 Sep 2026 Vol. 02 · Software Architecture · Chapter #6 Designing for Failure Networks drop, payments arrive late, and the power goes. Build systems that expect it instead of apologising for it. 11 min · a cup software architecture · resilience · distributed systems · reliability 20 Sep 2026 Vol. 03 · Under the Hood · Chapter #4 What SQLite Is Actually Doing It's one file, a pile of 4 KB pages, and a few B-trees. Open it up and see how SQLite stores, finds, and safely writes your data. 10 min · a cup sqlite · databases · internals · b tree 9 Aug 2026 Vol. 01 · Point of Sale for Kenya · Chapter #2 Building a Desktop POS with Tauri That Survives Kenya: From One Till to Many Branches A ground-up architecture for a Rust and Tauri point of sale system built for Kenyan SMEs: offline-first by default, RBAC that still works when the server is unreachable, and a module system you can add to or strip down per shop. 25 min · a pot tauri · pos · rust · offline first 22 Jul 2026 Vol. 01 · Point of Sale for Kenya · Chapter #1 Building a Heavy, Extensible Desktop App with Tauri and React Four ways to let a Rust desktop app grow new capabilities after it ships, worked through against the same use case, with the tradeoffs each one actually costs you. 15 min · a cup tauri · react · rust · desktop apps 7 Jul 2026 Vol. 05 · Reading Notes · Chapter #2 The Mom Test: Why Everyone Is Lying to You About Your Idea A review of Rob Fitzpatrick's The Mom Test; the small, blunt book that quietly rewires how you talk to customers. 5 min · an espresso books · startups · customer development · product 7 Jul 2026 Vol. 04 · Algorithms · Chapter #3 Chaos Algorithms in the Wild: Three True Stories Behind the Math Part 2 of the chaos algorithms series; the real people and real moments where 'controlled chaos' quietly changed science, space travel, and computing. 7 min · a cup algorithms · chaos theory · storytelling · optimization 16 Jun 2026 Vol. 05 · Reading Notes · Chapter #1 How to Do Great Work By Paul Graham 7 min · a cup productivity · career · paul graham · self improvement 15 Jun 2026 Vol. 02 · Software Architecture · Chapter #3 Event-Driven Systems Your services don't need to talk to each other. They just need to pay attention. 7 min · a cup architecture · event driven · messaging · systems design 15 Jun 2026 Vol. 03 · Under the Hood · Chapter #3 What Git Is Actually Doing You probably haven't bothered to understand git. You should. Probably. 8 min · a cup git · internals · version control · tools 8 Jun 2026 Vol. 02 · Software Architecture · Chapter #2 Component-Based Thinking How to slice a system into parts that actually make sense — and why most people get it wrong the first time. 13 min · a cup software architecture · components · design patterns · python 1 Jun 2026 Vol. 02 · Software Architecture · Chapter #1 Foundations of Software Architecture From: `Fundamentals of Software Architecture` by Mark Richards & Neal Ford 13 min · a cup software architecture · design patterns · fundamentals · python 30 Mar 2026 Vol. 03 · Under the Hood · Chapter #2 Andrej Karpathy's 200-line GPT implementation Turns out intelligence at its core is simpler than you'd expect. 11 min · a cup gpt · machine learning · transformers · python 11 Jan 2026 Vol. 03 · Under the Hood · Chapter #1 The Art of High-Quality Compression AV1 cuts video file sizes by ~50% with no visible quality loss. 6 min · an espresso video · av1 · h264 · web performance

2025 4 articles

24 Dec 2025 Vol. 04 · Algorithms · Chapter #1 Chaos Algorithms Made Simple: Finding Order in Apparent Randomness A Beginner’s Guide to Chaos Algorithms: Does the End Justify the Means? 4 min · an espresso algorithms · chaos theory · optimization · problem solving 24 Dec 2025 Vol. 04 · Algorithms · Chapter #2 Mastering Dynamic Programming: A Comprehensive Guide Learn how to solve dynamic programming problems effectively, utilizing various techniques and strategies to optimize your solutions. 5 min · an espresso algorithms · dynamic programming · python · optimization 14 Nov 2025 OptiBiz AI Intelligent Business Optimization Assistant The first-place winner in the Business category at JKUAT 2025 Hackathon an AI-driven tool for startup product design and business decision optimization. 5 min · an espresso ai · business · hackathon · product design 5 Oct 2025 Rebuilding the Internet: The Promise and Potential of Web3 Learn how Web3 could give you more control over your data, privacy, and online experiences, making the internet fairer and more open. 6 min · an espresso Web3 · Blockchain · Decentralization · Internet