The evolution of modern design languages and where we’re going from here. — The flat design revolution that characterized much of the 2010s is over, sort of. After spending years with radically flattened UIs that completely avoided simulating real-world objects, we’ve started to see the tide turn back with design languages that embrace some real-world metaphors. Our interfaces of today still carry many…

Past Surface launches give us insight into where the Duo can go from here — Microsoft’s first smartphone in years comes with a plethora of surprising facts. First, it runs Android, making it the very first Microsoft hardware device not running a Microsoft operating system. Second, it’s a dual-screen device at a time when most manufacturers are trying to innovate with folding screens. Third, it…

Frameworks just need to learn from each other — I recently discovered a new frontend framework called Crank. The framework was born out of the author’s disillusionment with the complexity of recent React APIs. Similar to React, Crank uses JSX and follows a functional component model. Unlike React, however, it rejects React’s steadfast belief that rendering should be “pure”…

Update (12/3/19): AWS announced a new feature known as Amazon RDS Proxy that makes using RDS databases with a serverless backend significantly easier. This isn’t covered below but it’s a great option to consider in addition to the solutions discussed here. …