My posts on dev.
I write about anything and everything that interests me.
How I'd Build Government Software That Doesn't Fall Over
You don't fix a meltdown with experts parachuting in after the breach. You fix it with defaults: a federated core, HTML-first frontends, private storage.
BTS of CBSE's Infra Meltdown.
CBSE called its result-day collapse a cyberattack. The numbers say plain demand, the kind monolithic, one-vendor government IT can't survive.
I Tried 4 Search Engines So You Don't Have To
Here's the definitive guide to choosing between Orama, Pagefind, Meilisearch, and Google for your static site.
Why I Didn't Use Google Programmable Search
Google's search API sounds perfect for static sites. It isn't. Here's why the pricing model and indexing delays make it impractical for most blogs.
Meilisearch is the Best Search You'll Never Need
Self-hosting Meilisearch with Docker, Traefik, and Astro - complete with API key management, content indexing, and rate limiting.
Why I Switched from Orama to Pagefind
Why I use Pagefind: A deep dive into chunked indexing, bandwidth scaling, and setting up a production-grade search for Astro.
The Right Way to Add Orama Search to Astro
Stop using the Orama Astro plugin. Here is how to build a type-safe, metadata-rich search engine that actually works in Dev Mode.
Honey, I Shrunk my Frontend Bundle Size!
How I replaced Lottie with Canvas sprites, migrated to Preact, and removed heavy dependencies to cut over 300KB from my bundle.