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Derek Comartin

Where should you use gRPC? And where NOT!

I’ve recently read a few blogs and watched videos that compare gRPC with REST and GraphQL. It seemed like the majority claimed that gRPC is the standard for communication between services without giving any real reason. I think it would be better served to explain where and the situations where gRPC could be useful and where I’d avoid using it. YouTube Check out my YouTube channel, where I post all kinds of content accompanying my posts, including this video showing everything in this post. Query Composition I can see gRPC being useful where requests are naturally request-response. Queries and performing UI/ViewModel Composition… Read More »Where should you use gRPC? And where NOT!

The world is full of Asynchronous Workflow

The world is asynchronous. Many workflows and business processes you encounter out in the world are long-running and driven by asynchronous systems. Yet as developers, we’re still often writing procedural and synchronous code to model these business processes. I will give one of my favorite examples of going out to eat at a restaurant to illustrate this and how this can be applied to software. YouTube Check out my YouTube channel, where I post all kinds of content accompanying my posts, including this video showing everything in this post. Asynchronous Chicken Wings? One of my favorite ways to explain asynchronous workflows is… Read More »The world is full of Asynchronous Workflow

Data Access Layer makes it easier to change your Database?

One primary reason for a data access layer or abstraction is your ability to change underlying databases easier. Have you ever replaced the underlying database of a large system or service? For example, moved from one relational database like PostgreSQL to MySQL. Or perhaps went from a relational database to a document or event store? There seem to be two groups of people. Those that have will say that abstracting the underlying database is crucial. In contrast, the other group has never moved the database and questions abstracting or creating a data access layer because you likely won’t replace the… Read More »Data Access Layer makes it easier to change your Database?