Blog

Practical software engineering guidance from Jeff Bailey on tools like jq, SSH, and Git, plus architecture diagrams, book summaries, and fundamentals.

What Is Markdown?

November 7, 2026 · 8 min · Jeff Bailey
Markdown is a plain text format that turns symbols like # and * into HTML. Learn why it exists, how renderers read it, and why flavors differ.
Cover titled What Is Markdown?: a writer at a desk in a dark room sends a sheet along a stream of blue light that rises into a tall glowing tower of stacked panels.

Learn Retrieval Augmented Generation: Build the Simplest RAG in SQLite

November 5, 2026 · 24 min · Jeff Bailey
Learn retrieval augmented generation by building the simplest RAG: chunk your project docs, rank them with SQLite FTS5 and BM25, and hand an LLM a cited prompt.
Cover titled Learn RAG: an engineer in a dark archive carries three glowing sheets along a bridge of light to a large machine head whose face lights orange.

Fundamentals of InnerSource

October 31, 2026 · 33 min · Jeff Bailey
InnerSource fundamentals explain how open source practices work inside a company, from trusted committers and contribution guides to measuring reuse.
Title card reading Fundamentals of InnerSource over two people kneeling to plant a glowing seedling in a shared garden at night, with blue paths from nearby houses, a dark curved fence, and wilted plots beyond.

What Is InnerSource?

October 31, 2026 · 14 min · Jeff Bailey
InnerSource brings open source practices inside a company so teams can change each other’s code. Learn its roles, trade-offs, and why AI raises the stakes.
Title card reading What Is InnerSource? over a row of glowing workshops in a dark walled campus at night, with two figures standing in the lit gateway between neighboring crews.

Learn SQL: Queries, Joins, Aggregates, and Query Plans

October 22, 2026 · 20 min · Jeff Bailey
Learn SQL with sqlite3: filter, join, group, and rank rows, read a query in execution order, and use EXPLAIN to find out why a query is slow.
A lone archivist in a dark archive of unmarked drawers sends an orange beam to a few glowing open drawers while blue light runs along the aisle, under the title Learn SQL.

Learn Agile: Core Practices and Hard Truths for Agilists

October 17, 2026 · 15 min · Jeff Bailey
Learn agile: the manifesto values, Scrum and Kanban basics, retrospectives, and the trust-first habits that keep Scrum Masters and coaches useful.
A newcomer stands in a dark studio with one hand half-raised, watching a small team build a glowing section of an unfinished wall, under the title Learn Agile.

Learn Platform Engineering: Golden Paths, Platform as a Product, and Team Topologies

October 15, 2026 · 23 min · Jeff Bailey
Learn platform engineering fast: internal developer platforms, platform-as-a-product thinking, golden paths, AI coding agents, and why platforms fail.
The words Learn Platform Engineering over figures walking a glowing paved path across a dark plain past a tangle of faint dirt trails.

Learn AWS Lambda: Handlers, Cold Starts, and the AWS CLI

October 13, 2026 · 25 min · Jeff Bailey
Learn AWS Lambda: create, invoke, and delete a Python function with the AWS CLI, and understand cold starts, invocation types, concurrency, and cost.
A dark restaurant kitchen at night where order tickets drift down, and one cook works a glowing station, under the title Learn AWS Lambda.

SPDX vs CycloneDX: Which SBOM Standard to Use

October 13, 2026 · 12 min · Jeff Bailey
SPDX vs CycloneDX compared on standards status, German BSI rules, VEX, license data, tool defaults, and version churn, with real Syft output for each format.
A harbor inspector on a wet night pier between an orange-lit dock of stacked crates and a blue searchlit dock, under the title SPDX vs CycloneDX.

Learn fd: Find Files Fast with Patterns, Filters, and -x

October 8, 2026 · 16 min · Jeff Bailey
Learn fd, the fast find alternative: search by name, regex, and glob, filter by type and depth, respect .gitignore, and run commands on results.
Learn fd cover: a silhouetted figure sends threads of orange and blue light through a dark tangle of branching folders, under the title "Learn fd"