About
Hi, I'm Rong.
Backend-leaning software engineer working with Python/Django, PostgreSQL, Redis and Next.js. I write about the problems I actually hit while building and operating systems.
What this site is
This is a personal engineering publication, not a company blog. Every article here comes out of work I actually did: a query that got slow, a cache that returned stale data, an architecture decision that turned out to be wrong six months later.
I try to write the article I wanted to find when I hit the problem — with the investigation included, not just the conclusion. That usually means the shape is:
- The symptom, as it actually appeared.
- How I narrowed it down, including the dead ends worth knowing about.
- The root cause.
- The fix, with real code.
- What it measurably changed, and what I would do differently.
What I write about
Mostly backend engineering and the systems around it — Python and Django, PostgreSQL, Redis, API design, and the architecture decisions that determine whether a system stays operable as it grows. There is some frontend and infrastructure work here too, because in practice nobody gets to stay in one layer.
- Django — 3 articles
- Django Migration — 2 articles
- API Key vs Access Token — 1 article
- PostgreSQL — 1 article
- Redis — 1 article
How this site is built
Next.js and MDX, on Vercel. Articles live in a PostgreSQL database (Supabase) and are written in an editor behind a login; every published page is still rendered to static HTML and served from a CDN, so a reader downloads a document, not an application. Comments and likes are the only things on the site that talk to a server while you are reading it.
It began as MDX files in a Git repository, where publishing meant a commit, a push and a deploy. The database replaced that so an article can be written and published from a browser, on a machine without the repository checked out. It is a straight trade of infrastructure simplicity for authoring convenience, and not one the files-and-Git version needed on its own merits — which is roughly the kind of decision the rest of this site is about.
The site currently has 8 articles. You can follow along via RSS.
Getting in touch
Corrections are genuinely welcome — if something here is wrong, I want to fix it. See the contact page.