From the beginning of the 2017 year, I was thinking about starting a blog. I had a few options for the main subject:

• BBQ
• Burrito
• Backend

Since I love all these things, it was not the easy decision for me, and it took half of the year to make it. Tasting BBQ and Tex-Mex cuisine in the best places in Texas convinced me to do not intervene into the competitive businesses. I will just continue consuming the delicious and not-always-healthy food.

A warm welcome to the blog about Backend Software Engineering!

What’s “backend” all about?

Well, what’s the word “backend” about? It has numerous meanings for different people, like:

• Something without JavaScript, HTML, and CSS
• An HTTP-server
• Data access layer of an application
• Database, server-side framework, server, and operating system
• Software which runs on the LAMP stack - Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP
• Cloud services (we will sometimes talk what’s cloud, okay?)
• Code is written in scripting languages like Python, Ruby, Perl, PHP
• Everything a user can’t see in the browser
• Just anything except frontend even might include hardware
• …

You see that it’s hard to pick the one and the only one which fits your mind. Therefore, I wanna introduce my very own definition of backend term which is used in the blog:

Backend is the part of software which is executed not on the device of an end user.

From my perspective, it includes, but not limited to:

• HTTP APIs
• Web servers
• Data storages
• Data processing services
• Software for testing other software
• Infrastructure for software deployment and monitoring
• Cloud services (someday I will share my definition of cloud, right?)

And I expect to add more things to the list over the years. Stay tuned.

What’s the blog about?

The Howdy page claims that I’m a backend software engineer, technical leader of a geo-distributed team, speaker and reader. I do the things, and I yearn to do it better.

I believe that blogging will help me to organize my thoughts and accelerate learning. Also, I assume that my experience in backend software engineering might be useful for other members of the community and as a consequence will lead to interesting discussions.

In the blog you can expect to read:

• Thoughts about the approaches which we apply at work with my team. We’re involved in the development of instant messaging software. I’m passionate about that.
• Introductory posts about the backend technologies which I learn and plan to use in the future. I will do my best to make them practical enough for y’all. With examples.
• Reviews of the events which I attend and occasionally speak for.
• Abstracts of my technical talks.
• Reviews of the books about computers which I read and found alluring. With spoilers :)
• You can tell me what you wanna read here. I’m pretty open to new ideas.

The target audience for the blog is:

• Backend software engineers
• Software engineers interested in improving backend skills
• Engineers that tend to lead small or mid-size teams
• Any person who interested in learning about Backend. Or burrito. Or BBQ.

I plan to write at least a post per week and send monthly updates. Don’t forget to subscribe to my mailing list.

How does the blog work?

This is a static one built with Jekyll and hosted at GitHub Pages. I appreciate Yegor Bugayenko and Juliano Boesel Mohr for providing the great examples.

Okay, guys, let’s start our first discussion. What’s your definition of backend?