Engineering Notes
Why the engineering decisions were made. The reasoning, the trade-offs, and the failures that taught us each lesson. We collected them over decades in different shapes and forms, starting with Post-It notes and the latest maintained in our own Markdown Notes Manager connected to Github repo.
The Reepolee Approach summarizes the principles. These notes preserve the arguments, tradeoffs, and implementation decisions behind them.
Read Our ApproachThe Tool Is the Verb
On the one idea that shapes our toolchain: the command line is a sentence and the tool is the verb. Why tailwindcss, reettier, conc and bun run as commands with the work as their arguments, the single requirement that makes a tool a command, how a tool earns its promotion into the verb set, and where the on-demand…
The Second Language Test
Why internationalization and localization come before almost everything else: the bakery test of daily life, postal codes that do not forgive, Slovenian plurals with their four forms, and why every app we ship speaks at least four languages.
You're a Developer, Act Like It
On responsible programming, deciding for the long-term survival of the software you write, and why installing a random package from the registry is a decision about trust, not about convenience.
Embrace Your Mentors, in Any Shape or Form
On mentors, what they actually transfer, why consistency needs a frame and standard operating procedures, why the relationship only works when it is mutual, and a plea for both sides - those who can teach and those who can be taught - to keep looking for each other.
My Machine Is Now Your Machine
On deploying personally, why the tested build and the shipped build should be the same artifact, how a temporary tunnel lets QA and clients approve the exact build that goes live, and how the old 'works on my machine' joke reverses when your machine's output becomes production.
Stop Optimizing for the Wrong Speed
On two things the industry calls 'dev speed' that aren't the same problem at all - compile and build times, which are a real but minor tooling cost, and the delivery deadlines a team is actually held to, which have been the real source of shipped bugs and missing features for at least a decade.
Why In-House Operational Apps Are Your Biggest Advantage
On build versus buy for operational software, why the process a company invented is the thing worth encoding in its own application, and the honest limits of building in-house.
The Reepolee Approach
An introduction to the Reepolee philosophy: on-premise infrastructure, zero-dependency applications, code generation over AI, SQL over ORMs, and a commitment to simplicity that compounds over decades - for freelancers, solo devs, small agencies, and informal groups who carry the maintenance cost.
Use the Right Tool
On enforcing a modern browser baseline for internal applications, the real cost of backwards compatibility, and why the browser your staff uses is a business decision, not a technical given.
How We Name Our Columns and Why It Matters
On establishing inhouse naming rules before generators run - column patterns, soft deletes, and a case for snake_case across the entire codebase, not just the database.