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Michael Nygard
michaelnygard.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2008
Michael Nygard, author of Release It!, writes about software architecture, service design, stability patterns, and how development practice is changing.
What HN saysCommenters recommend his book Release It! and link his posts on services by lifecycle, the fear cycle, and the future of software development.
46HN people shared it
5linked it in comments
55stories submitted
502story points
5 months agolast shared
2008people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Coherence Penalty for Humans5 people · 140 points · first shared 2018 · 25 comments on HN
- 2Counterfactuals are not causality3 people · 95 points · first shared 2021 · 65 comments on HN
- 3The Fear Cycle3 people · 53 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
- 4Wide Awake Developers: The Future of Software Development3 people · 8 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 5The Entity Service Antipattern3 people · 7 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 6AI versus Microservices3 people · 5 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 7In Love with Your Warts3 people · 4 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 8Services by Lifecycle3 people · 2 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 9Bad Layering2 people · 20 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
- 10Quantum Backups2 people · 14 points · first shared 2009 · 4 comments on HN
- 11Fast Iteration versus Elegant Design2 people · 9 points · first shared 2009 · discussion on HN
- 12Give Them the Button2 people · 3 points · first shared 2016 · 1 comments on HN
- 13Monolith to Microservices – Evolving Away from Entities2 people · 2 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 14Why Do Enterprise Applications Suck?1 people · 58 points · first shared 2009 · 46 comments on HN
- 15Amazon Blows Away Objections1 people · 17 points · first shared 2008 · 1 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
cpeterso · 2013-01-16
If you are writing server software, I recommend Michael Nygard's book "Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software". Measuring event loop lag sounds like Nygard's "Circuit Breaker" pattern to avoid cascading failures.
The book's examples and text are all Java, but the lessons are applicable anywhere. He offers many scalability patterns (resource pools) and anti-patterns (runaway log files) with interesting stories from his experience debugging real systems. I especially liked his story about debugging a crash in an Oracle DB driver that caused unexpected Java exceptions to be thrown from java.sql.Statement.close(), which quickly blocked a DB connection pool.
http://michaelnygard.com/
Kinrany · 2022-06-16
Also references another interesting article about a stateful service design antipatter: https://www.michaelnygard.com/blog/2018/01/services-by-lifecycle/
foobarian · 2018-04-16
This is now reminding me of this blog I found on HN yesterday:
http://www.michaelnygard.com/blog/2015/07/the-fear-cycle/
Once you have enough sewer/natural gas/electric/cable/telephone/fiber/water/who knows what else/ lines buried under the streets I can totally understand how nobody would want to touch that with a ten foot pole, just like legacy code :)
randybias · 2013-07-12
Also read this:
http://www.michaelnygard.com/blog/2009/02/fast_iteration_versus_elegan…
Fast iteration wins. OpenStack is far ahead in this regard and only picking up speed.
colinprince · 2010-08-24
Some information at:
http://www.michaelnygard.com/blog/2010/04/the_future_of_software_devel…
"The Future of Software Development"