#040 - The man who wrote the book on DynamoDB feat. Alex DeBrie

02/12/24 • 58 min

In this episode, Lane talks to Alex DeBrie, author of the DynamoDB book. Today's talk covers various aspects such as DynamoDB's comparison with Amazon S3, its benefits, use cases, constraints, and cost considerations, while also covering other AWS and Google Cloud services. Alex also shares his insights into his journey of writing the book on DynamoDB and touches on topics like access patterns, secondary indexes, and billing modes. Alex also shares his professional experiences, including consulting vs freelancing, thoughts of entrepreneurial aspirations, and gives helpful advice for those that are considering pursuing a similar career.

Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev
Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

Alex's Twitter: https://twitter.com/alexbdebrie
Alex's Website: https://www.alexdebrie.com

(00:00) - Introduction
(01:27) - Who is Alex DeBrie?
(02:39) - What is DynamoDB?
(04:15) - EC2 instance
(05:50) - Amazon S3
(06:25) - DynamoDB is more like S3
(07:40) - Difference between DynamoDB and S3
(08:20) - What do we mean when we say NoSQL
(10:08) - BigQuery and BigTable
(12:31) - Some of DynamoDB's benefits
(13:15) - When to use DynamoDB
(15:58) - Constraint of number of connections
(18:06) - DynamoDB is a multi-tenant service
(19:21) - How does DynamoDB shake up against something like MongoDB
(22:22) - DynamoDB is opinionated, but it provides good results consistently
(25:54) - You can only do certain things in DynamoDB, but they are guaranteed to be fast
(26:42) - Relational Databases - Theory vs Practicality
(31:08) - How Alex came to write a book about DynamoDB
(32:15) - What happens when SQL runs, depends heavily on the system underneath
(33:57) - DynamoDB doesn't have a query planner
(36:08) - Access patterns
(38:04) - Use case for Secondary Indexes
(39:43) - Costs of DynamoDB
(40:45) - Billing modes for DynamoDB
(45:26) - Provisioning and planning for expenses
(48:40) - Super Mario 64 Hack
(49:34) - What Was Alex's Last Full Time Job
(51:02) - Consulting vs Freelancing
(52:23) - Does Alex see himself going back to a Full Time Job?
(53:07) - Does Alex have any entrepreneurial urges?
(54:01) - What you should think about before jumping into freelance/consulting
(56:01) - Authority in the consulting world
(57:11) - Where to find Alex

Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev
Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

Alex's Twitter: https://twitter.com/alexbdebrie
Alex's Website: https://www.alexdebrie.com

(00:00) - Introduction
(01:27) - Who is Alex DeBrie?
(02:39) - What is DynamoDB?
(04:15) - EC2 instance
(05:50) - Amazon S3
(06:25) - DynamoDB is more like S3
(07:40) - Difference between DynamoDB and S3
(08:20) - What do we mean when we say NoSQL
(10:08) - BigQuery and BigTable
(12:31) - Some of DynamoDB's benefits
(13:15) - When to use DynamoDB
(15:58) - Constraint of number of connections
(18:06) - DynamoDB is a multi-tenant service
(19:21) - How does DynamoDB shake up against something like MongoDB
(22:22) - DynamoDB is opinionated, but it provides good results consistently
(25:54) - You can only do certain things in DynamoDB, but they are guaranteed to be fast
(26:42) - Relational Databases - Theory vs Practicality
(31:08) - How Alex came to write a book about DynamoDB
(32:15) - What happens when SQL runs, depends heavily on the system underneath
(33:57) - DynamoDB doesn't have a query planner
(36:08) - Access patterns
(38:04) - Use case for Secondary Indexes
(39:43) - Costs of DynamoDB
(40:45) - Billing modes for DynamoDB
(45:26) - Provisioning and planning for expenses
(48:40) - Super Mario 64 Hack
(49:34) - What Was Alex's Last Full Time Job
(51:02) - Consulting vs Freelancing
(52:23) - Does Alex see himself going back to a Full Time Job?
(53:07) - Does Alex have any entrepreneurial urges?
(54:01) - What you should think about before jumping into freelance/consulting
(56:01) - Authority in the consulting world
(57:11) - Where to find Alex

Previous Episode

#039 - Get promoted by being lazy feat. Dax Raad

In this episode, Lane talks to Dax Raad, a well rounded engineer that is currently a developer for SST, a framework that helps people build Full-Stack applications on AWS with ease. Today, they talk about personal opinions on industry practices, scale, financial decisions, infrastructure mistakes, reflections on long-term company commitments and many more!

Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev
Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

Dax's Twitter: https://twitter.com/thdxr

(00:00) - Introduction
(00:51) - Dax's Tweets and Personal Branding
(01:31) - You have to learn to be yourself
(02:56) - Intrusive thoughts
(03:33) - When did Dax become active in the Tech Twitter scene
(06:30) - What was the Zero Interest Rate Phenomenon (ZIRP) in the tech scene
(09:33) - Should people choose fun early in their career?
(12:22) - Lane's take on the expertise when abstracting
(14:15) - SST's Philosophy in regards to abstractions
(16:35) - Merging roles
(19:28) - People don't want to care about the cloud
(21:31) - Less stressed about work = better results
(24:10) - Managers vs leaders
(25:20) - Dax shares stories about managing vs leading
(29:36) - Did Dax ever have users?
(31:24) - Most Startups Fail
(32:09) - Dax's reason for joining startups
(33:25) - Staying at a company for decades
(35:53) - Main downside of staying at an established company for a long time
(36:34) - The World changes, so don't look at how already established companies do things
(37:57) - Scale has a different meaning for different companies
(40:07) - So much goes away when you have less people at the company
(41:51) - Sometimes not saving money is a better option
(43:35) - Moving off Stripe
(46:54) - Rolling your own payment processor
(49:05) - Which debate on Tech Twitter annoys Dax the most
(50:52) - Stored Procedure debate
(53:31) - What's a BIG mistake in the infrastructure space?
(57:31) - Kubernetes
(01:02:58) - What Dax misses from Google Cloud
(01:03:19) - Is Sundar Pichai a bad CEO?
(01:04:51) - Where to find Dax

Next Episode

#041 - From Roblox to software founder feat. Lewis Menelaws

In this episode, Lane chats with Lewis Menelaws, a Full-Stack developer and entrepreneur. Today he takes us through his coding journey and insights as a developer influencer. From his early days coding Roblox games, tech stacks, and the challenges of freelancing, to his shift into content creation and thoughts on the current programming meta.

Learn back-end development - https://boot.dev
Listen on your favorite podcast player: https://www.backendbanter.fm

Lewis's Twitter: https://twitter.com/LewisMenelaws
Lewis's Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/CodingwithLewis