Tag: Fractional CTO

Expert Opinion Aug 13, 2026

A database trigger runs on the database host, in database syntax, with no application log and no stack trace. When it breaks you do not hear it from your monitoring, you hear it from a customer. I moved a live SaaS off ten of them in about four weeks, one domain at a time, with no downtime. Here is how I chose the order, and why I left ten running on purpose.

Expert Opinion Jul 21, 2026

A one-line ticket asked me to switch thumbnails from PNG to SVG for better quality. Following it would have opened a stored XSS hole to fix a problem SVG does not even cause. The real cause was resolution, and the fix was one option. Here is how I checked the guess, and why I then did not build the better architecture I had already designed.

Software Development Jul 14, 2026

Modernizing a legacy PHP app costs less than a rewrite and carries far less risk, because you keep the product earning while you fix it. Here is what actually drives the cost.

Expert Opinion Jul 09, 2026

AI made writing code cheap this year. It did not make verifying code cheap. The bottleneck moved one step downstream, to the part nobody automated: deciding whether the code is correct, safe, and worth keeping.

Software Development Jul 03, 2026

I made a new UI the default for one account and left everyone else on the old one, from the same deploy. The difference was one database row. Here is how I built the smallest feature-flag system that has the right shape, and the design calls behind it.

Software Development Jun 30, 2026

A rewrite is the riskiest way to fix a legacy PHP app, and usually the slowest. Here is how I modernize a codebase that makes money, in place, without a rewrite and without taking it down.

Expert Opinion Jun 26, 2026

A principal engineer told me one to three seniors with AI can replace a team of juniors. He was right, and he stopped one step short. AI scales execution. It does not scale judgment.

Software Development Jun 18, 2026

A campaign-builder bug looked like a one-line fix. It was three problems stacked under one symptom. Here is how I found the two the error console never showed.