Hello 👋🏻

I'm Matt Bidewell

A software engineer in London 👨‍💻

Blog posts

a 16 bit retro image of an green alien typing at the computer

Vibe check №10

2023-08-31

Vibes 10 - Productive August, lots of work, lots of moving, lots of coding!

The world surrounded by docker containers connected by lines, in the style of a Van Gough painting.

An Intro to Distributed Systems - Part 1

2023-08-26

A introduction to distributed systems, the algorithms that power them and the problems they solve. - Part 1

A log home on a hill in the style of a cartoon

Vibe check №9 Summer edition

2023-07-31

Summer 2023 catch up.

Vibe check №8

2023-05-31

Vibes catch up for May 2023

A drawing of two teddy bears shopping together, drawn by a single line

Vibe check №7

2023-04-30

Just vibes 7 - April

A stern looking own dressed like a liberian, holding some books.

RFCs and the importance of building a greater technical understanding

2023-04-29

RFCs are a great way to build a greater technical understanding of a system. Let's explore why and provide some examples.

Vibe check №6

2023-03-31

Vibes March 2023

A retro sports car in the style of vapour wave.

Vibe check №5

2023-02-28

Vibes Feb 2023

A selection of logs on the ground in a gree field.

Best Logging practices

2023-02-17

A dive into some ideas around best practices for logging in your code. Why do you want logging? when you should and shouldn't.

Vibe check №4

2023-01-27

Just vibes 4 - start of 2023

A beaver wearing a hardhat with an orange flag

Hidden Sam CLI features

2023-01-26

Uncovering some undocumented features of the AWS Sam CLI - warning these might be subject to change.

A cartoon image of a fish with glasses in a fish bowl.

How this site was built - updated

2023-01-19

A run down on how this site is built as of 2023.

A happy purple furry monster waving at the camera with a firework going off in the background

Goodbye, 2022

2023-01-03

A end of year catch up and reflection

An classical portrait of an christmas elf with a dark background.

Vibe check №3

2022-12-23

Vibe check-in p3 - Christmas time

A photo of a robot holding a red balloon.

Short: why you should use IaC over click ops

2022-12-07

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) should be your go to for building systems in the cloud. Here are six reasons why.

A purple psychedelic water colour style painting.

Vibe check №2

2022-11-30

Vibe check-in number two.. Return of LNUG, winter is here.

A photo of the number 4.9 on a blue background painted to a skyscraper in New York

Typescript 4.9 - the latest features.

2022-11-28

Typescripts latest update is here. Heres a run down of the latest features.

A green robot pointing to some gibberish.

Migration from Node16 to Node18 DNS issue

2022-11-24

After migrating a webserver running NodeJS from 16 to 18. Heres a nice little DNS issue I came across.

A conveyor belt of boxes with some open and some closed.

Short: Using AWS Sam incorrectly.

2022-11-06

A short tale of how using a tool incorrectly can lead you on a path of mistakes in your devops

Some sunglasses resting on a fence with a palm tree in the background against a clear sky.

Vibe check №1

2022-10-21

Pure vibes, a series of what I'm doing and what I've been up to. Recap of 2022 to date.

Thoughts on secure deploying code

2022-08-27

A collection of my thoughts on how to securely deploy applications in the cloud.

AWS Lambda Function URLs

2022-04-08

AWS announced a new feature to lambda. Lambda URLs, lets break them down and investigate.

Clicking a link - what happens next?

2021-10-03

Have you ever questioned what happens when you click a <a> tag on a website? How does your browser know what to get? Where to go? I hope to explain the core fundamentals by the end of this post.

Rust and Referencing pt2

2021-01-17

Lets look at rust, referencing and variable ownership. Part 2

Rust and ownership

2021-01-10

Lets look at rust, referencing and variable ownership. Part 1