engblogs

How to perform online, lock-free Rails migrations with the Large Hadron Migrator—copying data to a new table, journaling mutations via triggers, and replaying changes to survive large tables without downtime.

A blogpost introducing the Large Hadron Migrator, a tool for evolving data schema in Rails projects using Rails style database migrations.

An account of SoundCloud's attempt to scale web-scale statistics with MongoDB, exploring IO-bound bottlenecks, shard-based partitioning, and the lessons learned that led to a pivot away from the initial approach.

A technical walkthrough of building an interactive Puzzle to Unlock teaser for Marbleo.us, leveraging jQuery draggable/droppable and SoundManager2 with SoundCloud hosting to unlock the album cover and premiere the single.

A case study of SoundCloud's attempt to scale its statistics backend with MongoDB, detailing IO bottlenecks, disk seeks, and the decision to cancel the project in favor of a different approach.

A case study of SoundCloud's attempt to scale web-scale statistics with MongoDB, revealing an IO-bound bottleneck, shard-related challenges, and the lessons learned that led to canceling the project in favor of a different approach.

A puzzle-based teaser for Marbleo.us that unlocks the band’s new single via a draggable/droppable UI, triggering a SoundManager2–powered SoundCloud track and a playable interface.

An in-depth look at crafting an interactive 'Puzzle to Unlock' experience with jQuery draggable/droppable, leveraging SoundCloud and SoundManager2 to unlock the album art and play the single 'Simple Math'.

Managing web scale statistics with MongoDB and addressing scaling challenges

A developer's experiences working on the Mac App at SoundCloud Backstage

A practical guide to powering apps and websites with SoundCloud: streaming, downloading, track metadata, social features, and embeddable players via the API.

A practical guide to building and tailoring SoundCloud custom players using the Widget-JS-API, a jQuery plugin approach, and HTML/CSS/JS-based audio playback across devices.