There are two hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-1 errors. This classic joke, often attributed to Phil Karlton, highlights a very real and persistent challenge for software developers. We’re constantly striving to build faster, more responsive systems, and caching is a fundamental strategy for achieving that. But while caching offers […]
30
2025
Tackling the Cache Invalidation and Cache Stampede Problem in Valkey with Debezium Platform
29
2025
Talking Drupal #522 – New Contrib Records System
Today we are talking about the New Contribution Records System, how it’s changed, and what you may need to do differently with guests Fran Garcia-Linares & Tim Lehnen. We’ll also cover Config Notify as our module of the week.
This episode is sponsored by Amazee.ai
For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/522
Topics
- Understanding the Contribution Record System
- Recent Changes and Migration Challenges
- Assigning and Displaying Contribution Credits
- Future Enhancements and Broader Contributions
- Collaborating on Commit Message Format
- GitLab Migration and Contribution Records
- Integration Challenges with GitLab
- Testing and Feedback on New System
- Future Plans and Community Involvement
- API Endpoints and Data Querying
- Gamification and Broader Adoption
Resources
- Millions of data talk
- Slides (in Spanish)
- Video not available yet
- Gitlab issue for feature request for contribution
- Contribution records module
- https://www.drupal.org/project/contribution_records
- New available endpoints:
- Issue to track issue migration
Guests
Fran Garcia-Linares – fjgarlin Tim Lehnen – drupal.org/association/staff hestenet
Hosts
Nic Laflin – nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan Martin Anderson-Clutz – mandclu.com mandclu Hayden Baillio – hgbaillio
MOTW Correspondent
Martin Anderson-Clutz – mandclu.com mandclu
- Brief description:
- Have you ever needed to maintain a site where a site owner had access to update site configuration, and wanted to be notified whenever they did so? There’s a module for that
- Module name/project name:
- Brief history
- How old: created in Feb 2020 by Fran Garcia-Linares (fjgarlin), one of today’s guests
- Versions available: 8.x-1.11, which supports Drupal 8.8 and newer
- Maintainership
- Actively maintained
- Security coverage
- Number of open issues: 2 open issues, neither of which are bugs
- Usage stats:
- 194 sites
- Module features and usage
- Just like it sounds, this module lets you trigger notifications when the configuration deviates from the config management code in production.
- You can choose for the notifications to be sent immediately, or via cron, with an option for a daily digest. The notifications can be sent by email, or via Slack, using the slack module (if enabled).
- This should be an easy-to-implement solution if you support a site where users may be updating the site configuration in production. A different approach was discussed back in episode #236 Top Down Configuration
29
2025
New File Copy-Based Initial Sync Overwhelms the Logical Initial Sync in Percona Server for MongoDB
In a previous article, Scalability for the Large-Scale: File Copy-Based Initial Sync for Percona Server for MongoDB, we presented some early benchmarks of the new File Copy-Based Initial Sync (FCBIS) available in Percona Server for MongoDB. Those first results already suggested significant improvements compared to the default Logical Initial Sync. In this post, we extend our […]
26
2025
MySQL 8.0 End of Life Support: What Are Your Options?
We’ve mentioned this a few times here on the blog already, but in case you missed it, MySQL 8.0’s end-of-life date is April 2026. This probably sounds forever away, but it’s going to sneak up before you know it. Maybe you’ve been putting off thinking about it, or maybe you’re already weighing your options but […]
24
2025
Choosing the Right Key-Value Store: Redis vs Valkey
Not long ago, picking an in-memory key-value store was easy. Redis was the default. Fast, simple, everywhere. Then the rules changed. Redis moved to a much more restrictive license. Suddenly, many companies had to rethink their plans, especially if they cared about staying open source or needed flexibility for the cloud. That’s when Valkey arrived. […]
23
2025
Announcing OpenBao Support in Percona Server for MongoDB
At Percona, we believe that an open world is a better world. Our mission has always been to empower organizations with secure, scalable, and reliable open source database solutions without locking them into expensive proprietary ecosystems. Today, we’re excited to share another step forward in this journey: Percona Server for MongoDB now supports OpenBao for […]
22
2025
Talking Drupal #521 – Tugboat
Today we are talking about Tugboat, What it does, and how it can super charge your ci/cd process with guest James Sansbury. We’ll also cover ShURLy as our module of the week.
For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/521
Topics
- Celebrating 20 Years with Drupal
- Introduction to Tugboat
- Comparing Tugboat with Other Solutions
- Tugboat’s Unique Advantages
- Standardizing Workflows with Tugboat
- Handling Hosting and Development Delays
- Troubleshooting and Knowledge Transfer
- Client Base and Use Cases
- Agency Partnerships and Payment Structures
- Unique and Interesting Use Cases
- Challenges and Limitations of Tugboat
- Setting Up and Onboarding with Tugboat
- The Tugboat Origin Story
- Compliance and Security Considerations
Resources
- Tugboat
- Tugboat FEDRamp
- Lullabot Sells Tugboat Platform to Enable Independent Growth
- Shurly
- Talking Drupal #390 – Employee Owned Companies
Hosts
Nic Laflin – nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi – epam.com johnpicozzi James Sansbury – tugboatqa.com q0rban
MOTW Correspondent
Martin Anderson-Clutz – mandclu.com mandclu
- Brief description:
- Have you ever wanted to use Drupal as a URL shortening service? There’s a module for that.
- Module name/project name:
- Brief history
- How old: created in Aug 2010 by Jeff Robbins (jjeff) though recent releases are by João Ventura (jcnventura) of Portugal
- Versions available: 8.x-1.0-beta4 which supports Drupal 9.3, 10, and 11
- Maintainership
- Minimally maintained, maintenance fixes only. Also, the project page says that the 8.x branch is not ready for production use. So a big caveat emptor if you decide to try it
- Number of open issues: 18 open issues, 5 of which are bugs against the current branch
- Usage stats:
- 730 sites
- Module features and usage
- With the ShURLly module installed, you can specify a long URL you want shortened, optionally also providing a case-sensitive short URL you want to use. If none is provided a short URL will be automatically generated
- The module provides usage data for the short URLs, and and a user you can see a list the ones you’ve created as well as their click data
- I was a little surprised to see that created short URLs are stored in a custom db table instead of as entities, but the module is able to avoid a full bootstrap of Drupal before issuing the intended redirects
- The module provides blocks for creating short URLs, a bookmarklet to save a short URL, and URL history. There is also Views integration for listing the short URLs, by user or in whatever way will be useful in your site
- There is also a submodule to provide web services for generating short URLs, or potentially expand a short URL back into its long form. The services support output as text, JSON, JSONP, XML, or PHP serialized array
- The module allows provides a variety of permissions to allow fine-grained access to the capabilities it provides, and also has features like per-role rate limiting, APIs to alter redirection logic, and support for the Google Safe Browsing API, and Google Analytics
- It’s worth mentioned that ShURLy is intended to run in a site on its own instead of within a Drupal site that is also serving content directly, but it will attempt to avoid collisions with existing site paths
- Today’s guest, James, is one of the maintainers of ShURLy, but Nic, you mentioned before the show that you have a customer using this module. What can you tell us about the customer’s use case and your experience working with ShURLy?
22
2025
Keep PostgreSQL Secure with TDE and the Latest Updates
This fall feels like a good moment to stop and look at what’s changed in PostgreSQL security over the last months and also what you can use right now to make your PostgreSQL deployments safer. PostgreSQL Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) from Percona For many years, Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) was a missing piece for security […]
18
2025
Help Shape the Future of Vector Search in MySQL
AI and machine learning are seemingly everywhere, and that’s forcing every database company to think about vector search. Companies want to build things like smart search that actually understands what you mean, recommendation systems that know what you’ll like, and tools that can spot when something’s off. To make all of this work at the […]
17
2025
MySQL with Diagrams Part Three: The Life Story of the Writing Process
When you run a simple write, …it may look simple, but under the hood, MySQL’s InnoDB engine kicks off a pretty complex sequence to ensure your data stays safe, consistent, and crash-recoverable. In the top-left corner of the diagram, we see exactly where this begins — the moment the query is executed: [crayon-68cb7b0282a22221090106/] The log […]