Weekend Reading #69

Weekend Reading: A weekly roundup of interesting Software Architecture and Programming articles from tech companies. Find fresh ideas and insights every weekend.

This Week: inbox/outbox messaging patterns, Wiz’s AWS CodeBreach CI/CD research, the economics of technical speaking, and Uber’s intelligent load management.

Transactional Inbox and Outbox Pattern

👉 Useful if you’re building event-based systems where reliability matters.

Explains the Inbox and Outbox patterns for messaging in distributed systems. Outbox ensures outgoing messages are saved with business data, and Inbox makes sure incoming messages are processed exactly once to avoid duplicates or loss.

CodeBreach Vulnerability in AWS CodeBuild

👉 Important read for anyone managing CI/CD security and supply-chain risk.

Security researchers at Wiz uncovered a critical CI/CD vulnerability in AWS CodeBuild that could have let attackers hijack key AWS GitHub repositories. A missing regex anchor in build triggers could allow untrusted builds to run privileged jobs and steal credentials — a near-miss supply-chain risk later fixed by AWS.

The Economics of Technical Speaking

👉 Great perspective if you’re balancing domain expertise with external visibility or mentoring roles.

The author of books on architecture and a speaker reflects on the “economic aspect” of public speaking and the nuances it may entail.

The Journey from Static Rate-Limiting to Intelligent Load Management

👉 Worth reading if you build distributed systems that need adaptive, fair throttling under varying load.

Uber transitioned from static, quota-based rate limiting to "Cinnamon," an intelligent load-management system that prioritizes critical user traffic over background tasks. By using PID-based controllers and dynamic signals, the new system significantly improved database stability, reduced latency by 70%, and increased throughput during overloads.