We're trying something new. Well, trying two new things. We're starting to blog about Wattpad's journey into the world of microservices. And we're blogging on our own platform. We're proud of the really hard problems we have to solve every day and we'd love to show the solutions to the world. We also know that being candid and talking about our experiences (good and bad) in the public will benefit other engineering teams as well as ours. None of us is a blogger so it's difficult. But we're accustomed to overcoming difficult problems. The theme here will be our unique personal experiences along the way, ones you haven't heard elsewhere. Don't expect posts that debate monoliths vs. microservices or how to use Docker to do continuous deployment. Those are dead horses. We're frightened of dead horses so we don't want to go near them, let alone beat them. We'll be talking about our failures just as much as our successes. We're forging new paths in scaling a platform that allows millions of people to read and write. That means we have unique problems and we can't wait to talk about them. Our load balancers receive over 2 billion requests per day. Our traffic is constantly growing. We have a large monolithic PHP codebase. We decided about a year ago to start chipping away at that monolith to turn it into microservices. We have two microservices under our belts now so we'll recount what it took to create them and what the hard parts were and going forward we'll post current projects, as we're working on them. We just started working on perhaps our most important microservice, the Text Service. This service will be responsible for all storage and retrieval of text. Pretty key for a reading and writing platform. Oh yeah, we're not just creating microservices, we're writing them in Go and loving it so expect to hear all about that too.

Spanning 3 years, 23 countries, 45 cities, 31 flights, 15 bus rides, 5 ferry rides, and 9 train rides, this is the story of what happens when you learn you're never too old to run away.

The mayor of Toronto collapses and dies while making a speech. The newspaper receives an email -- a fake obituary that claims credit for his murder. The note is signed by a secret society at a prestigious downtown university. Clare Vengel is given her first undercover assignment: to pose as a student, penetrate the secret society, and find out who killed the mayor.

2016 WATTY AWARD WINNER - HQ LOVE THE TERM SHEET is a fast-paced technothriller about entrepreneurship, startups, encryption, and the delicate balance between national security and individual privacy. Its complex characters explore thought-provoking questions about the role of technology in an ever-changing society. Step into the high-stakes game played by today's technology innovators, who push the envelope and risk it all. Get ready, this thrilling book gives you a taste of what startups are really like. _____________________________________________________ David Alexander, a young programmer in Portland, Oregon, loathed his job. Computer programming had always come naturally, but being an employee never suited him. So he tried entrepreneurship instead. After making a series of embarrassing blunders, David finally hit on a startup idea that stuck: encrypted chat. Sure there were alternatives, but as Edward Snowden has shown us, most of them (willingly or unwillingly) have backdoors for spies and bad guys. A new approach made David's app one of the most secure options out there, which caught the attention of many people, including Shawn Douglas from the Secret Service. Shawn Douglas worked with eight different presidents, preventing twenty assassination attempts, forty-three terrorist plots and two bullets. When he was promoted to a desk job overseeing and organizing travel, he picked up on a cryptic email thread that hinted at a threat to the President's life. In a race to unravel the conspiracy, Shawn and David both have to make some difficult decisions. Will Shawn stop the terrorists in time? Will David be able to navigate his startup out of a crisis and keep his entrepreneurial dream alive? Or will fate deal them both a crushing hand? Read the book to find out.

⭐️ 2016 Watty Award Winner ⭐️ Willa Grainger is your average twenty-four-year old with one exception - she never left her university. A year after she graduated she still remains employed with Professor Paige Grimsby, acclaimed author of the popular Simeon Lee series. Her struggles to find a boyfriend, find a job, and write the next bestseller seem like a walk in the park when it comes to her volatile on-again, off-again relationship with her friend Cynthia Smoak, one-third of their best friend trio. But Cynthia's always been competing against Willa in a game Willa didn't even know she was playing. When she does something unforgivable, Willa's forced to examine her life and her friendships, leading her to a new romance with an unlikely young man - a former student who's convinced Paige stole his undergraduate novel idea. Willa's never been comfortable with change and the experiences she's encountered during her extended internship with Paige makes her question who she is and what happens when the people you're friends with aren't the people you like.

WATTY 2016 WINNER of the HQ Love Award! Strange Yarns is a ball of tangled tales. Twisted, knotted, and intertwined. Like Tales of the Crypt, the Twilight Zone, and The Outer Limits. Strange Yarns is not just a collection of ghastly tales, these are yarns, and yarns are sewed together. Follow the yarns and see the grand design... think of this as an evil quilt. Ghost, ghouls, and cannibals being studied for nutrition research, Strange Yarns has got it all. ALL EXCEPT HAPPY ENDINGS!!! (The Author's Lawyer's retain the rights to define happy endings.) I'd love it if you'd vote. And if you really like them please share with a friend. And if you hated them, please share with an enemy. *Josh Saltzman is a Canadian Comedy Award winning writer and director. Recently he was the head writer of season 2 and 3 of Inspector Gadget on Netflix. His other credits include Fangbone! (Disney XD), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: The Animated Series (Sony/DHX), and in live action Call Me Fitz (HBO Canada). Josh has also made lots of weird videos you can find on youtube.

Dating in New York City is not a game for amateurs. Like any sport, it requires appropriate attire (a.k.a., an outfit that makes you look better than Amal Clooney), a strategy (developed over brunch with your friends), and a coach to keep you sane (your best friend, your roommate, or a trusty colleague). And, sometimes, if your pals become sick of hearing your dating woes and horror stories, you take drastic measures: You hire a recruiter - that is, a matchmaker. Enter, me.

After spending a year teaching in Thailand, I longed to travel with only my quirky self to keep me company. My journey started in Myanmar where temple cycles and village treks exposed me to the past and present of this intriguing nation. I returned to Northern Thailand for a volunteer experience and some of the most ingenious and adrenaline-pumping New Year's celebrations. Indonesia's smiling faces warmed my heart and even coaxed me out on a date or two. Join in if you've ever wanted to experience the beauty of a volcanic sunrise, the joy of Javanese hospitality or the thrill of a five-day water festival where joining a water war is as easy as saying 'Sawatdee!' or 'Hello' for my English readers.