David Tippett
@taidesu.bsky.social
Open Source enthusiast and builder of search systems. Currently building search at GitHub. Former DA for open-source OpenSearch @AWS. Opinions are my own.
Reposted by David Tippett
Hello world! I'm putting together a series of talks and team trainings on Nix and NixOS. (Two is a series, right?)
There's a lot to narrow down. So I would love to know: if you're Nix-curious, what questions do you have, or frustrations have you experienced?
There's a lot to narrow down. So I would love to know: if you're Nix-curious, what questions do you have, or frustrations have you experienced?
November 7, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Hello world! I'm putting together a series of talks and team trainings on Nix and NixOS. (Two is a series, right?)
There's a lot to narrow down. So I would love to know: if you're Nix-curious, what questions do you have, or frustrations have you experienced?
There's a lot to narrow down. So I would love to know: if you're Nix-curious, what questions do you have, or frustrations have you experienced?
I'm hoping to reach the million miler club this year... that is with Lines of Code removed from GitHub. So many places where we've got just orphaned code.
November 5, 2025 at 9:15 PM
I'm hoping to reach the million miler club this year... that is with Lines of Code removed from GitHub. So many places where we've got just orphaned code.
Things you may not realize. It can take a literal month or more to ship a blog in a company like AWS or GitHub. It's easily weeks of editorial reviews. If you're announcing something or talking about best practices it can easily go into the several months range.
November 5, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Things you may not realize. It can take a literal month or more to ship a blog in a company like AWS or GitHub. It's easily weeks of editorial reviews. If you're announcing something or talking about best practices it can easily go into the several months range.
Going to make a “we’re migrating to azure” variant.
Too soon?
Too soon?
October 31, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Going to make a “we’re migrating to azure” variant.
Too soon?
Too soon?
Don't give in this Halloween, fix the root cause. It will take longer but you'll thank you later.
Lol I am sending this to all those who're pressuring me to "just ship the fix" rather than fixing the root of the issue.
Lol I am sending this to all those who're pressuring me to "just ship the fix" rather than fixing the root of the issue.
October 31, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Don't give in this Halloween, fix the root cause. It will take longer but you'll thank you later.
Lol I am sending this to all those who're pressuring me to "just ship the fix" rather than fixing the root of the issue.
Lol I am sending this to all those who're pressuring me to "just ship the fix" rather than fixing the root of the issue.
My wife is so cute. She asked me to “ChatGPT” something for her 😆
October 31, 2025 at 1:58 PM
My wife is so cute. She asked me to “ChatGPT” something for her 😆
I am currently building a DAG to track the order I need things to release in, for my changes to get to prod.
MySQL key changes to build containers ->
Build container to new Elasticsearch version ->
Update client libraries
Ship BBQ to KNN indexes
Roll out query understanding
MySQL key changes to build containers ->
Build container to new Elasticsearch version ->
Update client libraries
Ship BBQ to KNN indexes
Roll out query understanding
October 30, 2025 at 8:46 PM
I am currently building a DAG to track the order I need things to release in, for my changes to get to prod.
MySQL key changes to build containers ->
Build container to new Elasticsearch version ->
Update client libraries
Ship BBQ to KNN indexes
Roll out query understanding
MySQL key changes to build containers ->
Build container to new Elasticsearch version ->
Update client libraries
Ship BBQ to KNN indexes
Roll out query understanding
I am about to interview for my job. Lets see if I am qualified to get hired 🤞
October 30, 2025 at 2:55 PM
I am about to interview for my job. Lets see if I am qualified to get hired 🤞
man every day its the same thing...
User: Hey can we bump up the keyword field length for this file path field since 256 chars is not enough for most file paths?
Me: Have you considered a text field with the path_analyzer 😰
User: Hey can we bump up the keyword field length for this file path field since 256 chars is not enough for most file paths?
Me: Have you considered a text field with the path_analyzer 😰
October 29, 2025 at 1:16 PM
man every day its the same thing...
User: Hey can we bump up the keyword field length for this file path field since 256 chars is not enough for most file paths?
Me: Have you considered a text field with the path_analyzer 😰
User: Hey can we bump up the keyword field length for this file path field since 256 chars is not enough for most file paths?
Me: Have you considered a text field with the path_analyzer 😰
Reminder that food stamps don’t refresh in November 1st.
Donate to your local food bank
Donate to your local food bank
October 28, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Reminder that food stamps don’t refresh in November 1st.
Donate to your local food bank
Donate to your local food bank
Today I am a blog editing engineer. 😐
Socializing work is almost as important as building it. If no one uses it then does it exist?
Socializing work is almost as important as building it. If no one uses it then does it exist?
October 27, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Today I am a blog editing engineer. 😐
Socializing work is almost as important as building it. If no one uses it then does it exist?
Socializing work is almost as important as building it. If no one uses it then does it exist?
In order to start moving towards being an executive I've decided I am no longer wearing headphones in meetings.
Everything is done using my laptop speakers and mic. No exceptions.
Everything is done using my laptop speakers and mic. No exceptions.
October 27, 2025 at 3:05 PM
In order to start moving towards being an executive I've decided I am no longer wearing headphones in meetings.
Everything is done using my laptop speakers and mic. No exceptions.
Everything is done using my laptop speakers and mic. No exceptions.
I heard recently that LV is using Meilisearch... I hope they can get their money back because this is not it 😆
October 23, 2025 at 8:49 PM
I heard recently that LV is using Meilisearch... I hope they can get their money back because this is not it 😆
Oh looks like Oracle made an UwU'ps (read like oops but with uwu).
Turns out it's not just me but everyone because Oracle let the key expire. news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4567...
Turns out it's not just me but everyone because Oracle let the key expire. news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4567...
October 23, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Oh looks like Oracle made an UwU'ps (read like oops but with uwu).
Turns out it's not just me but everyone because Oracle let the key expire. news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4567...
Turns out it's not just me but everyone because Oracle let the key expire. news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4567...
My boss: why are you updating MySQL in CI?
Me: All I am trying to do is ship quantization to Elasticsearch in prod 😭
To ship quantization I needed to:
1. Update, CI
2. To update CI I had to update our base images
3. The base image wont build because of MySQL GPG keys are out of date
Me: All I am trying to do is ship quantization to Elasticsearch in prod 😭
To ship quantization I needed to:
1. Update, CI
2. To update CI I had to update our base images
3. The base image wont build because of MySQL GPG keys are out of date
October 23, 2025 at 4:38 PM
My boss: why are you updating MySQL in CI?
Me: All I am trying to do is ship quantization to Elasticsearch in prod 😭
To ship quantization I needed to:
1. Update, CI
2. To update CI I had to update our base images
3. The base image wont build because of MySQL GPG keys are out of date
Me: All I am trying to do is ship quantization to Elasticsearch in prod 😭
To ship quantization I needed to:
1. Update, CI
2. To update CI I had to update our base images
3. The base image wont build because of MySQL GPG keys are out of date
Nothing like putting: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ in the risk assessment of my PR.
See you all on GitHub's next public incident 🫡
See you all on GitHub's next public incident 🫡
October 23, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Nothing like putting: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ in the risk assessment of my PR.
See you all on GitHub's next public incident 🫡
See you all on GitHub's next public incident 🫡
I am just about to make what is likely my most valuable contribution to GitHub's search. It's still only going to be V1 but it's a super common pattern in search. Who wants to take a guess at what it is?
October 21, 2025 at 7:15 PM
I am just about to make what is likely my most valuable contribution to GitHub's search. It's still only going to be V1 but it's a super common pattern in search. Who wants to take a guess at what it is?
GitHub's reached the point where scaling out is not an option anymore probably about 3 years ago but no one noticed because it felt like they could.
We're in a place were we need to start reshaping the underlying search indexes in order to have performant queries.
We're in a place were we need to start reshaping the underlying search indexes in order to have performant queries.
It has been 0 days since paginating through search data was a problem. When you are simply scrolling data MySQL is almost always going to give you better performance.
Search engines just dont scroll text data well because of the orientation of the data.
Search engines just dont scroll text data well because of the orientation of the data.
October 16, 2025 at 1:48 PM
GitHub's reached the point where scaling out is not an option anymore probably about 3 years ago but no one noticed because it felt like they could.
We're in a place were we need to start reshaping the underlying search indexes in order to have performant queries.
We're in a place were we need to start reshaping the underlying search indexes in order to have performant queries.
It has been 0 days since paginating through search data was a problem. When you are simply scrolling data MySQL is almost always going to give you better performance.
Search engines just dont scroll text data well because of the orientation of the data.
Search engines just dont scroll text data well because of the orientation of the data.
October 16, 2025 at 1:35 PM
It has been 0 days since paginating through search data was a problem. When you are simply scrolling data MySQL is almost always going to give you better performance.
Search engines just dont scroll text data well because of the orientation of the data.
Search engines just dont scroll text data well because of the orientation of the data.
Okay so on the vector math thing I am working on a sheet with Copilot to calculate the memory size needed... It produced this banger:
SWITCH(B6,"Float16",2,"Int8",1,"Binary (1-bit)",0)
Sure, technically a binary is 0 bytes but we need to determine how much memory is consumed with a gazillion bits
SWITCH(B6,"Float16",2,"Int8",1,"Binary (1-bit)",0)
Sure, technically a binary is 0 bytes but we need to determine how much memory is consumed with a gazillion bits
October 15, 2025 at 7:40 PM
Okay so on the vector math thing I am working on a sheet with Copilot to calculate the memory size needed... It produced this banger:
SWITCH(B6,"Float16",2,"Int8",1,"Binary (1-bit)",0)
Sure, technically a binary is 0 bytes but we need to determine how much memory is consumed with a gazillion bits
SWITCH(B6,"Float16",2,"Int8",1,"Binary (1-bit)",0)
Sure, technically a binary is 0 bytes but we need to determine how much memory is consumed with a gazillion bits
Who ever thought that my college math would help in life. I'm now working on a probabilistic formula to find the most number of items I can include in a query to ensure that some percent of queries only effects some percent of the cluster.
😭
😭
October 15, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Who ever thought that my college math would help in life. I'm now working on a probabilistic formula to find the most number of items I can include in a query to ensure that some percent of queries only effects some percent of the cluster.
😭
😭
October 14, 2025 at 3:37 PM
I guess you could say I Dynatrace’d my way over to the RiOT demos.
Always fun seeing what unique ways vendors engage conference viewers.
#dynatrace4developers
Always fun seeing what unique ways vendors engage conference viewers.
#dynatrace4developers
October 14, 2025 at 2:17 PM
I guess you could say I Dynatrace’d my way over to the RiOT demos.
Always fun seeing what unique ways vendors engage conference viewers.
#dynatrace4developers
Always fun seeing what unique ways vendors engage conference viewers.
#dynatrace4developers
Who’s going to All Things Open this year? Any evening events to check out? 👀
October 12, 2025 at 12:46 AM
Who’s going to All Things Open this year? Any evening events to check out? 👀