Mostly Technical 98: Inventing The Wheel
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Sep 9, 2025 The hosts explore the exciting launch of a free introductory Postgres course designed for beginners. They discuss navigating sponsorships and the emotional stakes involved in independent education. Balancing creativity with deadlines is highlighted, along with insights on email marketing strategies. The challenges of managing databases in educational technology are examined, including the intricacies of Docker setups. Finally, they reflect on the entrepreneurial mindset needed for sustainability and the pressures that come with innovation.
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Interactive Database Playgrounds
- Aaron plans an in-browser database playground that connects a SQL editor to real data used in videos.
- The playground aims to let learners run queries against live databases matching the tutorial examples.
Protect Playgrounds Behind An App Layer
- Never expose paid databases directly to the public internet; use an authenticated middleman.
- Route browser requests to your Laravel server which validates users before querying private databases over VPN.
Per-User Ephemeral Database VMs
- He provisions per-user ephemeral VMs on Fly.io that run a full DB instance to avoid user crossover.
- Machines can be suspended to minimize compute cost while preserving data state for quick resume.