iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

James Cowling @jamescowling.dev · 05/03/2025

Convex storage, search, pagination and optimistic updates are now officially "non-beta". They're reliable to use and have been for a long time. We'll continue to make improvements as always, especially to pagination and optimistic updates.

James Cowling @jamescowling.dev · 05/03/2025

Remember when a beta label actually meant something then Gmail was beta for half a decade and ruined it for everyone? We just took a bunch of @convex.dev features out of beta. What's the point of long-term beta if customers depend on it already?

James Cowling @jamescowling.dev · 04/03/2025

Your coding agent talking directly to your production database sounds sketchy as hell... unless it's via an MCP server on a db that supports sandboxed code execution, in which case it sounds cool af.

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James Cowling @jamescowling.dev · 03/03/2025

"Constant time" -> constant in the number of rows in the db. Convex keeps a running inferred schema for each table to perform optimizations like this.

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James Cowling @jamescowling.dev · 03/03/2025

Ok this is legitimately cool. Cursor talking to @convex.dev via MCP and figuring out schema improvements based on the rows actually stored in the database, performed in constant time!

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3. Design strong abstractions. Agents aren't perfect so focus them on building your app, not trying to solve hard systems problems like managing distributed state. Use libraries or frameworks with good high level abstractions that prevent an agent from wandering off the path.

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2. Express as much as possible in standard, procedural code. Agents are great reasoning about code but less good dealing with declarative languages or configs outside the codebase. Keep as much as possible in the code itself and as little as possible in SQL or external configs.

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1. Provide tight, automatic feedback loops. Coding agents are able to iterate, try things, correct mistakes. They are only able to do this when able to efficiently determine if a step is correct. Type safety is hugely effective at providing guardrails for agents.

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Introducing Fullstack-Bench

We launched Fullstack-Bench yesterday to test autonomous agent performance on fullstack coding tasks. Starting with Convex, FastAPI, Supabase but more backends to come. stack.convex.dev/introducing-... Three design patterns stood out at producing high quality code with minimal interventions: 🧵

stack.convex.dev

Coding agents can do more autonomously when they write code that has tight, automatic feedback loops; use systems that express everything in standard,...

James Cowling @jamescowling.dev · 19/02/2025

Thanks @brancz.com! The team loves using Polar Signals so it’s certainly a bonus that it’s made by awesome people.

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James Cowling @jamescowling.dev · 18/02/2025

Do you like TypeScript? Do you like databases? Do you like neither but just want to build apps using regular old functions? My @db.cs.cmu.edu talk on TypeScript Stored Procedures for app developers is online now. www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpgV...

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Joining the Open Source Pledge

Convex also now members of the Open Source Pledge @opensourcepledge.com, committing to financially support development of open software we all benefit from. Our initial contribution was towards @tanstack.com! Really glad to be supporting @tannerlinsley.com and crew. news.convex.dev/open-source-...

news.convex.dev

Today, Convex is taking a meaningful step to support the open source ecosystem we rely on. We're joining the Open Source Pledge, a coalition of companies committed to funding the open foundations of m...

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If you're new to Convex start off with the tutorial in our docs. If you're a Convex OG and want to give self-hosting a spin, you can get started over at github.com/get-convex/c...

github.com

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Cloud-hosted Convex is still the best place to start for most folks getting started, plus includes a very usable free tier, but we're really glad to have the self-hosted option available for people whose needs fall outside our hosted plans.

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Convex Self-Hosting: More than just open source

When people say they want open source they rarely mean they just want to read the source code. They mean they want unrestricted access, an active community, ease of use, and yes, often something for free. news.convex.dev/self-hosting/

news.convex.dev

Convex is now self-hostable. We’ve open sourced the dashboard, added support for storing data in Postgres in addition to SQLite (plus MySQL very soon!), and packaged it all up in a docker container yo...

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James Cowling @jamescowling.dev · 07/02/2025

We just launched self-hosted @convex.dev! We open sourced last year but realized the code was open but not so useful on its own. This time we've included the Convex dashboard, bindings for Postgres, SQLite (and MySQL v. soon), packaged up in a docker container ready for real use

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CMU Databases talk streaming live 4:30EST Monday. Come learn how every good idea you have was already invented by someone in the 80s and why we should be running typescript functions in our databases. db.cs.cmu.edu/events/sql-d...

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James Cowling @jamescowling.dev · 31/01/2025

Summary of how well each model is performing at writing @convex.dev code?

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Reposted by James Cowling

Ian Macartney @ianmacartney.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

I used AI to write a script to help me write AI evals to help AI write Convex code. Very meta 💡Each step uses RAG from previous evals Flow: 1. 🧑‍💻oneliner -> 🤖 task description -> 🧑‍💻 audit 2. 🤖 answer ->🧑‍💻 audit 3. 🤖 tests for answer ->🧑‍💻 audit 🔗 to evals 👀 & my script in 🧵

github.com

GitHub - get-convex/convex-evals

Contribute to get-convex/convex-evals development by creating an account on GitHub.

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James Cowling @jamescowling.dev · 27/01/2025

SQL also decouples how a query is written from whether it's feasible to execute in prod. If you write a SELECT without an index you're in trouble. The initial Convex syntax required typing .fullTableScan().filter() to filter a table scan but we removed it. Probably a mistake.

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James Cowling @jamescowling.dev · 27/01/2025

A design mistake we made with @convex.dev is that the .filter() operator looks convenient, even though it does a table scan, while the .withIndex() syntax for efficiently reading from an index looks a little cumbersome and expensive. We'll fix this in v2.

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James Cowling @jamescowling.dev · 27/01/2025

A good design principle is APIs that look cheap should be cheap and APIs that are expensive should look expensive. One mistake we made in an old version of Dropbox was that directory moves looked cheap (drag a folder) but were expensive on the server (update metadata for every file in the tree).

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James Cowling @jamescowling.dev · 24/01/2025

If you want to get a really excellent *free* education on database internals check out the CMU Database Group on YouTube, especially series like Intro to Database Systems or the History of Databases lecture. www.youtube.com/c/CMUDatabas...

youtube.com

CMU Database Group

Carnegie Mellon University Database Group

James Cowling @jamescowling.dev · 24/01/2025

We covered OSS db licensing challenges with Redis and Elastic; the Databricks vs Snowflake turf war; the rise of @duckdb.org; why we love SQLite; Deterministic Simulation Testing, Rust, and @tur.so's rewrite; Postgres, MySQL and Aurora DSQL; new acquisitions like Rockset into OpenAI; and much more.

James Cowling @jamescowling.dev · 24/01/2025

Got to sit down with Professor @andypavlo.bsky.social on the latest @convex.dev Databased podcast for his 2024 databases year in review! www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B-M...

youtube.com

What You Missed in 2024 in the World of Databases, with Andy Pavlo

YouTube video by Convex

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James Cowling @jamescowling.dev · 22/01/2025

It's certainly possible to be self-taught but the difference between good and great systems only shows up when systems are used and put under stress. Focusing on simplicity at all times and building sophistication only because that sophistication is demanded by real usage is key.

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James Cowling @jamescowling.dev · 22/01/2025

It can be hard to break into a new domain but most folks I've mentored in systems engineering started as devs in adjacent teams who stood out by taking the time to learn how the systems worked above and below them in the stack and being proactive fixing things when they break.

James Cowling @jamescowling.dev · 22/01/2025

If you want to get good building systems and databases you should go work for a bigger company or a startup with serious infra demands. It's hard to develop excellence thinking about scale, correctness and architecture in an environment where these aren't critical to the business

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James Cowling @jamescowling.dev · 05/12/2024

Jealous you got this domain name :)