Toptal Blog

Donald Knuth said that “premature optimization is the root of all evil.” But there comes a time, usually in mature projects with high loads, when the need to optimize presents itself. In this article, Toptal Freelance Software Engineer Iulian Gulea talks about five common methods to optimize a web project’s code using principles that can be used in Django as well as other frameworks and languages. Using these principles, he demonstrates how to reduce the response time of a query from 77 to 3.7 seconds.

In this article, Toptal Freelance Magento Developer Daniel Cuevas Zamora gives a broad overview of one of the most popular eCommerce platforms and how to get started with it.

Dashboards are a unique and powerful way to present data-based intelligence using data visualization techniques. This post looks at the fundamental dashboard design principles that lie at the heart of every successful dashboard.

In this tutorial, Toptal Freelance Software Engineer John R. Kosinski will demonstrate a simple Amazon Alexa hack using quintessential Arduino skills and basic hardware.

A brand is a promise. This article outlines how illustrations are being used to express brand value and how businesses are investing substantial time and resources into extensive brand illustration systems.

The arguments for a cryptocurrency revolution can tend to sway toward appearing more like get-rich-quick schemes than balanced debates. The regulatory risk overhang, constant scams, and technological immaturity of the movement mean that long-term success is far from certain.

In this article, Jonathan Sterling addresses the other side of the argument: the bear case for a crypto future. He shines a light on the problems blighting cryptocurrencies and some remedies for them, drawing upon comparisons with historic bubbles, some centuries old.

In this article, Toptal Freelance Software Engineer Tiberius Florea outlines the difference between deep and broad skillsets and explains why broadening your skillset may further your career.

In WordPress, taxonomies allow you to flexibly organize your content in categories with tags and more. However, when defining custom taxonomies, you may not get the desired behavior out of the box.

In this article, Toptal Freelance Software Engineer Rodrigo Donini shows how exclusive custom taxonomies can be implemented in WordPress for strict categorization of posts.

By now, most have heard of Big Data – the buzzword du jour across most business circles. In this exploratory piece, Finance Expert, Gregory Thompson, introduces us to the wonderful world of Small Data.

Specifically, he guides us through its broader market dynamics, tools, players and solutions, and includes a practical implementation guide for how small businesses might add analytics as a core-capability to their respective business arsenals.