Welcome to the Milonga Labs Blog

This is the first post, so let me start with the obvious question: why a blog at all?

I build software for Tango Argentino — tools for DJs and for people who travel to encuentros and marathons. Both are small, idiosyncratic fields. What actually works there is rarely something you learn from a requirements document; you learn it because you DJ yourself, or because you are the one looking for the way home at four in the morning.

What you will find here

Not marketing. More the kind of thing I would have wanted to read when I started: why a decision went one way and not the other, what data sits behind a feature, and which ideas turned out to be wrong in practice.

A few topics are lined up. How to merge a discography from seven different sources without ending up with three versions of the same recording. Why I sort lyrics into three licence tiers and deliberately store no full text for most of them. What "offline-first" actually means when the festival wifi disappears exactly when you are looking for your train home.

What I am working on

Two applications are well along: MilongaForge for music and milonga management, Milongar for events, registrations and travel. Both go to a small group as a beta before going public — MilongaForge this quarter, Milongar in Q4.

Read along, join in

If you have questions, know better, or would like to be part of a beta: drop me a line. A human answers.