Reading time: about 10 minutes The problem Kafka solves Picture a small online store. A customer clicks “Place Order,” and the Order service has to: The first version is usually the obvious one: the Order service calls each of these directly. It works, until the email provider has a slow afternoon and checkout starts timing … Read more
If you have worked on a backend application, chances are you have used a hash table even if you didn’t explicitly think about it. A Dictionary<TKey, TValue> in C# is a hash table. A cache backed by Redis relies heavily on key-based lookup. A database index is designed around the same broader idea: make finding … Read more
Arrays and strings are usually among the first topics we learn when starting with data structures and algorithms. At first, the problems seem straightforward: Then the problems start getting interesting. You are given a large array and asked to find a particular subarray. You need to process millions of events and identify activity within a … Read more
A Friendly Guide for Beginners and Intermediate Developers 👋 Hey there, fellow developer! Ever felt like you’re reinventing the wheel every time you write code? Or maybe you’ve looked at a senior developer’s code and wondered, “How did they know to structure it that way?” The secret sauce? Design Patterns! Let’s break this down in a … Read more
N+1 queries, eager loading, and when to use raw SQL A practical guide based on real production experience with C# code examples. Introduction: The hidden cost of convenience What happens when an endpoint that takes 200ms in development suddenly takes 14 seconds in production? I saw this first-hand while diagnosing a production API. The system … Read more
In modern web application development, scalability and efficient resource utilization are key. ASP.NET Core gives us powerful tools to build high-throughput servers, and one of the most impactful features for performance is asynchronous programming using async and await. In this article, we will explore how async/await works specifically with the ThreadPool in ASP.NET Core and … Read more
When you tap an app, search a site, or stream a show, the result appears to be instantaneous. That polish is the work of system design: the craft of deciding how pieces of software fit together so the whole behaves reliably, quickly, and predictably at whatever scale you need. If you’re new and want to … Read more