Essaysoncraft

systemsdatabasestransactionsconcurrencyapi-designhttprfccachingweboperating-systemsclipythonstreamsunixsecurityencryptiontlsprivacygitdebuggingworkflowversion-controlgoperformancedatabasegraphqldistributed-systemsarchitecturemigrationspatterns
Systems

Dirty Reads, Explained

A dirty read returns an uncommitted value from another transaction. If that transaction rolls back, the reader observed a value that was never part of committed database state.

Aug 8, 2026·5 min read
Systems

Non-Repeatable Reads, Explained

A transaction reads the same row twice and gets two different committed values. The isolation level determines whether both reads use the same database state.

Aug 8, 2026·5 min read
Systems

Phantom Reads, Explained

A transaction repeats a search and finds an additional matching row. The existing rows did not change, but another transaction committed a new row that satisfies the same query.

Aug 8, 2026·9 min read
Systems

The HTTP QUERY Method, Explained

RFC 10008 gives HTTP a method for safe queries with a body. It fills the awkward gap between long GET URLs and POST requests that normally reserved for mutations.

Jun 22, 2026·10 min read
Systems

Standard I/O Explained

Programs do not need to know whether input came from a keyboard, a file, or another program. Standard streams give them the same three doors every time.

Jun 19, 2026·5 min read
Systems

E2E and SSL Encryption Are Different

A green lock only proves one network hop is protected. End-to-end encryption moves the trust boundary so the server can carry a message without being able to read it.

Jun 15, 2026·9 min read
Systems

The N+1 Problem

It starts as one harmless query, then one more for every row it returns. We will break down how a page that breezed through tests with five records ends up making 201 database round trips under real load.

May 25, 2026·16 min read