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189 articles across 6 topics

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October 13, 2026Architecture Event sourcing explained: rebuild state from eventsReplay a cart's events, load a snapshot and see a stale read model catch up. Compare event sourcing with CQRS and ordinary event delivery.
October 13, 2026Architecture Transactional outbox: a crash and retry exampleStep through an outbox crash, compare direct publishing, and run a SQLite example showing why a saved message can still be delivered twice.
October 8, 2026Foundations Where software terms come from: seven origin stories checkedCheck the evidence behind bug, daemon, kernel, cache, compiler, algorithm and software engineering, including which familiar stories remain contested.

01 / TOPIC

Architecture

Boundaries, transaction scope, queues, and the distributed-system failures that follow from all three — written from systems already running when I arrived.

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Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Bounded contexts, concretely See how bounded contexts keep different meanings separate, translate external API facts at the edge, and avoid a shared model that spreads confusion. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Architecture decision records Record why an architecture choice was made, which assumptions could change it, and when to review it without rewriting the history of the decision. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Transaction boundaries Choose which changes must commit together, keep remote calls outside local transactions, and test the failure gap with an interactive outbox example. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE When a message broker is the wrong answer See three real systems that reached for a queue to patch a missing transaction boundary, and what broke later because a broker cannot supply one. Read it →

Published October 13, 2026 DEEP DIVE Event sourcing explained: rebuild state from events Replay a cart's events, load a snapshot and see a stale read model catch up. Compare event sourcing with CQRS and ordinary event delivery. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Events, and what they promise Find out what an event actually guarantees once it leaves the service that raised it, and which of those promises the consumer has to absorb itself. Read it →

Published October 13, 2026 DEEP DIVE Transactional outbox: a crash and retry example Step through an outbox crash, compare direct publishing, and run a SQLite example showing why a saved message can still be delivered twice. Read it →

Published September 23, 2026 DEEP DIVE Twelve-Factor app configuration: what belongs in the environment? Keep one build while changing deployment settings. Try missing values and a preview pointing at production, then review secret delivery and rotation. Read it →

Published October 5, 2026 DEEP DIVE Serverless architecture: what the provider manages Follow a serverless image job, change where its result is saved, and see how cold starts, scaling, retries and service limits affect the design. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 COMPARISON SOA vs microservices Compare an ESB-centred service design with microservices, change a message contract, and see why independent deployment still needs compatible boundaries. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Exponential backoff See why retries hit hardest exactly when a system is already failing, why spacing them out is not enough on its own, and where the multiplication comes from. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 COMPARISON gRPC vs REST See what a binary contract between two services buys you and what it costs in reach, so the choice follows your callers rather than the fashion. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Idempotency keys and safe retries Give every retry a key, store its result in the same transaction as the effect, and stop worrying whether a lost response means the work happened twice. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 COMPARISON Latency vs throughput Learn why a system can get busier and slower at the very same time, and work out which of the two numbers your users are really complaining about. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Load balancers, concretely See how round robin, least connections and a hash actually differ, and which of them stops working the moment a server keeps anything in its own memory. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Rate limiting See what the HTTP specification fixes about rate limiting, what it deliberately leaves to you, and why the counter you pick decides the burst you allow. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE HTTP 202 background jobs: accepted is not completed Follow one background export from HTTP 202 to a finished file. Separate job status from a lost connection, and make retries and user messages tell the truth. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE Characterization tests: make an AI refactor safer Record existing behaviour before an AI refactor. Run a cancellation example that catches an accidental change, and separate preservation from correctness. Read it →

Published September 23, 2026 DEEP DIVE CRDTs explained: merge a counter across two replicas Follow two offline replicas through a concrete counter merge, then see why delivery rules, deletes, metadata costs, and global invariants still matter. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 COMPARISON Unit vs integration test Compare test boundaries with a runnable booking example: a fake accepts duplicate slots while SQLite rejects them. See what each check establishes. Read it →

Published September 23, 2026 DEEP DIVE Consistent hashing explained with a key movement example Compare modulo sharding with a hash ring, then see exactly which keys move when a node joins and what virtual nodes, replication, and hot keys change. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Dead letter queues See the four things that actually send a message to a dead letter queue, why only one of them is your code failing, and how the cycle protection works. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Distributed tracing See what one header has to carry for a request to stay one story across a dozen services, and why the identifiers are standardised but the meaning is not. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Strangler-fig migration, from the inside Replace a running production system without stopping it, and see the routing and data-ownership decisions that actually determine whether it survives. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE What a Kafka topic actually is See what a topic really is on disk, why order holds inside one partition and nowhere else, and what that single fact decides about your consumers. Read it →

02 / TOPIC

Persistence

Index structure, lock behaviour, MVCC, write-ahead logs, compaction. Every one of them is state that changes over time, which is what a diagram is for.

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Published September 8, 2026 COMPARISON B-Tree vs LSM-Tree Compare B-tree and LSM-tree write, read and compaction costs through two visual models, then choose what to measure for your workload. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Why PostgreSQL is not using your index Use EXPLAIN to check why PostgreSQL chose a scan: inspect index conditions, row estimates and costs before changing the query or statistics. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE MVCC without the jargon See how row versions let ordinary reads see a consistent view, why the snapshot changes with isolation level, and when old versions cost space. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE The write-ahead log See why the log commits before the data file does, so a crash mid-write costs you a replay instead of a corrupted table and a very bad on-call night. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Connection pooling: reuse, sizing and waiting See how a database connection pool reuses connections. Change a twelve-query example to compare pool size, database capacity and where queries wait. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Isolation levels, and what each one lets through Stop treating isolation levels as a safety dial and start treating them as a list of anomalies you have agreed to tolerate, so surprises stop being surprises. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Data warehouse design Choose a warehouse's fact grain, shared dimensions and history rules. Step through a failed reload to see why delete and insert must commit together. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Key-value stores See why a flat key space pushes structure into your naming, why expiry belongs to the data rather than your code, and the command that blocks a server. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Pages, heaps and tuples See how PostgreSQL stores row versions inside pages, when HOT can avoid index work, and why reusable space is different from a smaller table file. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 COMPARISON OLTP vs OLAP Compare a checkout and a sales report on the same orders. See when row or column layout helps, and why a separate reporting workload may be useful. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE The star schema Choose one fact-row grain, then compare a flat dimension with a snowflake. See what changes in the query and what still needs measuring. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 COMPARISON Data warehouse vs database Compare operational databases and data warehouses: transaction versus analysis workloads, integrated history, reporting replicas, and hybrid systems. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Database replication Understand PostgreSQL replication through a booking example: what reaches the standby, what commits wait for and why replay lag is not a data-loss timer. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Change data capture See why reading the database's own log beats polling for changes, what a replication slot guarantees, and the way that same slot can take the server down. Read it →

Published September 23, 2026 DEEP DIVE Single table inheritance: one table for a class hierarchy See how a discriminator maps several entity types to one table, then decide when sparse columns and schema coupling outweigh simple queries. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Clustered indexes See why InnoDB's primary key decides where a row physically lives, why every secondary index carries a copy of it, and what a wide key costs a schema. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 VISUALISER B-tree splits, key by key Insert keys one at a time and watch a B-tree page fill, split and push its middle key up a level, until the shape that indexes rely on makes sense. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Deadlocks, seen Watch two transactions grab the same two locks in opposite order, so the next deadlock in your logs reads as a diagram instead of an unreadable stack trace. Read it →

03 / TOPIC

Foundations

Trees, traversal and complexity, plus the networking, memory and concurrency ground beneath them — the material most people meet first, minus the ceremony.

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Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Big-O without the ceremony Learn exactly what a Big-O claim is promising and what it is deliberately ignoring, so the notation becomes a tool again instead of interview folklore. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Hash tables: keys, collisions and lookup cost Follow a key to its bucket, try colliding inputs, and distinguish expected lookup cost, resize cost and Java HashMap's capacity trade-offs. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 COMPARISON BFS vs DFS Follow BFS and DFS through the same graph, see why BFS finds fewest-edge paths, and compare their Python implementations, memory use and failure cases. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 COMPARISON TCP vs UDP Know when a dropped packet breaks your feature and when it costs nothing, so you stop reaching for TCP by reflex and paying for a round trip you never needed. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 VISUALISER AVL tree visualiser Load and share an insertion sequence. Compare a plain search tree with an AVL tree, inspect rotations and see how insertion order changes height. Read it →

Published September 23, 2026 DEEP DIVE Luhn algorithm: calculate and check a check digit Run the Luhn checksum by hand, see exactly which digits are doubled, and learn what a valid check digit can and cannot prove. Read it →

Published September 23, 2026 DEEP DIVE Deterministic finite automata: trace one state at a time Build a machine that checks whether a binary string ends in 01, follow its state changes, and see why an early match is not enough. Read it →

Published September 23, 2026 DEEP DIVE Eulerian path: use every edge exactly once Choose and undo roads on a four-vertex map, distinguish edge coverage from visiting every vertex, and see how a stack builds an Eulerian path. Read it →

Published September 23, 2026 DEEP DIVE Hamiltonian path: visit every vertex once Try a route, undo a choice that leaves a vertex unreachable, and distinguish Hamiltonian paths from Eulerian paths and cheapest routes. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 COMPARISON Mutex vs semaphore Compare mutex and semaphore behaviour in Java and Python. Change who releases to inspect owner checks, repeated releases and permit counts. Read it →

Published September 9, 2026 DEEP DIVE Buzzwords are not understanding Learn a practical test for real technical understanding: turn jargon into mechanisms, examples, trade-offs, and failure cases without losing the truth. Read it →

Published October 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Where software terms come from: seven origin stories checked Check the evidence behind bug, daemon, kernel, cache, compiler, algorithm and software engineering, including which familiar stories remain contested. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 COMPARISON Binary tree vs binary search tree Know which of the two you actually have, because the ordering rule is the only thing making a lookup cheap — and nothing in the type enforces it for you. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Hash collisions: chaining and linear probing on the same keys Insert the same colliding keys with chaining and linear probing. Follow lookup, full-table misses and deletion, then check each model's limits. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Linked list vs array: count the search before insertion Understand O(1) linked-list insertion after a known node, the cost of finding that node, and the difference between traversal and repeated array shifts. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 COMPARISON Stack vs queue: choose which item leaves next Compare stack and queue removal on the same jobs. Learn LIFO and FIFO, choose an implementation, and see why FIFO does not guarantee completion order. Read it →

Published September 23, 2026 COMPARISON Abstract class vs interface in Java: what each one shares Use one Java export example to compare interfaces and abstract classes: what callers can request, what objects inherit, and when neither needs a base class. Read it →

Published October 2, 2026 DEEP DIVE Encapsulation in Java: keep object state valid See how a private list can still break a class's rules. Try direct access, a read-only view and a snapshot, then run a complete Java example. Read it →

Published September 23, 2026 DEEP DIVE Longest common subsequence: keep order, allow gaps Step through an LCS table and recover a sequence in Python. Compare memoization, rolling rows and Hirschberg when choosing how much state to keep. Read it →

Published September 23, 2026 DEEP DIVE Longest common substring: find a shared run of characters Follow a matching run through a small table, see why a mismatch resets it, and recover the longest substring with two rows of working memory. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Priority queues and binary heaps in Python Use Python heapq to build a binary heap, retrieve priorities, keep equal-priority tasks in arrival order, and understand operation costs. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Topological sort: Kahn's algorithm in Python Trace a dependency order, run Kahn's algorithm in Python, detect a cycle, and compare DFS with graphlib's TopologicalSorter. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 COMPARISON HashMap vs Hashtable Find out what actually separates the two beyond a capital letter, and why the older one is still in the language long after it stopped being advice. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Long polling Learn how holding a request open turns polling into something that behaves like a push, and which of your timeouts will quietly break the day it does. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Memory leaks See how lost allocations and unwanted retained references cause memory leaks, why a flat usage curve does not rule one out, and what a collector can reclaim. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Merge sort Learn why the merge is the easy half, why the sort your language ships looks for order that is already there, and what stability actually promises. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 COMPARISON OSI vs TCP/IP Compare OSI’s seven-layer reference model with the Internet model’s four layers, map common protocols, and trace three concrete request failures. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 COMPARISON Process vs thread Understand what each of them actually owns, so you can tell which failures stay contained inside one and which take everything else down with them. Read it →

Published September 23, 2026 DEEP DIVE Bellman–Ford algorithm: shortest paths with negative edges Follow two edge scans to find a cheaper route, then see why a reachable negative cycle prevents some shortest distances from existing. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Binary search Find a target in a sorted array by halving the range, trace the O(log n) search, then see how Python bisect turns the same idea into insertion points. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 REFERENCE deque in Python Know when a Python deque beats a list, why the middle stays O(n) while both ends stay O(1), and how maxlen silently discards the data you meant to keep. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE Diameter of a binary tree: join two downward paths Find a binary tree's diameter in Python. Count edges correctly, see why the longest path can miss the root, and use iterative postorder traversal. Read it →

Published September 23, 2026 DEEP DIVE Kruskal's algorithm: connect vertices at the lowest total cost Choose cheap edges, reject one that closes a loop, and use connected groups to build a minimum spanning tree or forest. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE LRU caches See how an LRU cache chooses what to remove, compare it with FIFO one request at a time, and separate a cache's size limit from the freshness of its values. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE Python RecursionError: fix the cause before raising the limit Fix maximum recursion depth exceeded in Python. Distinguish a missing stop condition, a self-calling property, a cycle, and a genuinely deep input. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE Python try, except, else and finally: follow one failed conversion Learn Python try/except with runnable examples. Trace else and finally, catch the right exception, and avoid hiding unrelated failures. Read it →

Published September 23, 2026 DEEP DIVE Selection sort: find the next smallest value Watch selection sort finish an array early but keep scanning, count its work, and see how swapping can reverse equal-key records. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE Validate a binary search tree: carry the ancestor bounds Validate a binary search tree in Python with ancestor bounds. See why parent-only checks fail, how duplicates work, and how to avoid recursion limits. Read it →

Published September 23, 2026 DEEP DIVE 0/1 knapsack: choose the items, not just the best value Compare taking and leaving each item, fill a small knapsack table, recover the chosen set, and avoid accidentally reusing the same item. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 COMPARISON Compiler vs interpreter See how compilation and interpretation work together in real toolchains, when code is translated, and which checks can catch errors before execution begins. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Congestion control Learn why TCP carries two separate limits on how much it may send, which one the network controls, and why confusing them sends you tuning the wrong thing. Read it →

Published September 23, 2026 DEEP DIVE Linked list in Python: build one, then choose the right container Implement a minimal singly linked list in Python, check its operation costs, and learn when list or collections.deque is the better tool. Read it →

Published September 23, 2026 DEEP DIVE LLM quantization: what Q3 and Q4 actually mean See what LLM quantization changes inside model weights, why Q3 is not three decimal places, and how lower-bit formats trade memory traffic for approximation. Read it →

Published September 23, 2026 DEEP DIVE Longest palindromic substring: expand from every center Find the longest contiguous palindrome in a string by expanding around odd and even centers, with code and a precise complexity bound. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Recursion, drawn Watch the call stack build and unwind as a real data structure instead of an abstraction, and recursion stops feeling clever and starts feeling obvious. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 VISUALISER Sorting algorithm visualiser Step insertion, merge, and selection sort through the same array and watch their comparison counts diverge. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 COMPARISON Stack vs heap Compare call-stack frames and independent heap allocations, with the ownership, lifetime and runtime details that shape the choice. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE The TLS handshake Learn what a handshake actually agrees before any data moves, why the order of the steps is the security, and what the fastest mode quietly gives up. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 VISUALISER Binary search tree visualiser Insert values one at a time and watch insertion order decide the shape of a binary search tree, and that shape quietly decide every lookup's real cost. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Buffer overflows Learn why writing past the end of a buffer is rarely the real bug, what sits in the memory it lands in, and why the class still tops the weakness lists. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 VISUALISER Dijkstra visualiser Step through Dijkstra one relaxation at a time and see why it always takes the cheapest frontier node, and why one negative edge weight breaks the guarantee. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Dynamic arrays See why appending to a growable array is cheap on average but occasionally copies everything, and why no serious library will tell you its growth factor. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Red-black trees Learn what the colouring rules actually buy, why you almost never write one yourself, and the contract that quietly breaks a sorted map from the inside. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Tree traversal orders Four traversal orders differ by one line of code — pick the right one on purpose and your sorted output, serialised tree, or shallow answer stops being luck. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Virtual memory Learn what the hardware does between the address in your code and the memory chip, and why a program can hand out more memory than the machine has. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Why quicksort is fast in practice Learn why quicksort's real worst case almost never happens in practice, and why cache locality quietly does more work than the pivot strategy does. Read it →

04 / TOPIC

Software factories

How to turn a request into a tested software change with AI agents, existing development tools and people who review the work and handle failures.

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Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE What a software factory is See how a software factory connects planning, coding, tests and review, what AI agents do, and where a person still needs to decide. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE From vague request to ready ticket Turn a vague request into a coding task by checking the existing code, asking specific questions and recording the behaviour and tests people agreed on. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE The human merge gate Decide what a person must review before an agent's change is merged, how consequences affect review depth and how to prevent approval becoming a formality. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Verifying after the deploy Check that the intended version is serving before judging a release. Distinguish missing version information, rollout delays and failed behaviour checks. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE AI decision models explained: choices and checks Follow a support request through rules, model classification and application checks. Learn what decision models such as Jev do, and what they do not prove. Read it →

Published October 7, 2026 DEEP DIVE Code Review in the Age of AI-Generated PRs A read order and copy-paste checklist for reviewing an AI-authored pull request, plus the sourced figures that motivate each step and where each one comes from. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE AI coding and the human attention bottleneck Keep AI-generated changes understandable: decide permissions before coding, inspect code and tests, and stop starting work when reviewers cannot keep up. Read it →

Published October 6, 2026 DEEP DIVE The Bus Factor in an AI-Written Codebase: How to Measure Who Actually Understands Your Code Audit your AI code bus factor with five concrete comprehension checks, an interactive adjustment, and a transparent hypothetical example. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Harness engineering: the tools and checks around an agent See how a harness supplies tools and permissions, enforces access rules, and lets you replace a component without silently changing its meaning. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Ephemeral environments and seed data Give an agent a runnable test environment with isolated state and invented data. Learn what to preserve, what to clean up and which startup costs to measure. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE Do AI agents learn? Memory is not model training Distinguish conversation history, saved memory, retrieval, changed instructions and model training. Follow one preference and see what to test. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE AI agent user experience: keep people in control Design agent interfaces that show the permitted task, support precise corrections and make approvals meaningful, without inventing confidence scores. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE AI confidence explained: what does 90% mean? Distinguish a model's confidence score from measured accuracy. Work through calibration, missed cases and thresholds without treating certainty as permission. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE Why AI-generated tests can pass with the wrong code Run a booking example where tests miss a deadline bug. Add the missing boundary check and see what coverage and mutation testing tell you. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE The AI vampire: when faster coding creates more work What the AI vampire means, what the research supports, and how a worked review-budget example helps teams avoid turning faster coding into overload. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE An Angular software factory, one feature at a time Follow one Angular booking feature from agreed behaviour to reusable components, server checks and tests, then reuse the parts that should stay consistent. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE Turn vague AI requests into decisions you can test Replace a vague request to find useful information with explicit questions, supplied comparison text, meaningful outcomes and reviewed test cases. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE Designing tools for AI agents: clear inputs, safe actions Follow a document update through tool discovery, exact identifiers, version checks and permissions. Learn why valid JSON is not a valid action. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE Model cascades: when a cheap first decision saves money Calculate a two-stage AI workflow's complete cost, then count the relevant material its first filter misses. Compare savings without quietly lowering quality. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE RAG troubleshooting: find where the evidence was lost Trace a wrong RAG answer from its source through indexing, retrieval and context assembly. Separate missing evidence from a model misreading good evidence. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 COMPARISON Single-agent vs multi-agent: when splitting the work helps Compare one agent with several using the same task. See when separate investigations help, when dependencies get in the way, and what to measure. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE Type-safe AI output is not the same as a correct decision A model can select a valid document ID and still select the wrong document. Separate output shape, meaning, permission and execution with one worked example. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE What is an AI agent? Follow the next decision Follow a support request to see how an AI agent chooses tools, uses their results and stops—and how that differs from a chatbot or fixed workflow. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Deterministic steps and AI steps Choose scripts for explicit rules and AI for investigation. See when one model call is enough, when a workflow fits, and which checks code must enforce. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Golden sets: testing the factory Compare agent changes on repeatable tasks with expected outcomes, turn discovered failures into regression cases and measure complete runs rather than one step. Read it →

Published September 22, 2026 DEEP DIVE Loop engineering: when an AI agent should retry or stop Design repeated agent work around actual test results, saved progress and stopping rules. Follow a repair loop and a recurring maintenance example. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE What a merged change costs Calculate agent costs across complete tasks, including retries, failed runs, test environments and human review. Compare savings without weakening checks. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE When an agent stops and asks Design an agent's handover to a person: ask a specific question, save progress, route it to someone who can decide and resume after checking the answer. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Orchestrator, or just a pipeline? Decide whether an agent task fits your existing CI pipeline or needs saved workflow state for approvals, restarts and shared ownership. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE The coding agent and its repair loop Follow a coding agent from a ready task to a tested change, including limited repair attempts, scope changes, blocked tests and a handover to a person. Read it →

Published September 22, 2026 DEEP DIVE 12-factor agents: actions, saved progress and retries Learn the twelve agent-design principles through a pull request that times out: what the model proposes, what the program allows and how work resumes. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE How agents hand work over through saved records See what one agent should leave for the next: the request, changed code, test results and unfinished work, with an example handover record. Read it →

Published September 22, 2026 DEEP DIVE Context engineering: what an AI agent needs to see Learn how to choose an agent's instructions, code and test results, avoid stale information, and distinguish context engineering from prompting and RAG. Read it →

Published September 22, 2026 DEEP DIVE Context rot: when to shorten or restart an AI session Recognise repeated mistakes and buried requirements in an AI coding session. Learn what context rot means, when to reset and which work to preserve. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Incidents back into the backlog Turn repeated errors into useful follow-up work: group related events, update existing tickets and distinguish a returning defect from delayed old reports. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Measuring a factory honestly Compare similar work with and without a software factory, counting review, rework and quality alongside speed. Avoid rewarding code volume over useful changes. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Prompt injection in a pipeline See how instructions hidden in tickets, code or logs can redirect an agent, why structured handovers do not remove the risk and which permissions to restrict. Read it →

Published September 22, 2026 DEEP DIVE Research, plan, implement: prepare the next coding step Guide an agent through existing code: find the current behaviour, agree on the change, plan a testable part and pass on findings without a whole chat history. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Scoped credentials and the kill switch Limit what each agent can read and change, stop new and active work, and test that temporary permissions expire without relying on instructions alone. Read it →

Published September 22, 2026 DEEP DIVE AI software factory limits: tests, maintenance and review See what passing tests can miss in an AI software factory: duplicated rules, growing review queues and changes that are difficult to undo. Read it →

Published September 22, 2026 DEEP DIVE Spec-driven development: keeping specifications and code aligned Learn which specifications to maintain, how they differ from implementation plans, and what to do when the written rule, tests and running code disagree. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE The pull-request review agent Use an AI reviewer to inspect proposed code, tests and requirements. Keep revision-specific findings separate from fixes, build results and merge approval. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Who owns the factory Decide who maintains the agent tools, answers questions and handles failures. Match support hours and the manual fallback to how teams use the factory. Read it →

05 / TOPIC

Career

Practical decisions for a developer's career: choosing work, learning useful skills, earning trust, searching for a role, and growing without making work your whole life. Concrete examples, honest boundaries, and named sources.

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Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE What actually changes between mid and senior See what a step up in seniority really asks for, why it is not more code, and how to tell whether you are already doing it in your current job. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Reviewing without starting a fight Write code review feedback that names a problem, explains its consequence and distinguishes required fixes from suggestions, with a worked example. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Writing it down before you build it See why most design docs go unread, and how to write one that gets real comments before the build starts, instead of complaints after it ships. Read it →

Published September 8, 2026 DEEP DIVE Estimates you can defend See where estimates actually go wrong and why the error compounds across tasks, so you can give a number you are able to stand behind later. Read it →

Published October 7, 2026 DEEP DIVE Does AI Actually Slow Down Junior Developer Learning? One study found a 4.15-point quiz gap after AI-assisted coding. See what it measured, what it did not, and how to use AI without delegating the learning. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE A good developer career does not need to take over your life Define enough in terms of work, income, learning, and life outside the job. Choose ambition deliberately instead of treating every spare hour as career debt. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE Ask for help without handing over the whole problem Explain what you are trying to do, what you observed, and where your reasoning stops. Make it easy for a colleague to help without hiding uncertainty. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE Build a developer portfolio that shows judgement Use a small project to show decisions, tests, and honest limitations. Help a reviewer understand your contribution without a large unpaid side project. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE Build a skill practice loop, not a course collection Choose a developer skill you can demonstrate, practise it on a bounded task, and use specific feedback to decide what to change on the next attempt. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE Build career confidence from specific evidence Separate how confident you feel from what you can demonstrate. Use bounded practice, honest feedback, and clear limits instead of trying to sound certain. Read it →

Published September 27, 2026 DEEP DIVE Choose a stretch assignment with support, not just more risk Check the scope, authority, time, and review behind a development opportunity. Distinguish a useful stretch from unsupported responsibility. Read it →