TLDR Index
TLDR Web Dev

TLDR WEB DEV 2023-11-01

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01ARTICLES & TUTORIALS

JSON IS SLOWER. HERE ARE ITS 4 FASTER ALTERNATIVES

JSON's popularity is due to its human-readable format, language-agnostic nature, and support in web browsers and APIs. However, it can introduce performance challenges such as parsing overhead, serialization/deserialization inefficiencies, and lack of support for binary data. This article explores alternatives like Protocol Buffers, MessagePack, BSON, and Avro, and provides optimization strategies such as minimizing data size, using arrays wisely, optimizing number representations, and employing server-side caching. Real-world examples from LinkedIn, Uber, Slack, and Auth0 of these alternatives in practice show improved performance over JSON.

dev.to11 min read

HOW I SCALED AMAZON’S LOAD GENERATOR TO RUN ON 1000S OF MACHINES

TPSGenerator was created to handle large-scale livestreams like Taylor Swift's concert. It initially worked on a single machine, generating a specified number of transactions per second. As the need for higher throughput grew, especially with events like Cyber Monday, the tool evolved from a single-host system to a distributed one. Utilizing a divide-and-conquer strategy, the tool’s developer implemented a Controller → Queue → Worker architecture, where tasks were broken down into smaller, manageable ones, and distributed among multiple machines for execution.

carloarg02.medium.com10 min read

THE TEN RULES OF SCHEMA GROWTH

Development and production environments have different rules and purposes, with production requiring strict adherence to guidelines for stability. Schemas should prioritize growth (adding new elements) over breakage (removing or changing existing elements). Effective schema management emphasizes careful naming, the use of aliases and namespaces, annotations for clarity, and planning for continuous expansion.

blog.datomic.com6 min read

02OPINIONS & ADVICE

TOP NON-TECHNICAL SKILLS FOR SENIOR ENGINEERS AND TECHNICAL LEADERS

Even if not pursuing a management track, it’s important for senior engineers to invest in non-technical skills to grow. This article discusses several key non-technical skills that enhance engineering leadership, including running effective meetings, mentoring junior engineers, negotiating technical priorities, and communicating clearly.

makingsmallercircles.com7 min read

SIMPLIFY YOUR CONTROL FLOWS

Adding loops and conditionals can quickly make code harder to understand. To reduce cognitive overhead and improve code readability, it's advisable to encapsulate complex logic within functions or methods. This simplifies control flow and makes it easier for reviewers to understand and identify logic errors, leading to maintainable and less error-prone code.

testing.googleblog.com2 min read

03LAUNCHES & TOOLS

Sponsored

MEMBERFUL: PLUG & PLAY MEMBERSHIP SOFTWARE FOR WEB BUSINESSES AND CREATORS

The creator economy is exploding, and paid membership programs are key to sustainable growth. Memberful [10] offers reliable and easy-to-use tools to build a membership business from an existing website [10] with a full-featured GraphQL API, webhooks, SSO, and much more. ✔️ Maintain full control and ownership of your audience, brand, and membership.

memberful.comSponsor

MATERIAL DESIGN 3

Material Design 3 comes with the addition of a web-based set of components that implement the Material UI design system. The release also includes 19 different components, CSS theming, and accessibility best practices baked in.

m3.material.ioTool

STREAMDAL

Streamdal is an open-source data observability and governance tool consisting of a server, an SDK, and a console UI. Its features include data observability, data quality monitoring, data governance and enforcement, data transformation, and data obfuscation.

github.comGitHub repository

04MISCELLANEOUS

HANDLING A REGIONAL OUTAGE: COMPARING THE RESPONSE FROM AWS, AZURE AND GCP

This article compares how AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud have handled recent regional outages. It delves into each’s communication during the incidents, preliminary incident details, and postmortem analyses. The author praises Azure's postmortem and AWS's communication while noting that Google Cloud provided the most detailed written post-incident analysis of all three providers.

newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com17 min read

THE CRIPPLING PROBLEM OF BEING ABLE TO BUILD WHATEVER YOU WANT

Many developers face the dilemma of having numerous project ideas but limited time to execute them. To address these challenges, organize ideas, avoid overcommitment, release projects early to gather feedback, and set clear expectations for maintenance. The key is finding a balance between creating new projects and maintaining existing ones.

aschmelyun.com7 min read