Managing Temporary Data in Multi-Step Rails Forms
Multi-step Rails forms need somewhere to hold data between steps, and this compares session storage, direct Redis caching, and temporary DB rows for that job.
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Custom HTTP Headers in Rails: Picking the Right Format
Rails normalizes headers to HTTP_-prefixed names, which decides whether Accept, a legacy X- prefix, or a plain name is right for a custom API header.
How Rails Sessions Work with Warden and Cookies
Rails keeps users logged in by encrypting the whole session into a browser cookie, then lets Warden authenticate each request, which changes how you should test it.
Web Workers vs Service Workers: What Each One Is For
The difference between Web Workers and Service Workers: one offloads CPU work, the other intercepts network requests, and most apps eventually need both.
PostgreSQL JSONB vs Linking Tables for Relationships
Comparing PostgreSQL jsonb columns against a traditional linking table for modeling course prerequisites, and where a hybrid of both makes more sense.
Is Your Endpoint I/O Bound or CPU Bound?
How to tell whether a slow endpoint is I/O bound or CPU bound, using system monitors, timing, and cProfile, and why the fix differs for each.
Debugging Exceptions: Break on Throw, Not Catch-All
Catch-all exception handlers hide the real bug. Debuggers that pause on every thrown exception, caught or not, find it faster than logging ever will.
MySQL vs PostgreSQL: Foreign Key Deadlock Contention
How foreign key checks cause deadlock contention in MySQL InnoDB versus PostgreSQL, and why PostgreSQL's FOR KEY SHARE lock reduces the risk considerably.
Frontend Error Handling: Catching What try/catch Misses
Why Sentry and Bugsnag catch more JavaScript errors than custom try/catch logic, and how to close the gap with global handlers and rejection listeners.
Nokogiri vs libxml2: Debugging a Dynamic Library Conflict
Why Nokogiri XPath queries failed in Docker but not on an M1 Mac: a libxml2 version mismatch caused by indirect dynamic library loading in Ruby.