Backend Development

These backend development guides cover the parts users never see: data, queues and services. Most posts compare two options and explain when each wins.

For example, SQL vs NoSQL and Kafka vs RabbitMQ help with common choices. Also, monolith vs microservices tackles the biggest one. Language series live in the Java, Python and Node.js sections below.

149 articles

22/06/2025 10 min read

Connection Pools and Transactions in Java

Executive Summary: Production JDBC needs a connection pool and explicit transactions. I show how to configure HikariCP and…
22/06/2025 11 min read

JDBC Fundamentals: Connections, Statements, and ResultSets

Executive Summary: JDBC is a standard interface over vendor drivers, built on Connection, PreparedStatement, and ResultSet. Here I…
21/06/2025 10 min read

CI Basics for Java: GitHub Actions from Scratch

Executive Summary: A Java CI pipeline on GitHub Actions starts with one workflow file that checks out the…
15/06/2025 11 min read

Debugging Java Applications: IDE, Remote, and Techniques

Executive Summary: Debugging Java follows one loop: reproduce, isolate, form one hypothesis, and verify it with evidence. Here…
14/06/2025 12 min read

Logging in Java: SLF4J, Logback, and Best Practices

Executive Summary: Java logging works best with SLF4J as the facade and Logback as the engine, so levels…
14/06/2025 11 min read

Writing Good Tests: Patterns, Fixtures, and Anti-Patterns

Executive Summary: Good tests follow the test pyramid: many fast unit tests, fewer integration tests, and a thin…
07/06/2025 11 min read

Mockito: Mocking, Stubbing, and Verifying

Executive Summary: Mockito lets you replace a class’s dependencies with mocks, stub their responses, and verify the calls…
10/05/2025 10 min read

JUnit 5: Writing Your First Tests

Executive Summary: A JUnit 5 test is a method annotated @Test that passes when its assertions hold. I…
27/03/2025 6 min read

Code Optimization in Java: Minimize Latency with Profiling

Java latency playbook: allocation and I/O techniques, pooling, async-profiler and JMH guidance, with before/after discipline.
19/03/2025 22 min read

LLM App Production Checklist: Cost, Caching, Retries, and Safety

Eleven practices that keep an LLM feature alive in production, ranked by impact, each with a wrong example,…
23/02/2025 11 min read

Profiling and Performance Tuning Basics in Java

Executive Summary: Java performance tuning works best as a loop: reproduce under steady state, set a baseline, profile,…
19/02/2025 17 min read

How to Test and Evaluate LLM Applications in Python

Separate deterministic tests from evals, build a golden dataset, score with code before judges, and read pass rates…
15/01/2025 15 min read

How to Build an MCP Server in Python

Expose your own tools and data to AI assistants through the Model Context Protocol: a complete Python server,…
11/01/2025 13 min read

Garbage Collection in Java: Generations, Collectors, and Tuning

Executive Summary: Java garbage collection reclaims objects no GC root can reach and organizes the heap by age…