Best of Backend Development — March 2025

  1. 1
    Article
    Avatar of lobstersLobsters·1y

    A Programmer's Reading List: 100 Articles I Enjoyed (1-50)

    Programmers often share their knowledge through technical articles. This post is the first part of a series, presenting 50 articles focused on topics such as general programming knowledge, software engineering, backend development, technical writing, Python, and Go. Highlights of these articles include insights on learning effectively, managing self-motivation, optimizing Go program performance, the cost and quality of software, and writing helpful error messages.

  2. 2
    Article
    Avatar of hnHacker News·1y

    Sync Engines are the Future

    Sync engines are poised to revolutionize the way we handle data in web development by collapsing the database and server into a single entity. This approach simplifies the tech stack, ensuring data is consistently synchronized and reducing dependency on traditional database servers. This essay discusses the complexities of data synchronization, the limitations of existing tools like SQL, and the potential of sync engines to streamline backend and frontend operations.

  3. 3
    Article
    Avatar of zalandoZalando·1y

    From Event-Driven Chaos to a Blazingly Fast Serving API

    Zalando transitioned from an event-driven system to a high-performance API capable of serving millions of requests per second with low latency. This project addressed the scalability issues of the previous architecture and streamlined product and offer data handling. Key components included the Product Read API (PRAPI) with caching and load balancing optimizations. The transition also involved contributing improvements to open-source load balancers and a team restructure aligned with Conway’s Law and CQRS principles.

  4. 4
    Video
    Avatar of codingwithlewisCoding with Lewis·1y

    How Notion Handles 200 BILLION Notes (Without Crashing)

    Notion has managed its rapid growth by adopting sharding to distribute its data across many smaller databases. Initially using a single Postgres database, they experienced slowdowns and shifted to sharding their block model. They later built their own data lake using AWS S3, Apache Spark, and other open-source tools to handle their data processing needs effectively. By reorganizing and scaling up their infrastructure, Notion maintained performance and avoided service interruptions for users.

  5. 5
    Video
    Avatar of youtubeYouTube·1y

    Stop Using Redis. Use Open Source Instead

    Redis, a widely-used in-memory database, recently changed its license to a more restrictive model, leading to the creation of an open-source alternative, Valkey. Valkey has garnered support from tech giants like AWS, Oracle, and Google, promising to maintain the free and open-source nature of the original Redis. The post explains how to switch from Redis to Valkey and compares their features, performance, and pricing.

  6. 6
    Article
    Avatar of lobstersLobsters·1y

    SpacetimeDB

    SpacetimeDB combines a relational database and server into one, allowing clients to connect directly to the database and execute logic within it. This eliminates the need for traditional web or game servers, reducing the use of Docker, Kubernetes, VMs, microservices, and extensive ops infrastructure. SpacetimeDB has facilitated the development of the massively multiplayer game BitCraft, handled by a small team, by implementing all backend logic, real-time player positions, and persistent state as a SpacetimeDB module.

  7. 7
    Article
    Avatar of dhhDavid Heinemeier Hansson·1y

    Motivating the S3 exit with five thousand dollars a day

    Basecamp and HEY are planning to end their AWS S3 contract, which currently costs $1.5 million per year, by summer. They are switching to Pure Storage, which provides 18 petabytes of NVMe storage with S3-compatible API. This transition is crucial to avoid the potential $5,000 daily cost of using S3 post-contract.

  8. 8
    Article
    Avatar of bytebytegoByteByteGo·1y

    How Uber Built Odin to Handle 3.8 Million Containers

    Uber created Odin to automate the management of its massive database and storage infrastructure, handling 3.8 million containers and over 100,000 hosts. Odin utilizes self-healing loops, efficient resource scheduling, and technology-agnostic integration to ensure high availability, optimal performance, and minimal manual intervention. Key features include self-healing systems, dynamic workload rescheduling, and efficient storage management. Odin represents a significant advancement in automated, intent-based infrastructure management.

  9. 9
    Video
    Avatar of philipplacknerPhilipp Lackner·1y

    Full 2025 Backend Dev Crash Course for Beginners With Spring Boot (Kotlin, JWT Auth, MongoDB)

    The post is a beginner-friendly crash course for building REST APIs using Spring Boot and Kotlin. It covers the basic knowledge required to follow along, including a brief overview of Kotlin and IntelliJ setup. The course aims to familiarize readers with building a backend application that can handle routes, process data, and interact with MongoDB for storing user-generated notes. Authentication and security are also discussed, with JWT being used as the authentication mechanism.

  10. 10
    Article
    Avatar of communityCommunity Picks·1y

    You can make Postgres scale

    PostgreSQL can be scaled effectively by using sharding to distribute the write workload across multiple databases. This process involves significant engineering effort, including ensuring data integrity during replication, setting up multiple replicas, and configuring the application to handle sharded databases. The story highlights the challenges faced and solutions implemented by a dedicated team to achieve this scalability with PostgreSQL.

  11. 11
    Article
    Avatar of javarevisitedJavarevisited·1y

    Why Spring Boot Developers Struggle When Building Real-World Projects?

    Spring Boot developers often struggle with transitioning from tutorials to real-world projects. Common problems include lack of a structured roadmap and insufficient practical project experience. By focusing on key codebases, exploring common functionalities, and addressing weak areas, developers can significantly enhance their skills. Additional growth can be achieved through mentoring, contributing to open source projects, and working on personal projects. The post emphasizes the importance of practical application to bridge the gap between theoretical learning and real-world problem-solving.

  12. 12
    Article
    Avatar of newstackThe New Stack·1y

    FerretDB 2.0: Open Source MongoDB With PostgreSQL Power

    FerretDB, an open-source MongoDB proxy running on PostgreSQL, has released version 2.0 with significant performance improvements using the DocumentDB extension from Microsoft. This extension enables SQL queries for BSON data, making FerretDB a flexible on-premises alternative to MongoDB-compatible cloud services. FerretDB seeks to provide an open-source solution for MongoDB users, emphasizing vendor-neutrality and community-driven development through the OpenDocDB initiative.

  13. 13
    Article
    Avatar of awegoAwesome Go·1y

    Starting Systems Programming, Pt 1: Programmers Write Programs

    The post introduces the fundamentals of systems programming, covering essential topics such as bit manipulation, parsing, filesystems, input/output, syscalls, memory management, and signals. The focus is on writing multiple programs from scratch to understand the basics of programming deeply. Numerous exercises are provided to practice these skills, and the code examples are primarily in Go, with some Bash scripts.

  14. 14
    Article
    Avatar of smashingSmashing Magazine·1y

    Adaptive Video Streaming With Dash.js In React — Smashing Magazine

    Adaptive bitrate streaming splits a video into segments at different bitrates and resolutions, allowing smooth playback on various network conditions and devices. Using Dash.js with React, this guide demonstrates how to implement DASH-compatible video players and create adaptive video renditions with FFmpeg, covering the installation, transcoding, and player setup process.

  15. 15
    Article
    Avatar of infoworldInfoWorld·1y

    The best Java and JVM language frameworks

    The Java ecosystem supports several outstanding back-end frameworks, including those for modern JVM languages like Scala and Kotlin. This piece compares seven highly-regarded frameworks: Spring, Micronaut, Quarkus, JHipster, Ktor/Kotlin, Play/Scala, and Vert.x. Each framework is evaluated based on features like API support, realtime capabilities, static site generation, and unique strengths. The Java ecosystem is described as stable, secure, and capable of supporting diverse development needs.

  16. 16
    Article
    Avatar of hnHacker News·1y

    chenquan/arkflow: High-performance Rust stream processing engine, providing powerful data stream processing capabilities, supporting multiple input/output sources and processors.

    ArkFlow is a high-performance stream processing engine built in Rust, utilizing the Tokio async runtime for low latency. It supports multiple input/output sources such as Kafka, MQTT, HTTP, and files, along with various data processors including SQL queries, JSON processing, and Protobuf encoding/decoding. The modular design makes it easily extensible with new components.

  17. 17
    Article
    Avatar of communityCommunity Picks·1y

    Learn Go Templates: A Practical Guide to Layouts, Data Binding, and Rendering

    Go templates offer a powerful, efficient, and secure way to generate dynamic content, either for text-based output or HTML rendering. They are part of the standard library and feature a flexible syntax for embedding data, creating reusable layouts, and structuring content. This guide provides practical examples on using templates, passing data, managing layouts, and solving common rendering challenges.

  18. 18
    Article
    Avatar of devgeniusDev Genius·1y

    Change Data Capture Tools

    Change Data Capture (CDC) tools automatically track and replicate database changes in real time. Different mechanisms like log-based, trigger-based, query-based, timestamp-based, and hybrid CDC tools are used. Debezium is a popular open-source CDC platform with high scalability, integrating well with Kafka. Other tools like DBConvert Streams, Maxwell Daemon, and Sequin offer various features and integrations for efficient data replication. Challenges such as setup complexity and performance overhead are common with these tools.

  19. 19
    Article
    Avatar of piccalilliPiccalilli·1y

    Real-world uses of TypeScript’s utility types

    Sam Rose, a senior software engineer at Budibase, explains the practical uses of TypeScript's utility types, highlighting how they enhance both frontend and backend development. Examples given include Partial, Record, Omit, ReturnType, and Readonly, demonstrating their helpfulness in real-world scenarios. Tips for advanced usage and alternatives from the ts-toolbelt library are also provided.

  20. 20
    Article
    Avatar of lnLaravel News·1y

    Support for Query Builder Pipelines in Laravel 12.4

    Laravel 12.4 introduces a new query builder pipe() method, allows conditional skipping of migrations, and adds the Arr::sole() method. Other updates include the listenersPushed() method for queue listeners, the Model::except() method, and the assertDoesntThrow() method, along with new JSON assertion methods whereNull() and whereNotNull().

  21. 21
    Article
    Avatar of bytebytegoByteByteGo·1y

    Facebook’s Database Handling Billions of Messages

    Cassandra is a powerful distributed database system created by Facebook to manage and store massive volumes of data across many computers. Designed to support features like Facebook's Inbox Search for billions of messages, Cassandra is highly scalable, fault-tolerant, and ensures high availability even if some nodes fail. It is derived from Amazon Dynamo and Google Bigtable, combining their best features to overcome scalability issues faced by traditional databases like MySQL. Key features include distributed storage, no single point of failure, and efficient data handling through commit logs, memtables, and SSTables. Its architecture uses a peer-to-peer model and the gossip protocol for efficient node communication.

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    Article
    Avatar of lnLaravel News·1y

    Resource Response Customization in Laravel APIs

    Laravel's withResponse method allows developers to customize API responses, including headers, status codes, and other attributes. This feature is useful for adding metadata and ensuring responses meet specific requirements, making it ideal for professional API development.

  23. 23
    Article
    Avatar of devsquadDev Squad·1y

    🚀 Doks.io – Get your API documentation automatically

    Doks.io offers an automated approach to setting up API documentation through a simple middleware integration. It generates a live Swagger portal, ensuring performance with an asynchronous architecture and maintaining security by redacting and encrypting data at rest.

  24. 24
    Article
    Avatar of communityCommunity Picks·1y

    Generate SQL Queries with AI in Seconds

    AI Query leverages advanced AI models like OpenAI GPT and Google PaLM 2 to enable users to generate complex SQL queries using simple English prompts. It supports multiple database engines and provides tools for defining database schemas and translating SQL to English. The service offers various features, including unlimited query generation and explanations, database schema management, and query history. Two pricing plans are available with options for faster AI response and priority support.

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