Caching in Wonderland: Surviving Distributed Systems Chaos With Hazelcast

Caching in Wonderland: Surviving Distributed Systems Chaos With Hazelcast

Picture this: you’re Alice falling down the rabbit hole of distributed systems, and Hazelcast is your Cheshire Cat - always grinning with solutions. Let’s build a distributed caching system that even the Queen of Hearts would approve (just don’t mention cache invalidation at tea time). Preparing the Mad Hatter’s Toolkit First, let’s brew our dependency potion in the pom.xml cauldron: <dependency> <groupId>com.hazelcast</groupId> <artifactId>hazelcast-all</artifactId> <version>5.5.0</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId> <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-cache</artifactId> </dependency> Now let’s configure our looking glass (hazelcast....

May 27, 2025 · 3 min · 481 words · Maxim Zhirnov
The Case Against Code Reuse: When Writing from Scratch is Better

The Case Against Code Reuse: When Writing from Scratch is Better

We’ve all been there - staring at a 10-year-old utility class that’s become the Frankenstein’s monster of your codebase. “But it’s reusable!” your teammate insists, as you discover it now contains 47 optional parameters and a hardcoded reference to IE6. Let’s explore when writing fresh code might save your sanity (and your stack). The Hidden Costs of Reuse 1. The Overgeneralization Trap Reusable code often starts with good intentions: // The "Swiss Army Knife" string processor function processText( input: string, options: { trim?...

May 27, 2025 · 3 min · 513 words · Maxim Zhirnov
Building Data Dragons: Taming D3.js and React for Stunning Visualizations

Building Data Dragons: Taming D3.js and React for Stunning Visualizations

Picture this: You’re standing in a cave full of raw data nuggets, armed with nothing but JavaScript and ambition. That’s where D3.js swoops in like a fire-breathing dragon - powerful but temperamental. React becomes your knightly armor, helping you tame the beast. Let’s forge some visualization magic together! Setting Up the Arena First, create your React colosseum: npx create-react-app data-dragon-den cd data-dragon-den npm install d3 @visx/scale Now let’s create our first SVG canvas....

May 26, 2025 · 3 min · 516 words · Maxim Zhirnov
Why Manual Testing Isn't Going Away: A Love Letter to Human QA

Why Manual Testing Isn't Going Away: A Love Letter to Human QA

Picture this: you’ve just baked a perfect chocolate cake. Your robot sous-chef followed the recipe to the letter, but you’d still taste it yourself before serving, right? That’s manual testing in a nutshell - the human taste test of software quality. Let’s explore why armies of automated scripts haven’t (and won’t) replace this crucial human touch. The Secret Sauce of Software Quality While automated testing acts like a relentless kitchen timer beeping “THIS BUTTON MUST BE BLUE!...

May 26, 2025 · 3 min · 538 words · Maxim Zhirnov
Squeezing Blood From a Stone: Profiling and Benchmarking Go Apps Like a Circus Juggler

Squeezing Blood From a Stone: Profiling and Benchmarking Go Apps Like a Circus Juggler

When your Go application starts moving at the speed of continental drift, it’s time to break out the profiling tools and benchmark like your production cluster depends on it (because it does). Let’s turn your code from “meh” to “blazing fast” using techniques that would make a gopher blush. The Profiling Circus Step 1: Installing Your Trapeze First, add the profiling import to your main package: import _ "net/http/pprof" Step 2: Catching CPU火焰 in Mid-air...

May 25, 2025 · 3 min · 512 words · Maxim Zhirnov