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Architecture

Semantic Versioning is overrated

Package Managers (npm, nuget, pip, composer, maven, etc) are an incredible tool for leveraging other libraries and frameworks into your products or projects. What seems to have been largely lost in the decision-making process on if you should take on a dependency and what the implications are. Once you do take a dependency, how much do you trust the vendor/author and semantic versioning? Before you do a quick npm install or update let me explain some things you should be considering. YouTube Check out my YouTube channel where I post all kinds of content that accompanies my posts including this video showing… Read More »Semantic Versioning is overrated

Cache invalidation isn’t a hard problem

Cache invalidation is often said to be a hard problem to solve. I don’t think this is true in the context of software systems. Regardless of which caching strategies you use (Write-Through or Cache Aside), the key is to have well-defined boundaries. Other boundaries cannot be modifying data within another boundary directly at the database level. They must access it via the exposed API that forces cache invalidation or updating. Cache Invalidation doesn’t need to be a difficult problem. YouTube Check out my YouTube channel where I post all kinds of content that accompanies my posts including this video showing everything that… Read More »Cache invalidation isn’t a hard problem

When NOT to write an Abstraction Layer

Common advice is to abstract dependencies. Often this is because people have been burned by depending directly upon 3rd party dependencies that they are highly coupled to. If they need to change the dependency, which they are highly coupled with, it can be pretty painful. This is why people say to create an abstraction layer around any dependency to isolate it so that your application code is coupled to yourself rather than a 3rd party. While this is generally true, it depends, and you don’t want to create an abstraction that is more work in the short and long run… Read More »When NOT to write an Abstraction Layer