Posts tagged: systems
What to Do When the Fast Path Breaks (And How to Explain Why It Was Worth the Risk)
Sometimes the fast solution is fragile. It works most of the time and breaks rarely, but when it breaks, it breaks hard. Plan the exit strategy.
Idempotency: The Property Your Retries Depend On
An operation is idempotent if doing it twice produces the same result as doing it once. Most retries assume this. Most operations don't guarantee it by default.
The Difference Between 'It Works' and 'It Scales'
A solution that works on test data might not work at 10x scale. Know the difference before you choose your approach.
The Circuit Breaker: The Pattern You Need Before You Need It
Without a circuit breaker, when a downstream service fails slowly, your service fails slowly too. The pattern is easy to implement. Nobody adds it until after the first incident.
The Subtle Bug That Lives in Your Retry Logic
Retry logic is everywhere. Most of it is wrong in the same way: retrying when it shouldn't, or not retrying when it should.