Spring Boot
Consistent Error Handling in Spring Boot REST APIs
Design one error contract for your whole API using @RestControllerAdvice, ProblemDetail, and validation groups.
2 min read
Tag
Backend Engineering
25 articles
System Design
Caching Strategies Every Backend Engineer Should Know
Cache-aside, read-through, write-through, write-behind — when each pattern fits, and the invalidation trade-offs nobody escapes.
3 min read
Security
Secure File Upload Handling
A defense-in-depth checklist for handling user-uploaded files safely, covering validation, storage, serving, and the mistakes that lead to real compromises.
3 min read
Performance
Tail Latency: Why p99 Matters More Than Average
Why average response time hides the experience of your worst-served users, and how to measure, diagnose, and reduce tail latency in production systems.
3 min read
Security
SSRF: The Cloud-Era Vulnerability and Its Defenses
Why server-side request forgery became a top-tier risk in the cloud metadata era, and the layered defenses that actually contain it.
3 min read
Software Engineering
API Versioning and Deprecation Policy
A practical framework for versioning APIs and deprecating old versions without breaking clients you don't control or can't even see.
3 min read
Spring Boot
Designing Idempotent Endpoints: Keys, Storage, and Semantics
A concrete pattern for idempotency keys in Spring Boot APIs, covering storage choice, request matching, and what to return on a replayed request.
3 min read
Performance
Response Compression: gzip, Brotli, and zstd Trade-offs
A practical comparison of gzip, Brotli, and zstd for HTTP response compression, covering ratio, CPU cost, and where each one actually wins.
2 min read
Spring Boot
Enforcing Module Boundaries in Spring Boot with Spring Modulith
How Spring Modulith turns package structure into an enforced architectural boundary, catching the coupling that code review alone tends to miss.
2 min read
Performance
API Batching and the DataLoader Pattern
How request batching and the DataLoader pattern eliminate N+1 query storms in APIs, with a look at when batching helps and when it just adds latency.
3 min read
Security
Password Storage: bcrypt, scrypt, Argon2, and Why Plain Hashing Fails
Why fast general-purpose hashes like SHA-256 are unsafe for passwords, and how bcrypt, scrypt, and Argon2 defend against modern offline cracking hardware.
3 min read
Spring Boot
DTO Mapping in Spring Boot: MapStruct vs. Hand-Written Mappers
Comparing MapStruct's generated mappers against hand-written mapping code across boilerplate, performance, and how each handles change over time.
3 min read
Performance
HTTP/2 and HTTP/3: What Multiplexing Actually Changes for Real Apps
A practical look at how HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 multiplexing affect application design, when it helps, and where old HTTP/1.1 habits still hurt you.
3 min read
Security
OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect: Flows Explained for App Developers
A practical guide to OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect flows for application developers, covering authorization code with PKCE and why implicit flow is obsolete.
3 min read
Spring Boot
@Scheduled and @Async: The Thread Pools You Can't Leave on Default
Why the default executors behind @Scheduled and @Async are wrong for production, and how to configure thread pools that actually match your workload.
3 min read
Spring Boot
Decoupling with Spring Application Events and @EventListener
Using Spring's application event system to decouple side effects from core business logic, and the transactional pitfalls that come with it.
3 min read
System Design
Load Balancing Strategies: L4 vs. L7
Transport-layer and application-layer load balancers make routing decisions with very different visibility — here's what each one trades off.
2 min read
Spring Boot
Bean Validation Beyond @NotNull: Groups, Custom Constraints, and Cross-Field Rules
Moving past @NotBlank and @Email to validation groups, custom constraint annotations, and cross-field rules that Bean Validation can express cleanly.
3 min read
Spring Boot
Circuit Breakers, Bulkheads, and Retries: Resilience4j in Spring Boot
How to combine Resilience4j's circuit breaker, bulkhead, and retry modules in Spring Boot without letting them fight each other.
3 min read
System Design
Idempotency in Distributed Systems: Making Retries Safe
Idempotency keys, atomic check-and-write, and why PUT being idempotent by spec doesn't make it the right tool for a retried write.
2 min read
Spring Boot
WebClient in Production: Timeouts, Retries, and Connection Pools
The WebClient configuration that RestTemplate never forced you to think about, and why the defaults are wrong for most production traffic.
3 min read
Spring Boot
Test Slices: @WebMvcTest, @DataJpaTest, and Knowing When to Skip Them
How Spring Boot's test slice annotations work, where they save real time, and the point at which reaching for @SpringBootTest is the better call.
2 min read
Spring Boot
Configuration Profiles and Externalized Config, Done Right
A pragmatic approach to Spring profiles and externalized configuration that avoids property sprawl and keeps environment differences honest.
2 min read
System Design
Rate Limiting Algorithms: Token Bucket, Sliding Window, and What Actually Fits
Fixed window, sliding window, token bucket, and leaky bucket rate limiters compared, with the burst and fairness trade-offs each one hides.
3 min read