Level Up Coding

Database Indexing Explained Most databases require some form of indexing to keep up with performance benchmarks. Searching through a database is much simpler when the data is correctly indexed, which improves the system's overall performance. A database index is a lot like…

Kafka’s architecture made it fast, but not cheap. Diskless Kafka makes it both. The future of Kafka just shipped. Aiven Inkless, the first production-ready implementation of Diskless Kafka, is now GA. This is huge news for Kafka users looking for lower cost, simpler ops, and…

If I had to optimize a CI/CD pipeline, here’s what I’d consider: The first step in optimizing any system is to analyze its processes and 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗰𝗸𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘀. One of the biggest culprits for CI/CD performance? Build…

SSO (Single Sign-On) Clearly Explained. SSO can be thought of as a master key to open all different locks. It allows a user to log in to different systems using a single set of credentials. To fully understand the SSO process, let’s take a look at how a user would log into…

Atlassian just brought agentic AI to your entire workflow. Here’s what you need to know, and why I’ve been so impressed. Rovo Dev isn’t just an AI coding assistant. It’s agentic AI across the Atlassian ecosystem that connects agents across your workflows. Because it 𝗵𝗮𝘀…

ACID clearly explained. ACID stands for Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability. These are the foundations of transaction systems, 𝗲𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝘂𝗻𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘂𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺 𝗰𝗿𝗮𝘀𝗵𝗲𝘀…

Compiles ≠ Correct. The biggest risk with AI-generated code isn’t that it looks wrong. It’s that it looks right. Sonar assessed 4,000+ Java assignments to see how today’s popular LLMs perform. The findings show why validation is critical: ↳ 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝗱-𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗱…

The most popular deployment strategies explained. There are many possible approaches. Here's a breakdown of five of the most popular. Each stands out for specific strengths. • Blue/Green for safety and zero downtime. • Canary for controlled, low-risk rollouts. • Rolling…

If you’re serious about learning agentic AI, here’s a practical pathway I’ve found highly effective: I’ve been diving deeper into how to build multi-agent systems. A lot of courses out there are shallow in coverage. To build real AI agents, you need more than just tool usage…

Postman and AI are no longer adjacent tools, they’ve evolved into fully integrated solutions. AI is most useful when it’s grounded in your real workflows. That’s why AI requests in collections is a big deal. Instead of running experiments in isolation, you can call models…

Things Every Developer Should Know — SQL Execution Order. A SQL query executes its statements in the following order: 1) FROM / JOIN 2) WHERE 3) GROUP BY 4) HAVING 5) SELECT 6) DISTINCT 7) ORDER BY 8) LIMIT / OFFSET 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗶𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗮𝘁…

SQL, NoSQL, or something else — how do you decide which database? Going back on a bad database choice can be time-consuming and expensive. Before we dive into the factors to take into account when choosing an appropriate database, let’s examine the characteristics of the most…

HTTP 2 vs HTTP 3 — What's the Difference? • 1996 → HTTP 1 • 1997 → HTTP 1.1 • 2015 → HTTP 2 • 2022 → HTTP 3 But what’s the difference? Starting at the foundation: 🔹 𝗛𝗧𝗧𝗣 𝟭.𝟭: ✓ 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 — Reuses connections instead of…

AI is making code reviews faster (and better). Here’s how: Without AI, by the time a PR is reviewed, the engineer has often moved on. Context is cold. Iteration is slow. That's why CodeRabbit provided not just code reviews in pull requests, but in the IDE. They've just taken…

10 Must-know best practices for optimizing API endpoints: • Pagination ↳ Break large datasets into smaller chunks with tools like limit and offset parameters. This improves performance and avoids crashing clients with oversized responses. Combine with cursors for better…

If I had to automate workflows, here's an approach I'd consider: An IDE agent has access to your code. A CLI agent has access to your workflows. That’s because CLI AI agents aren’t bound to your editor. Instead they plug into your stack. They can respond to events from…

API Gateway vs Load Balancer — What's the Difference? An 𝗔𝗣𝗜 𝗚𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘄𝗮𝘆 acts as a single entry point for clients, handling request routing, composition, and protocol translation. It simplifies client interactions with microservices and offers features like rate limiting,…

Concepts every developer should know: concurrency is 𝗡𝗢𝗧 parallelism. Parallelism and concurrency are two terms that often create confusion. One is about managing multiple tasks at once, intermixing them to optimize resource usage. The other involves executing multiple…

Stateful vs Stateless Design — What's the Difference? Stateless design is a powerful model that has led to the development of simple yet highly scalable and efficient applications. “State” refers to stored information that systems use to process requests. This information can…

How Does SSH Work? What actually happens when you type ssh user@host? The visual below lays out the sequential steps that occur between the SSH client and the SSH server. Here’s a breakdown of the main events that occur during an SSH connection: 𝟭) 𝗞𝗲𝘆 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲…

If you want to become good at code reviews, here are some techniques to consider: Most PR reviews fail when they focus on nitpicks, formatting, and style, while the real issues slip through. That’s the cost of reviews without context. They slow teams down instead of helping…