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Engineering notes

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·8 min read

ArrayList vs LinkedList: The Numbers Behind the Table

Everyone knows the complexity table. Here is what each operation actually costs when you time it — including the one result that contradicts the folklore.

Java
·9 min read

How to Run a Spring Boot App as a Linux Service (and How Small a Box It Needs)

The systemd unit file for a Spring Boot jar, the one line most of them are missing, and measured answers to how much memory the thing actually uses.

Cloud & DevOps
·8 min read

How to Dockerize a Spring Boot Application, and What Each Choice Costs

Four images built from one Spring Boot app, measured — 785MB down to 531MB, and why the layered build that everyone recommends does not shrink anything.

Containers
·8 min read

How to Secure a Spring Boot API with JWT (Without Writing a Filter)

Spring Security already parses and validates JWTs. Here is the whole setup — two beans and one line of DSL — plus what a short example quietly defers.

Backend & APIs
·8 min read

How to Build a REST API in Spring Boot, Including the Failures

Build a working Spring Boot REST API — GET, POST, 201 with Location — then see what your callers actually get back when the request is wrong, and fix it.

Backend & APIs
·9 min read

How to Create a Spring Boot Project (and What the Generator Actually Gives You)

Create a Spring Boot project with Spring Initializr, then read every one of the ten files it writes — and find out what the 19 MB jar you build actually holds.

Backend & APIs
·13 min read

How to Set the JAVA_HOME Environment Variable on Windows, Linux, and macOS

Set JAVA_HOME correctly on Windows, Linux and macOS — find the JDK folder, make the variable stick across reboots, and fix the errors it causes.

Java
·9 min read

Difference Between JDK, JRE and JVM: What Each One Actually Does

JDK, JRE and JVM explained by following one file from javac to output: what each layer holds, why Oracle stopped shipping a JRE, and which one to install.

Java
·11 min read

MySQL vs PostgreSQL: The Differences That Actually Matter

A concrete comparison of MySQL and PostgreSQL: MVCC and VACUUM, clustered index vs heap, isolation defaults, transactional DDL, and replication durability.

Databases