Threads of Thought

2026-04-26 20:25 MDT 📖 12 min read

Multi-version concurrency control lets readers and writers proceed without blocking each other. A breakdown of the core mechanics, and how PostgreSQL, CockroachDB, and MySQL InnoDB implement them.

2026-04-21 18:30 MDT 📖 10 min read

Write-ahead logging is the mechanism behind crash safety in almost every serious storage system. This post explains how it works from first principles, and how PostgreSQL, SQLite, RocksDB, and etcd each implement the same core idea.

2026-04-19 14:20 MDT 📖 6 min read

When to use cursor-based vs offset-based pagination.

2026-04-19 12:25 MDT 📖 7 min read

If you're coming from languages like Python or Java, Go's handling of HTTP request bodies might feel like a trap. We try to read a request body twice (e.g. once for logging and once for processing) and the second time, it's mysteriously empty.

2026-03-31 15:00 MDT 📖 20 min read

How to add metrics, logs, and traces to a Go worker pool using Prometheus, Loki, Tempo, and Grafana, with every import and config line explained.

2026-03-30 12:00 MDT 📖 23 min read

A deep dive into the journey of a single INSERT statement through PostgreSQL: from query parsing and planning, through the WAL, buffer pool, and heap file, to the moment your data is truly durable.

2026-03-29 17:00 MDT 📖 12 min read

When you have a list of tasks to run concurrently, the naive approach is to spin up one goroutine per task. That works until it doesn't. A worker pool gives you bounded concurrency, backpressure, and clean shutdown without much added complexity.

2026-03-25 15:30 MDT 📖 10 min read

The Raft algorithm is language-agnostic, but the runtime underneath it is not. GC pauses, CPU scheduling, and memory models shape which implementation strategies are even possible.