A software glossary in plain English
A glossary of software, AI, blockchain, and fintech terms — written for founders and technical leaders deciding what to build next. No jargon, no hype.
API integration: how it works and what makes it hard
How API integration works: what it connects, the request and event styles behind it, how authentication and rate limits shape the design, and why a retry without an idempotency key is where it quietly stops being reliable.
What is a data pipeline: stages, patterns, and failure modes
Data moves through several distinct stages on its way from a source to wherever it gets used, picking up structure along the way: the four stages, what separates ETL from ELT, batch versus streaming, and where a pipeline quietly stops producing numbers anyone can trust.
Event-driven architecture: patterns, brokers, and trade-offs
Event-driven architecture means services announce what happened and let whatever's listening react independently. How publish and subscribe changes coupling, the core patterns, how brokers differ, and the eventual consistency cost teams underestimate.
Legacy system modernization: strategies, risks, and sequencing
Modernization strategies run from a same-week rehost to a full rebuild, and picking the right one matters more than picking fast. What counts as legacy, how to sequence a safe cutover, and the rollback-plan mistake that derails the rest.
Observability vs monitoring: what the difference actually means
The practical difference between monitoring and observability, covering known failures versus unknown ones, the three pillars of logs, metrics and traces, what OpenTelemetry changed, and how much each costs to operate.
Proof of concept vs prototype vs MVP: which one you need
The three pre-build artifacts compared - what a proof of concept, a prototype, and an MVP each prove, what they cost, who they are for, and the expensive mistake of confusing one for another.
System integration: patterns, methods, and when you need it
A plain-language reference on system integration, covering what it means, the four patterns teams actually use, how to pick one, and the failure modes that make integration projects overrun.
Technical debt: what it is, what it costs, and when to repay
Technical debt is the future cost of a shortcut taken now, paid later as slower changes. Where the metaphor comes from, Fowler's quadrant for telling prudent shortcuts from reckless ones, the symptoms that show up before anyone names the cause, and what's worth repaying first.
Technical due diligence: what it is and what gets examined
A reference on technical due diligence, covering who commissions it, the five areas a reviewer examines, the red flags that matter most, and how findings turn into deal terms.
Transaction management: ACID, isolation, and distributed systems
A short guide to transaction management - the ACID properties, what each SQL isolation level actually prevents, and why transactions across microservices need sagas rather than a database guarantee.
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