Technology & AI
APIs, databases, automation, security, and modern AI
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APIs Are Contracts
An API defines how software systems request and return information.
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Databases Model Reality
A database schema turns real-world entities and relationships into structured records.
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Automation Needs Exceptions
Automation is reliable only when unusual cases have an explicit path.
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Least Privilege
Give each user and system only the access needed for its task.
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AI Is a Probabilistic Tool
Generative AI predicts useful outputs; it does not guarantee truth.
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Latency Shapes Experience
Users perceive delay, so architecture affects behavior as well as speed.
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Caching Trades Freshness
A cache returns a stored answer instead of recomputing it, which is faster and may be out of date.
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A Backup Is Only a Restore
A backup has no value until it has been restored successfully, and restores fail for reasons backups do not reveal.
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Idempotency Prevents Duplicates
An idempotent operation produces the same result whether it runs once or many times.
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Technical Debt Is a Loan
A shortcut borrows time now and repays it with interest as every later change becomes slower.
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Prompting Is Specification
A model can only work from what the prompt supplies, so vague requests are answered by assumption.
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Dependencies Are Someone Else's Code
Every library you install becomes part of your system, including its bugs, its licence and whoever can publish updates to it.