security
8 min read
JWT Security Best Practices: What Never to Store in a Token
JWTs are easy to misuse. Developers routinely store secrets, PII, and sensitive data in token payloads without realizing anyone with the token can read every field instantly. Here's what the payload is actually safe for.
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security
6 min read
Base64 Is Not Encryption: A Mistake That Exposes Your Data
Base64 is a binary-to-text encoding scheme — reversible by anyone, instantly, with no key required. Yet it's used as an obfuscation layer in production systems far more often than it should be.
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databases
7 min read
UUID v4 vs v7: Which Should You Use as Your Database Primary Key?
UUID v4 has been the default for years, but v7's time-ordered randomness offers real database performance advantages. Understanding the difference could improve your query times and index efficiency.
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debugging
6 min read
How to Debug JSON Errors: Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them
JSON syntax errors are among the most common bugs in API development. A missing comma, a trailing quote, or an unescaped character breaks the entire document. Here's how to find and fix them fast.
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web
7 min read
URL Encoding Explained: %20, +, and the Differences That Break APIs
%20 and + both represent a space — but they're not interchangeable. Using the wrong one in a query parameter, a form POST, or a path segment is a subtle bug that can silently corrupt data or break authentication.
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reference
10 min read
Essential Regex Patterns Every Developer Should Know
Regular expressions show up everywhere — input validation, log parsing, data transformation, search. These are the patterns and techniques that solve 90% of real-world regex problems, with examples you can use immediately.
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