Chosen links

Links - 11th February 2024

Let’s write a PDF file

A simple walk-through to learn the basics of the PDF format (at your rhythm)

Let futures be futures

It’s not “nasal demons” undefined behavior bad, or even “clowns with snakes for arms” JavaScript bad

Postgres again elected DBMS of the Year in 2023, but I’m worried

It takes a few minutes to make a wrong decision on a database

And sometimes several months/years to fix it.

So you think you understand IP fragmentation?

Generally speaking, IP fragmentation is bad for performance in just about every dimension: throughput, latency, CPU usage, memory usage, and network congestion. To see why, imagine a typical IPv4 packet of 20 bytes of IP metadata and 1480 bytes of data that has been fragmented into packets that each contain only eight bytes or fewer of data for a total of 1480/8 = 185 packets. (This is possible but unlikely to ever happen in reality; usually packets are only split into two pieces.)