Blog · page 7
Notes on engineering, design, and everything in between.
Misusing big O: constants and preconditions decide more than the order
An O(n log n) sort can lose to O(n²) insertion sort, and an O(1) hash lookup can lose to an array scan. Check input size, constants and memory locality before judging speed.
Using @layer to make CSS precedence a declared order, not a specificity fight
Runaway styles come from everyone solving problems by adding specificity. Cascade layers make the order explicit: between layers only order matters, and specificity applies within a layer.
Debounce vs throttle: the difference is who decides when to run
Both limit how often a function runs. Debounce lets the last call decide the moment; throttle uses a fixed window. The wrong pick shows up as a laggy drag or a request every 200ms.
Estimating work: why "about three days" becomes three weeks
You estimated writing code; what you owe is writing plus integration, review, rework, and waiting on others. Listing the unknowns beats multiplying every day count by two.
Feature flags are debt, not configuration
Every flag doubles the reachable code paths and no flag ever gets deleted by itself. Giving each one a removal date matters far more than building a clever flag system.
The game loop: why delta time is not optional
Moving 5 pixels per frame runs twice as fast on a 60Hz screen and two and a half times as fast at 144Hz. Multiply by elapsed time to decouple physics from refresh rate, then cap it.