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The best problem-solving writing in software engineering — databases, performance, security, frontend and distributed systems, in one feed.

11,670 articles
Languages — A Look Behind Blend: The Personalized Playlist for You…and You

A Look Behind Blend: The Personalized Playlist for You…and You

What does it take to go from an idea for a new playlist, to shipping that playlist to Spotify users all around the world? From inception, to prototyping, to QAing, and finally shipping, releasing a new playlist at Spotify is a long process full of new learnings every time.

JLJen Lamere, Senior Engineer·December 1, 2021Languages
AI & ML — How Spotify Uses ML to Create the Future of Personalization

How Spotify Uses ML to Create the Future of Personalization

Machine learning is what drives personalization on Spotify. We may have a single platform with 381 million different users, but it may actually be more accurate to say there are 381 million individual versions of Spotify, each one filled with different Home pages, playlists, and recommendations. But with a library of over 70 million tracks to thumb through, how do our ML models actually go about m

SESpotify Engineering·December 1, 2021AI & ML
Engineering — The Audio Aura Story: Mystical to Mathematical

The Audio Aura Story: Mystical to Mathematical

TL;DR For 2021 Wrapped, we were challenged to visually express a user’s based on how they listened this year. I like to think of it like this: if your music listening data became a person and walked down the street to the neighborhood aura reader, what would that person’s aura look like? That’s the 2021 Wrapped Audio Aura story.

ZTZela Taino, Engineer·December 1, 2021Engineering
Frontend — Diagonal Stripes Wipe Animation

Diagonal Stripes Wipe Animation

I was playing this game on Apple Arcade the other day called wurdweb. It's a fun little game! Little touches like the little shape dudes that walk around the

CCChris Coyier·November 30, 2021Frontend
Distributed — Architecture of Max reHIT Workout - High Scalability -

Architecture of Max reHIT Workout - High Scalability -

Today I have the pleasure of announcing my new app—Max reHIT Workout—on Product Hunt. Max reHIT Workout is an exercise app that guides you through interval workouts. I won’t pitch the app here. I'll just say I’m proud of how it turned out and if you want an optimal algorithm for exercising, you might like it. I know I haven’t been writing much lately. That's because there’s been very little evolut

HSHigh Scalability·November 30, 2021Distributed
Security — Attack Maps now available on Radar

Attack Maps now available on Radar

We love line and bar graphs, but some data is best represented with different visualizations. We’re introducing world maps and sankey visualizations as part of Radar Maps, which are being used today to show you the top layer 7 attacks in real time.

JCJoao, CelsoJoao, Celso·November 29, 2021Security
Networking — The Case of the Recursive Resolvers

The Case of the Recursive Resolvers

On September 30th 2021, Slack had an outage that impacted less than 1% of our online user base, and lasted for 24 hours. This outage was the result of our attempt to enable DNSSEC — an extension intended to secure the DNS protocol, required for FedRAMP Moderate — but which ultimately led to a series of…

RERafael Elvira·November 29, 2021Networking
Frontend — 3D CSS Flippy Snaps With React And GreenSock — Smashing Magazine

3D CSS Flippy Snaps With React And GreenSock — Smashing Magazine

One of Jhey’s main mantras is to make learning fun. In this article, he shows you ways to level up your skills by bringing your ideas to life, and not forgetting that you can be playful with code. With that mindset, every idea is bound to become an opportunity to try something new. It’s fun to make things that we may not create on a day-to-day basis. Demos like this can pose different challenges a

JTJhey TompkinsJhey Tompkins·November 29, 2021Frontend
Languages — How the US paused shopping (and browsing) for Thanksgiving

How the US paused shopping (and browsing) for Thanksgiving

Throughout the pandemic we saw different trends caused by people being more at home than usual, but Internet patterns also change at specific times of the year (like when students go back to school or when it’s colder outside) or on some holidays like Thanksgiving.

JTJoao TomeJoao Tome·November 26, 2021Languages
Engineering — Heard in the halls of Web Summit 2021

Heard in the halls of Web Summit 2021

Global in-person events are back. We present a few ideas from Web Summit 2021 about the future and where the Internet is going. Check the interviews we’ve done at the event (from the lack of Internet access to Web3).

JTJoao Tome, FallonJoao Tome, Fallon·November 26, 2021Engineering