Former Comp Sci Educator. Common Lisp Enthusiast. Anglican Catholic, but culturally Mormon. BYU Alum. TANSTAFL.
Utah, USA
Joined February 2025
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AI generated techbro slop. Use a relational database. End of story.
Recently I interviewed a Senior Engineer.
Strong candidate.
Kafka? ✅
Redis? ✅
Microservices? ✅
Distributed systems? ✅
Then I asked:
"You're building the inventory service for a flash sale.
Only 1 item left in stock."
Two users hit “Buy Now” at the exact same millisecond.
Both requests pass the “is available?” check.
Both create an order.
Both deduct stock.
Now you’ve sold 2 items when only 1 existed.
How do you guarantee you never oversell — even with concurrent requests, client retries, and partial failures?
"Just use a database transaction."
Doesn’t fully solve it if both requests read `stock = 1` before either writes, or if the response is lost and the client retries.
"Check stock before deducting."
What happens when both checks happen at the same time?
"Use Redis DECR and reject if it goes negative."
What happens if Redis is down, or the decrement succeeds but the order is never persisted?
Your turn:
How would you design this inventory reservation API so concurrent buyers and retries never oversell the last item?
There’s a specific distributed-systems concept behind this.
And you’ll encounter it everywhere inventory, tickets, seats, coupons, and limited resources are involved.
Why do I have to routinely put up with the opinions of people who would be entertained by jingling keys videos?
Thank you @SaintBillSnyder for your sacrifice. You have brought honor to the Big 12. We’ll hang a screenshot of the incident from Lavell Edwards Stadium.
ChrisCoded retweeted
Remember BIG12 fans this little successful stint BYU is having is because of a Kansas State fan shoving a five layer beefy burrito up his ass.
Yeah, BYU Sports ain’t going nowhere. I remember 2017 when the anti-sports bros were certain it was over.
Thankfully those days are long gone.
Don't fret big dog. Go make some pop tarts, give yourself a second, and go be a double digit favorite at work.
🚨 ¿ESTAMOS A PUNTO DE VIVIR LA DÉCADA MAS INCREÍBLE DE LA HISTORIA?
el Tesla Roadster podría ser solo el primer paso hacia algo mucho mas grande
imagina autos completamente voladores
coches acuáticos
y tecnologías que hoy parecen imposibles
hace apenas unos años muchas de las cosas que usamos hoy parecían ciencia ficción
ahora imagina lo que podremos hacer dentro de 10 años
hasta donde puede llegar la humanidad?
The Mormons were right to ban gambling. These draft kings freaks need to be put in reeducation camps and beaten with sticks until they are reformed into normal people.
Odds to Win Natty @DKSports
All the media geniuses can get their #2 team at 45/1…… why is that?!?! #DKPartner
ChrisCoded retweeted
A priest died in Ecuador yesterday. His name is Patricio Alfredo Sánchez Molinari. He was saying Mass in Guayaquil when a big wooden cross fell on him. The Mass was live on the internet. People saw it happen. The church said he died. He was the priest at Perpetuo Socorro church.
Pray for him. May his soul rest in peace.
They were a double digit underdog vs Notre Dame.
Have you considered finding a real job? You’d make a great field hand. Warehouse worker maybe?
Everyone ranking BYU #2 in the nation in college football is melting my brain.
They a double digit underdog vs at least 10 other teams on neutral field.
What an overreaction
ChrisCoded retweeted
I would like to thank all those who have prayed for me in recent days. I wish to express my particular gratitude to the doctors, nurses and all the staff of the Gemelli Hospital. This experience has made me feel particularly close to all those who are living with illness or infirmity. Now that I have overcome this delicate phase I will gradually resume my activities, always with God’s help and your prayers.
