Data Structures

The World of Skiplists The skiplist is a data structure that simplifies efficient data organization. This comprehensive guide explains how skiplists match the speed of balanced trees with a simpler design. I became fascinated with skiplists while implementing a database storage engine. Even with a trivial implementation, this turned out to be a significant project. While I plan to write about that experience someday, I wanted to first share two elegant solutions for different workload challenges: the skiplist and the B+-tree. Most tutorials I found either simply paraphrased the original sources or lacked the depth needed for true understanding. ...

Introduction I love digging into how our everyday tools work under the hood! As a software engineer, I find it incredibly rewarding to peek behind the curtain. It builds my understanding of tools and patterns like nothing else could. Let me show you how to build a Write-Ahead Log (WAL) step-by-step - it’s more than just code, it’s a gateway to understanding the magic that powers our tools. Think about the tools you use every day: databases, version control systems, message queues. They’re all using similar patterns behind the scenes. A WAL is a fundamental building block for all of these tools. When you build this component yourself, you’ll: ...