Notes on understanding and building modern web systems from first principles.
Follow a Next.js application from source code through build artifacts, platform routing, caching, server execution, and self-hosting.
Understand Server and Client Components, prerendering, streaming, caching, and dynamic rendering in the Next.js 16 App Router.
Learn what serverless databases change, why compute and storage are separated, and how to choose one for modern applications.
Understand database connection pressure, serverless fan-out, pooling, and the transaction and session constraints that limit reuse.
Learn how browsers and CDNs choose, reuse, and revalidate responses with Cache-Control, cache keys, and ETags.
Follow a web request through a CDN and learn how nearby edge caches reduce latency and protect the origin server.
Learn how Firecracker microVMs and V8 isolates balance isolation, startup work, density, and runtime capabilities.
Understand what serverless computing changes, how it differs from VMs and containers, and why cold starts happen.
Understand Boolean coercion, loose equality, and the JavaScript comparisons that surprise even experienced developers.