Fact 1. : There is way too much criticism of MongoDB in several blog posts. Fact 2. : Most of these criticisms have rebuttal posts.

I have used MongoDB in some small scale attempts and have found it satisfactory. And that is better than most other databases because I don’t have to interact a lot with it. No schema changes. Not worrying much about adding some boilerplate code in the ORM (debatable). It always seems like the invisible force working behind the scenes. Isn’t that the sole purpose of databases?

Here is some documentation of good practices that could be easily followed to avoid the pitfalls of MongoDB:

1. TLDR: Set write concern to 1 or SAFE, i.e., receive ack on failures. Problem: The default is set to 0, i.e., not to send ACK if writes fail. This makes the writes super fast, but in most applications, it will be unacceptable if the write failed. Detailed solution: All language drivers for MongoDB support this write concern setting. E.g., in Java here is the class WriteConcern. In Spring Data, this can be done while initializing the MongoTemplate.

2. TLDR: db.runCommand ( { repairDatabase: 1 } ) Problem: MongoDB does not release the disk storage to the OS, it used for storing a document, even after the document has been deleted. This is one of the reason for the overarching issue of MongoDB consuming more space than actually required for the data it stores. Detailed solution: MongoDB Docs

$ git clone http:/path-to-the-dot-git-file
$ git checkout -b feature_name
// Do work
$ git add -u
// If new files need to be added, then git add <fileName>
$ git commit -m "Commit message"
// Here we are committing to our local repo.. not on a server
$ git checkout master
$ git merge feature_name
// If you have not pulled changes on to your local master branch, this merge should be done without conflicts
$ git pull --rebase
// Pulling from remote server and rebasing your local changes on top of the changes made by others.. 
// Possibility of conflicts here..
$ git rebase -i HEAD~10
// If you want to squish your multiple commits into one, the replace all the necessary words, "pick", with the letter s.
$ git push

Other useful git commands

• $ git stash : Stashes your local uncommitted changes, so that you switch from your dirty branch to another clean one.
• $ git log --graph --abbrev-commit --decorate --format=format:'%C(bold blue)%h%C(reset) - %C(bold cyan)%aD%C(reset) %C(bold green)(%ar)%C(reset)%C(bold yellow)%d%C(reset)%n'' %C(white)%s%C(reset) %C(dim white)- %an%C(reset)' --all : Should alias it to a shortcut. Copied from..
• $ git config --global alias.glog log --graph --abbrev-commit --decorate --format=format:'%C(bold blue)%h%C(reset) - %C(bold cyan)%aD%C(reset) %C(bold green)(%ar)%C(reset)%C(bold yellow)%d%C(reset)%n'' %C(white)%s%C(reset) %C(dim white)- %an%C(reset)' --all : Adding alias for the above command.. This will add an entry in the alias section of .gitconfig file.

The Table interface introduced in Guava is helpful in implementing Tabular data, such as data to be written to a CSV. Think about it as a spreadsheet. All the data in a spreadsheet can be represented by 3 parameters: the row number, column number, and the actual value stored in the cell. Hence the Table<R, C, V> interface has 3 generic parameters too.

/*
  | Name | GPA
0 | Bob  | 2.3
1 | Jim  | 3.4
2 | Tim  | 2.8

*/
Table<Integer, String, Object> studentData = TreeBasedTable.create();
studentData.put(0, "Name", "Bob");
studentData.put(1, "Name", "Jim");
studentData.put(2, "Name", "Tim");

studentData.put(0, "GPA", "2.3");
studentData.put(1, "GPA", "3.4");
studentData.put(2, "GPA", "2.8");

Important instance methods:

1. Map<R, V> column(C columnKey): Returns a map of Row→Value for the given column. For e.g., studentData.column("Name") in the above case would return a Map that looks like: { 0: "Bob", 1: "Jim", 2: "Time"}.
2. Map<C, V> row(R rowKey): Returns a map of Column→Value for the given row. For e.g., studentData.row(2) would return a Map that looks like: { "Name" : "Tim", "GPA" : 2.8 }

Implementations:

All the implementations of Table can be used by the static Table<R,C,V> create() method, except for ImmutableTable. As the name suggests, this implementation builds an immutable object. Hence we need to build it using the provided Builder, i.e., ImmutableTable.Builder<R,C,V>. Calling the build() instance method of the Builder will return an immutable Table.

What is lunr.js

Lunr.js is Javascript library that indexes content provided in JSON format. The index can be used to perform a full text search. How is that different from a simple ‘grep’? It uses modern search techniques such as tokenization, stemming, omitting stop words, etc. Although the default algorithms for each of these techniques are provided by lunr.js, the user can override them to fit their specific needs. And of course, the name lunr, is just a play on solr, which is a full text search engine, but made for heavy duty tasks.

Other libraries used in the example:

1. jQuery (optional)
2. underscore.js (optional)

Why do I need to search blog created by Jekyll?

First, because there is no database while using Jekyll. Hence no queries. So searching is not straight forward. Second, because I have started to Jekyll, and I think a blog without search is weird.

Show me the code

You could just View Source of this file and find all the code I’m using for this site in search.js. Here is the rundown:

Create an Index:

Provide the fields of the data to be indexed

var index;
createIndex();
function createIndex() {
	index = lunr(function () {
	    this.field('title', {boost: 10})
	    this.field('content')
	    this.field('date')
	    this.ref('url')
  });	
}

Loading the data to be indexed:

Being a Jekyll blog, there is no JSON data to represent the blog posts. So you have to store all your blog posts into the HTML on load. I know this is weird, but for blog with a few hundred pages of plain text should not slow down your load time much. Also, if you do not display all the blog posts at a time, it would be better to hide the loaded data using CSS. In the example below, I’m loading all blog data into doc_* elements, out of which the .doc_content tag is hidden by default.

loadData();
function loadData() {
	$('.doc').each(function(doc_index) {
		var doc = {};
		doc.date = $(this).find('.doc_date').text();
		doc.content = $(this).find('.doc_content').text();
		doc.title = $(this).find('.doc_title').text();
		doc.url = $(this).find('.doc_title').attr('href');

		index.add(doc);
		posts.push(doc);
	});
}

Searching the index:

Although searching the index is as easy as calling index.search(query), the return object is not an Array of loaded documents. Instead it returns the ref, i.e., reference number of the indexed document along with the confidence level of a match. So we have to find the corresponding document from the list of loaded documents.

function getResults(query) {
	var docs = [];
	var results = index.search(query);
	_.each(results, function(result) {
		console.log('Result ref: ' + result.ref);
		var doc = _.find(posts, function(post) {
			return post.url === result.ref;
		});
		if (doc) docs.push(doc);
		
	});
	return docs;
}

Shift Operators

Used to double or halve an integer or double.

short num = 0b0000_0100 << 1; // left operand is 4
// 0b00_01000, i.e., 8

Logical operators

Order of precedence is &(AND) , ^(XOR ..determines if operand bits or booleans are different. Returns 0 for match, and 1 for mismatch), |(OR)

Garbage Collection

Geocode g1 = new Geocode(51, 110); // g1 refers to memory allocated to geocode object, say 5123-5153
g1 = new Geocode(50, 109); //Block 5123-5153 is not referred any more and ready for GC

Primitive Type vs Objects

int a = 21;
int b = a; // Now JVM has 2 blocks in memory that contain the integer value 21
Geocode g1 = new Geocode(51, 110);
Geocode g2 = g1; // Now JVM has 1 block in memory that contain the object new Geocode(51,110)

If you want to Garbage Collect memory assigned to an object, then assign that object to null.

Variable length arguments

private int max(int first, int... rest);

is same as

private int max(int first, int[] rest);

synchronized

can be used to wrap a block of code or in the signature of a class/instance method. Doing this makes the stuff inside thread-safe. E.g., all methods within HashTable are synchronized. Note: Use ConcurrentHashMap instead of HashTable if you need Thread-safety. HashTable are slower because it locks the entire table of data for any read/write operation. Whereas, ConcurrentHashMap has 32 locks, each managing some of the Hash buckets for the table.

Generic Methods

Generic methods allow type parameters to be used to express dependencies among the types of one or more arguments to a method and/or its return type. e.g., the error in the following method can be prevented by parameterizing it, i.e., making it generic.

static void fromArrayToCollection(Object[] a, Collection< ? > c) {
    for (Object o : a) { 
        c.add(o); // compile-time error
    }
}
static < T > void fromArrayToCollection(T[] a, Collection< T > c) {
    for (T o : a) {
        c.add(o); // Correct
    }
}

If there is no dependency between the return type and/or the arguments of a method, then you are better off, using wildcards instead of generic method. Excellent example

Array vs ArrayList

ArrayList can hold a list of Objects, not primitives, whereas Array can hold either. Size of an array cannot grow dynamically. ArrayList’s size can.

WTH is Stack and Heap memory

• Stack is the part of memory that holds the primitives and references to objects, whereas the actual objects are stored on the heap.
• When the stack is full, a StackOverflowError exception is thrown. This is highly unlikely in normal programs because a separate stack is provided for each method. But if a method is called recursively, every primitive created in it will share the same stack and ultimately run out of space if not handled properly.
• When the Heap is full, it undergoes garbage collection, i.e., all the objects that are not referred anymore are removed from the memory. But if garbage collection is not enough, and the JVM has already expanded to it’s maximum heap capacity (provided by the JVM argument -xmx), an OutOfMemoryError exception will be thrown.

finalize()

Any object can override Object’s finalize() method for cleaning up any resources. This method is only triggered by the GC whenever it deems the object ready to be GCed.

== vs equals() for enum

Both are similar for enum, unlike for String. So it is better to use == to avoid NullPointerException

Basics of session management

HttpSession generates a cookie named jsessionid on the client’s browser. You can store the identifier of the user’s session in this cookie by httpSession.setAttribute("userName", "Bob"). The server maintains this session in-memory (or on disk, as per your server’s policy) for it’s life. The duration can be set by httpSession.setMaxInactiveInterval(n). If the n <= 0, then the session is maintained for ever by the server. The important thing to understand is that this persistence is on the server, not the client. The jsessionid cookie is killed as soon as the user closes the browser. The practice of storing the session for ever on the server sounds bad, but in fact is even worse than bad. It’s horrible. The jsessionid itself has some risks (attacker can steal the cookie), and remembering and honoring it’s value for ever is dangerous.

So how to let the user inside the secure area of your website, without having him to log in each time he closes the browser? Here is a very nice article from 2006 that explains best practices: