Learn about what REST API pagination means, the different pagination patterns that exist, and some best practices when using any type of pagination.

Keyset pagination, or the seek method, is tailored for scenarios that involve large or frequently-updated data sets. It involves using a specific field (or set of fields) as a key to paginate through the data set. This key is usually a unique and sequentially ordered column—for example, a timestamp or an auto-incrementing ID.

To help bring this method to life, let's review an example request:

GET /api/events?since_id=12345&limit=10

Cursor-based pagination excels in efficiently navigating through vast data sets. The way it works is that the API provides a "cursor"—similar to a bookmark—which marks a specific item in the data set. Each request not only retrieves data but also returns a cursor pointing to the start of the next data segment.

Let's review an example of cursor-based pagination:

GET /api/messages?cursor=abc123&limit=10

Unlike keyset pagination, cursor-based pagination uses the cursor—a backend-determined value not necessarily linked to any data fields—to retrieve data from our API. This cursor allows the backend to be flexible with its strategy for handling data updates and also allows for efficient data retrieval.

An interesting book by Thoughtbot

How solving barrel files led to faster cold boots and build times.

TIL about something I've observed, but it has a name for it.

// in index.js
export { module1 } from './module1';
export { module2 } from './module2';
export { module3 } from './module3';

Straight to the point. Humble. Does not call for a cult. Big +1

Illustrated!

By the author of cURL and from his presentation on “you too could have made curl“

We don’t talk a lot in public about the big vision for Tailscale, why we’re really here. Usually I prefer to focus on what exists right now, and what we’re going to do in the next few months. But let’s look at the biggest of big pictures for a change.

Notes about startups, AI, health-care and overall engineering

Something to read more about

I find it fascinating that we talk about overengineering as if it’s a thing in software engineering. It’s not, cut it out, stop talking about that. If I’m a...

That’s a really good rant if I know one

A high-level overview of how PostgreSQL stores data on disk, covering segments, pages and more.

Master config tf2
Recommended by Twiggy

Best hub so far

Second article about building fika. In this one, I'm going to review the napkin math behind it

Very good article about napkin math

A journey to the world of Python packaging, a visit to the competition, a hopeful look at the future, and highlights from a disappointing discussion.

Great discussion and article. It helped me understand the mess Python packaging is in right now.

Linux Hardware, Notebooks, Computer und mehr. Individuell in Deutschland gefertigt, vollständig Linux tauglich, Windows natürlich auch

Learnt about it when looking for a ubuntu laptop and this seems promising and well made

Especially the infinity book 14

The 2002 Bezos API Mandate helped Amazon scale their business, and formed much of the modern thought around APIs and microservices. But was this memo real, or just myth?

Sails.js makes it easy to build custom, enterprise-grade Node.js apps. It is designed to resemble the MVC architecture from frameworks like Ruby on Rails, but with support for the more modern, data-oriented style of web app development. It's especially good for building realtime features like chat.

Unit of work looks like a common pattern. I’ve seen it at Mural with our MongoDB data layer.

Cute comic that goes in depth with all the terminology

Recommended by the developers from FastAPI in their skeleton projects.