Thomas Nguyen
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Latest Articles
Understanding Big-O Notation Without Math
Reading Time: 3 minutesBig-O notation may sound intimidating, especially if you’re not into math. But don’t worry — understanding Big-O is more about logic than formulas. It helps developers measure how an algorithm’s performance scales as the amount of data increases. In this article, we’ll explore Big-O in a simple, practical way — with real-life examples and no […]
How Caching Works and When You Should Use It
Reading Time: 7 minutesCaching is one of the simplest and most powerful tools for speeding up applications. It is used everywhere: inside CPUs, in browsers, databases, backends, microservices, and CDNs. Yet it is also a common source of bugs when used without a clear strategy. This article explains how caching works, the main cache strategies, when caching helps, […]
Why Your Database Queries Are Slowing Everything Down
Reading Time: 7 minutesWhen an application feels slow, developers often blame the code, the framework, or the server. In many cases, however, the real bottleneck is the database. Poorly designed queries, missing indexes, and inefficient access patterns can make even simple operations painfully slow. This article explains the most common reasons why database queries slow everything down and […]
7 Simple Ways to Optimize Loop Performance
Reading Time: 3 minutesLoops are among the most frequently executed constructs in any program. They run millions or even billions of times across data-processing pipelines, UI applications, machine learning tasks, game engines, and system-level software. Even small inefficiencies inside loops can dramatically impact the overall performance of an application. This article explains seven practical and easy-to-apply techniques that […]
How to Measure Application Performance Like a Pro
Reading Time: 5 minutesApplications today are expected to load quickly, stay responsive, scale under load, and rarely fail. Users do not care how elegant the code is if pages are slow or requests time out. For developers and engineers, measuring performance is not a nice-to-have skill, it is part of building reliable systems. This article explains how to […]
CPU vs GPU: Which One Should Your App Rely On?
Reading Time: 4 minutesNot that long ago, choosing compute for your application was simple: you just bought a faster CPU. Today, with GPUs powering machine learning, data analytics, and high-performance workloads, the question is no longer “how many cores?” but rather “CPU or GPU — which one should my app rely on?” In this article, we’ll look at […]
The Most Common Memory Leaks — And How to Prevent Them
Reading Time: 3 minutesMemory leaks remain one of the most persistent and costly issues in modern software development. They slow down applications, increase latency, degrade server performance, and can even take down entire services in production environments. Contrary to popular belief, memory leaks occur not only in low-level languages like C or C++, but also in high-level environments […]
Why Your Application Is Slow: Identifying Performance Bottlenecks
Reading Time: 5 minutesWhat “Slow” Really Means to Your Users Before you open a profiler or tweak a single line of code, you need to understand how “slow” shows up in real use. Often, the same word hides multiple different problems. Slow startup: the app takes a long time to launch or initialize. Slow screen transitions: navigating between […]