The Practical Engineer

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Practical knowledge for engineers who ship. Deep dives, guides, and architecture insights.

Understanding Lending Agreements in the Philippines: MFK Lending Corporation's Commitment to Compliance

Discover how MFK Lending Corporation aligns its lending agreements with Philippine laws, ensuring transparency, fairness, and data protection for borrowers.

Frank Mendez
Build a Complete Profile Settings System with Supabase + Next.js (That Doesn’t Suck)

Most profile pages are either too basic or unnecessarily complex. Here’s a clean, scalable approach using Supabase and Next.js that actually feels good to build—and use.

Frank Mendez
Event-Driven User Notifications with Supabase, Webhooks, and Next.js (No Edge Functions Needed)

Stop sending notifications for users who never confirm their email. This guide walks through a clean, event-driven architecture using Supabase, Postgres triggers, and Next.js webhooks—no edge functions required.

Frank Mendez
Mastering Layering in Enterprise Application Architecture

Layering is a fundamental technique in enterprise application architecture that simplifies complexity and enhances maintainability. This blog post explores its evolution, benefits, and challenges based on Martin Fowler's work.

Frank Mendez
Understanding Layering in Enterprise Application Architecture

Layering is a crucial technique in enterprise application architecture that helps manage complexity. This post delves into its benefits, challenges, and evolution over time.

Frank Mendez
Reaction: Batch Processing Isn’t Dead—It’s Just Quietly Running the World

Batch processing doesn’t sound sexy.

Frank Mendez
The Phoenix Project Chapter 3 Reaction: Meet Brent, the Bottleneck Breaking Your System

Chapter 3 of The Phoenix Project introduces Brent—the overworked hero every company depends on. This chapter shows why bottlenecks and hero culture break teams.

Frank Mendez
Chapter 2: API Paradigms Choosing the Right Language for Your System

Choosing the right API paradigm can make or break your system. Here’s a deep dive into REST, RPC, GraphQL, and event-driven APIs—and how to pick the right one.

Frank Mendez
Designing Data-Intensive Applications Chapter 9  Consistency & Consensus: Getting Systems to Agree (Good Luck With That)

Distributed systems don’t just store data—they argue about what’s true. Chapter 9 breaks down how systems reach agreement (or fail trying), why consistency is hard, and how consensus algorithms keep everything from falling apart.

Frank Mendez
🧭 GitHub’s New PR Dashboard: Finally Fixing the “Where Do I Even Start?” Problem

GitHub’s new PR dashboard aims to reduce chaos and improve focus—but does it actually make developers faster, or just reorganize the noise?

Frank Mendez
The Seven First Words of Christ After the Resurrection

Because Easter is not the end, it is the beginning of our mission.

Rhoie
Claude Code “Leak”? The Real Story Isn’t the Code — It’s the Direction of AI Dev Tools

A Reddit post claims Claude Code’s system prompt was exposed. But the bigger story isn’t the leak—it’s how AI coding tools are evolving into structured, opinionated engineering systems.

Frank Mendez