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Do You Need a Database?

Most applications are smaller than people assume. This course walks through three flat-file storage strategies (linear scan, in-memory map, and binary search on disk) and benchmarks them against SQLite. You will build each one as a real HTTP server with @hectoday/http, run wrk against it, and learn to read the numbers back into product terms: how many daily active users each approach actually supports.

Intermediate ~3.5 hours

Storage Fundamentals

  1. A Database is Just Files
  2. The Setup
  3. Approach 1: Linear Scan
  4. Approach 2: In-Memory Map
  5. Approach 3: Binary Search on Disk
  6. SQLite as a Baseline
  7. Benchmarking with wrk
  8. Reading the Numbers
  9. When You Actually Need a Database
  10. Quiz: Storage Fundamentals (wip)

Writes and Durability

  1. The Write Path
  2. Append Throughput
  3. Writes Break the Index
  4. Concurrent Writers
  5. Atomic Multi-Record Writes

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