https://aalhour.com/aalhournotes on software, systems, books, and curiosity. 2026-05-29T14:47:00+02:00 Ahmad Alhour https://aalhour.com/ Jekyll © 2026 Ahmad Alhour /assets/img/favicons/favicon.ico /assets/img/favicons/favicon-96x96.png Crash-only confidence, part 1: from random kills to exact boundaries2026-04-24T00:00:00+02:00 2026-05-29T14:46:18+02:00 https://aalhour.com/posts/beachdb-crash-testing-part1/ Ahmad Alhour A crash test that cannot explain itself is mostly theater. Making the on-disk state real: Sorted-String Tables (SSTables)2026-04-06T00:00:00+02:00 2026-05-29T14:46:18+02:00 https://aalhour.com/posts/beachdb-sstables-v1/ Ahmad Alhour Files are easy; files you can trust, inspect, and recover from are the real step. The Memtable: where writes go to wait2026-02-22T00:00:00+01:00 2026-05-29T14:46:18+02:00 https://aalhour.com/posts/beachdb-memtable-v1/ Ahmad Alhour Before the disk gets involved, memory has to learn the rules. The syscall I forgot: directory fsync2026-02-16T00:00:00+01:00 2026-05-29T14:46:18+02:00 https://aalhour.com/posts/beachdb-the-syscall-i-forgot/ Ahmad Alhour Sometimes the missing durability bug is one directory above where you were looking. Durability is a promise you can't hand-wave: Write-Ahead Log (WAL)2026-02-12T00:00:00+01:00 2026-05-29T14:46:18+02:00 https://aalhour.com/posts/beachdb-wal-v1-milestone/ Ahmad Alhour Once bytes leave your process, the comforting story gets complicated.