All blog posts - Page 4

Explain the concept of a second-level cache and how it can improve performance by caching query results outside of a single DbContext instance. Name a popular library for implementing it.

Explain what shadow properties are and why you might use them (e.g., for foreign keys or auditing data that you don't want on your entity model). Discuss how backing fields can allow for read-only properties.

Explain when it's appropriate to drop down to raw SQL or stored procedures with EF Core. Discuss the security implications (SQL injection) and how to prevent them.

Discuss how feature flags can be used to decouple deployment from release, enabling practices like canary releases and A/B testing. Explain the risks and how to manage them.

Understand adjacency list vs. adjacency matrix representations and their trade-offs. Be proficient in Breadth-First Search (BFS) for shortest path in unweighted graphs and Depth-First Search (DFS) for traversal and cycle detection.

Understand the greedy approach of making a locally optimal choice at each step. Be able to prove or disprove whether a greedy strategy works for a given problem.

This is one of the most important data structures. Understand how hashing works, and discuss collision resolution strategies (chaining vs. open addressing) and their trade-offs.

Understand the properties of a heap and how they are typically implemented using an array. Know their use cases for priority queues and finding the K-th smallest/largest element.