Daniel Balcarek

Architecture

• .NET: Vertical Slice vs Clean Architecture — Practical Comparison

  Comparison of CA and VSA by real API implementations. Idea of hybrid approaches.

• Clean Architecture in .NET: Pros, Cons, and Trade-offs

  Honest assessment of Clean Architecture trade-offs based on real project experience.

• REST

  • Problem Details for HTTP APIs (RFC 9457)

    RFC 9457 Problem Details standard and cheat sheet for HTTP API error responses.

  • REST API Route Naming Best Practices

    REST API route naming conventions: nouns, pluralization, versioning.

AI

• Old PC vs New AI: Can a 2015 Desktop Actually Run Gemma 4? (2B vs 4B Benchmark)

  Benchmarking Gemma 4 E2B and E4B models running locally with Ollama on a 2015 desktop — speed, reasoning, code generation, structured output, and instruction following.

• How to Use Gemma 4 E2B the Smart Way: Family Trip Advisor

  Building a Family Trip Advisor app with Gemma 4 E2B, ASP.NET backend, and Angular frontend — how smart prompt design and backend orchestration unlock reliable results from small LLMs.

• Part 1: Run OpenClaw Locally on Windows Using Windows Sandbox

  Part 1: How to safely run OpenClaw on a local Windows machine using Windows Sandbox for secure, isolated AI agent experimentation.

• OpenClaw Sandbox Guide: One-Click .WSB Setup & AI Provider Comparison

  Part 2: Complete OpenClaw setup in Windows Sandbox with automated .wsb configuration and comparison of free and paid AI providers.

• The Reality of VibeCoding - Task Manager & Sticky Notes Dashboard

  An honest breakdown of why vibecoding is fast but unreliable — and why AI still can't replace real engineering judgment.

Benchmarks

.NET

• Exception vs Result pattern

  Benchmark about two error handling approaches.

• CopyTo vs Write

  Benchmark about using inner MemoryStream for copy byte array to output MemoryStream.

REFLECTION

• Get Enum Value Attribute

  Performance comparison of reflection, cached reflection, and FrozenDictionary for retrieving custom attributes from enum values in .NET 10.

• Export data

  Benchmarking reflection-based, cached reflection, and dictionary-based approaches for CSV data export in .NET 10.

• Create Instance

  Performance comparison of ServiceProvider, Activator.CreateInstance with concrete type, and Activator.CreateInstance via interface for creating class instances in .NET.

ASP.NET

• C# Minimal API: A Practical Way to Keep Endpoints Clean

  How to keep Minimal API endpoints clean and maintainable using extension methods and RouteGroupBuilder.

• C# Minimal API: Multiple Authentication Schemes with Swagger

  How to configure JWT and Basic Auth in a Minimal API with working Swagger UI support for each scheme.

• Clean Unit Testing in .NET: Practical xUnit and Moq Tips

  Practical xUnit and Moq patterns for cleaner, maintainable .NET unit tests.

• Secure ASP.NET Core Server Headers

  Remove server fingerprinting headers and add Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options in ASP.NET Core.

• ASP.NET Core Minimal API: Pros and Cons

  Where Minimal APIs shine over controllers, and where the trade-offs start to hurt.

• Configure ASP.NET Core Options Programmatically

  Using delegates and IConfigureOptions for flexible, testable ASP.NET Core configuration.

• CACHING SERIES

  • ASP.NET Core Caching Strategies Overview

    In-Memory, Distributed, Output, Response, and Query caching — when to use each.

  • Response Caching vs Output Caching

    Side-by-side comparison of where the cache lives and when to use each approach.

  • Response Caching in Minimal APIs

    Client-side caching headers in ASP.NET Core Minimal APIs using endpoint filters.

  • Output Caching with Authorization

    Custom Output Caching Policy for authorization header in ASP.NET Core Minimal API.

C#

• Remove Diacritics

  Extension method to remove diacritics using ISO-8859-8.

• Czech encoding in .NET

  How to add czech encoding into .NET project.

• Enumerable.ZIP

  Combine two sequences element by element.

• FluentResult UnwrapOrDefault

  Extension method for the `Result` object of FluentResult lib.

• LINQ: Chaining Two OrderBy Calls

  LINQ: Why Chaining Two OrderBy Calls Doesn’t Work the Way You Expect.

Angular

• HTTP Caching with shareReplay

  Efficient HTTP caching with RxJS shareReplay.

• Overusing ChangeDetectorRef

  Avoid manual change detection anti-patterns.

• i18n multiple translation files

  Loading multiple translation files in ngx-translate.

• Redefine property of mock object

  Redefining mock properties with defineProperty.

• Run test commands

  Cheatsheet for running specific Angular tests.

• i18n parameters

  Passing parameters to translations in Angular.

• package-lock.json in Git

  Best practices for package-lock.json and npm ci.

JavaScript

• Json.stringify replacer

  Replace or Format data using JSON.stringify.

TypeScript

• TypeScript type utilities

  Lesser-known but highly useful TypeScript type utilities.

• TypeScript declare tips

  Node.JS Custom env variables, Declare types from different module ...

SQL

• Postgresql array

  Postgresql array tips.

• Composite Index and Separate Indexes

  Postgresql composite index and separate indexes.

• Bulk insert optimalization

  Postgresql Bulk insert optimalization tip.

• Database Optimization and Cleanup

  PostgreSQL Database Optimization and Cleanup.

Git

• Commit to master

  How to revert commit to master.

• SourceTree Troubleshooting Guide

  Fixes for startup crashes, rebase failures, and password resets.

• Cleaning in Git

  How to delete branches, stashes etc..

Configuration

• Visible internals from different project

  See internal classes from another C# project.

• Package json Versioning - Caret

  Caret Ranges cheat sheet.

• Node.js Version & Dependency Management

  Practical guide to switching Node versions with nvm, reinstalling dependencies and configuring npm registries.

• K8s, Istio, Argo cheat sheet

  Kubernetes, Istio, Argo cheat sheet.