#57: WKT Is for Your Eyes. WKB Is for Your CPU
Both formats represent identical geometry. They’re optimized for…
#56: Convenience in SQL Often Means Congestion in the Network
ST_AsGeoJSON looks efficient in queries. It’s a disaster in production…
#55: Distributed Data Is Fast. Distributed Metadata Is Slow.
Zarr’s exploded structure is brilliant for I/O throughput but creates…
#54: NetCDF Assumes You Have a File System. Zarr Assumes You Have a URL
NetCDF and Zarr handle identical data. They’re optimized for different…
#53: There Is No Correct Chunk Shape, Only the Shape That Matches Your Query
A climate model and a weather dashboard want the same data. They access it…
#52: NetCDF Was Built for Supercomputers. Zarr Is Built for the Cloud.
NetCDF/HDF5 treat data as a single file with complex internal pointers.…
#51: You Don’t Choose Between Vector Tiles and PMTiles
Vector Tiles and PMTiles are not competitors. They’re content and…
50: PMTiles Turns a Directory of a Million Files Into a Single API
Most teams hosting vector tiles still run a server. They don’t need…
#49: Your Software Thinks in Pixels, But Your Hard Drive Thinks in Blocks
Most developers treat rasters as continuous grids of pixels. They’re…
48: A COG Is the Only Format Where 99% of the Data Is Irrelevant
The “magic” of streaming a 100GB raster from a browser is…
