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21 Jul 2025#java#perf#ops#etl 1 min read

The SAX day

A streaming parser rolled back and re-landed in one day.


Five iterations of a streaming parser before eleven in the morning, the parser removed, a rollback to the stable build, then a fresh series of fixes until late evening. The eighth one held.

Version eight had two things version one did not: a test workbook that reproduced the failure, and a decision about which sheets to stream and which to load.

The mistake

Iterating on production. The recovery was resetting to a known state and starting again with what the morning had taught.

Client engagement, 2021 to 2026. Names, identifiers and internals are generalised.

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