Developer Glossary

AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) is a symmetric-key encryption algorithm adopted by the US government and used worldwi...

An API key is a unique string identifier used to authenticate requests to an API. It is typically passed as a header (X-...

ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is a 7-bit character encoding standard that maps 128 characte...

Base62 encoding uses 62 characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9) to represent numbers compactly. Unlike Base64, it avoids +, /, and = ...

Base64 is a binary-to-text encoding scheme that represents binary data as an ASCII string. It uses 64 characters (A-Z, a...

Bcrypt is a password hashing function designed to be slow on purpose. It incorporates a salt and a configurable cost fac...

A bearer token is an access credential included in API requests via the Authorization header (Authorization: Bearer <tok...

Binary (base-2) is a numbering system that uses only two digits: 0 and 1. It is the fundamental representation of all da...

Brotli is a compression algorithm developed by Google that provides 15-25% better compression ratios than gzip for web c...

Caching stores copies of data in faster-access locations to reduce latency and load. Web caching includes browser caches...

camelCase is a naming convention where words are joined without spaces, and each word after the first starts with a capi...

A CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a geographically distributed network of servers that delivers cached content from th...

An SSL/TLS certificate is a digital document that binds a domain name to a public key. Issued by Certificate Authorities...

A checksum is a small value derived from a data block, used to detect errors or verify integrity. Common checksum algori...

CI/CD (Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment) is a practice where code changes are automatically built, tested,...

CSP is a security HTTP header that restricts which resources (scripts, styles, images) a page can load. It specifies all...

The Content-Type HTTP header indicates the MIME type of the request or response body. It tells the receiver how to parse...

An HTTP cookie is a small piece of data stored in the browser and sent with every request to the same domain. Cookies st...

CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) is a browser security mechanism that controls which domains can make requests to yo...

CRUD stands for Create, Read, Update, Delete — the four basic operations for persistent data storage. In REST APIs, thes...

CSRF is a web attack that tricks a user's browser into making unwanted requests to a site where they are authenticated. ...

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a stylesheet language that controls the visual presentation of HTML documents. It define...

Minification is the process of removing unnecessary characters from code (whitespace, comments, line breaks) without cha...

CSV (Comma-Separated Values) is a plain text format that stores tabular data with rows separated by newlines and columns...

A Data URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) embeds small files directly in HTML or CSS using the data: scheme. The format i...

A diff (difference) shows the changes between two texts or files. It highlights added, removed, and modified lines. The ...

A digital signature is a cryptographic proof that a message or document was created by a specific sender and has not bee...

DNS (Domain Name System) translates human-readable domain names (example.com) into IP addresses (93.184.216.34) that com...

Docker is a platform that packages applications and their dependencies into lightweight, portable containers. A containe...

The DOM (Document Object Model) is a programming interface for HTML/XML documents. It represents the page as a tree of o...

Encryption transforms readable data (plaintext) into unreadable ciphertext using an algorithm and a key. Only someone wi...

An environment variable is a key-value pair set in the operating system or process environment. Applications read them t...

Git is a distributed version control system that tracks changes to files over time. It enables branching, merging, colla...

GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) is GitHub's extension of standard Markdown. It adds support for tables, task lists, strik...

A glob pattern is a simplified pattern matching syntax for file paths. It uses * for any characters, ? for a single char...

GraphQL is a query language for APIs that lets clients request exactly the data they need — nothing more, nothing less. ...

GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) is Microsoft's term for UUID. GUIDs and UUIDs are technically identical — both are 128...

Gzip is a file compression format and algorithm widely used for HTTP content encoding. Servers compress responses with g...

Hashing is the process of converting input data of any size into a fixed-size output (hash or digest) using a mathematic...

A HEX color code is a six-digit hexadecimal representation of a color, prefixed with #. Each pair of digits represents r...

Hexadecimal (hex, base-16) is a numbering system that uses 16 digits: 0-9 and A-F. Each hex digit represents 4 bits, so ...

HSL (Hue, Saturation, Lightness) is a cylindrical color model. Hue is a degree on the color wheel (0-360), saturation is...

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the standard markup language for creating web pages. It uses tags like <p>, <div>, <...

HTML entities are special sequences that represent reserved or special characters in HTML. They start with & and end wit...

HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) is the application-layer protocol for transmitting hypermedia documents on the web. I...

HTTP status codes are three-digit numbers returned by servers to indicate the result of a request. They are grouped: 2xx...

HTTPS (HTTP Secure) is HTTP encrypted with TLS/SSL. It ensures that data between the browser and server is encrypted, au...

An operation is idempotent if performing it multiple times has the same effect as performing it once. In REST APIs, GET,...

An INI file is a simple configuration format using sections in square brackets [section] and key=value pairs. It was pop...

ISO 8601 is an international standard for date and time representation. The format is YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ — for example...

JavaScript is a dynamic, interpreted programming language that runs in web browsers and on servers (Node.js). It is the ...

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight, text-based data interchange format. It uses key-value pairs and orde...

JSON Schema is a vocabulary that allows you to validate the structure and content of JSON data. It defines the expected ...

JWT (JSON Web Token) is a compact, URL-safe token format for transmitting claims between parties. It consists of three B...

kebab-case is a naming convention where words are separated by hyphens and all letters are lowercase: my-component-name,...

Kubernetes (K8s) is an open-source container orchestration platform that automates deploying, scaling, and managing cont...

Lazy loading is a technique that defers loading of non-critical resources until they are needed. For images, this means ...

Lorem ipsum is dummy placeholder text used in design and typesetting since the 1500s. It is based on scrambled passages ...

Markdown is a lightweight markup language that uses plain text formatting syntax (# for headings, * for bold, - for list...

MD5 (Message-Digest Algorithm 5) is a widely used hash function that produces a 128-bit (32 hex character) hash value. I...

A CSS media query applies styles conditionally based on device characteristics — screen width, orientation, resolution, ...

A merge conflict occurs in Git when two branches modify the same lines of the same file. Git cannot automatically determ...

Microservices is an architectural style where an application is built as a collection of small, independent services. Ea...

MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) types are labels that identify the format of a file or data stream. Written...

MFA requires two or more independent verification factors to authenticate a user: something you know (password), somethi...

NanoID is a small, secure, URL-safe unique string ID generator. It produces shorter IDs than UUID (21 characters by defa...

OAuth 2.0 is an authorization framework that lets third-party applications access user resources without sharing passwor...

OpenAPI (formerly Swagger) is a specification for describing REST APIs. It defines endpoints, parameters, request/respon...

Page speed measures how fast a web page loads and becomes interactive. It is assessed using metrics like Largest Content...

PascalCase (also called UpperCamelCase) is a naming convention where every word starts with a capital letter and words a...

Password security encompasses best practices for creating, storing, and managing passwords. Strong passwords are long (1...

A primary key is a column (or set of columns) in a database table that uniquely identifies each row. Primary keys must b...

Python is a high-level, interpreted programming language known for its clean syntax and readability. It supports multipl...

A QR (Quick Response) code is a two-dimensional matrix barcode that encodes data in a grid of black and white squares. I...

A query string is the part of a URL after the question mark (?). It contains key-value pairs separated by ampersands (&)...

A rainbow table is a precomputed lookup table mapping hash values to their original plaintext inputs. It allows attacker...

Rate limiting restricts the number of API requests a client can make within a time window (e.g., 100 requests per minute...

A regular expression (regex) is a pattern of characters that defines a search pattern. Regexes match, find, and replace ...

Responsive design is a web design approach that makes pages render well on all screen sizes — from phones to desktops. I...

A REST (Representational State Transfer) API is a web service that follows REST architectural constraints: stateless com...

RGB (Red, Green, Blue) is an additive color model where colors are created by combining red, green, and blue light at di...

RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman) is an asymmetric encryption algorithm that uses a pair of keys: a public key for encryption ...

reStructuredText (RST) is a plaintext markup language used primarily in the Python ecosystem. It is the standard for Sph...

A salt is a random value added to a password before hashing. Each user gets a unique salt, so even if two users have the...

The same-origin policy is a browser security mechanism that restricts scripts on one origin from accessing data on a dif...

Semantic HTML uses elements that convey meaning about their content: <article> for articles, <nav> for navigation, <head...

Semantic Versioning uses a three-part version number: MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH (e.g., 2.4.1). MAJOR increments for breaking cha...

A session is a server-side data store associated with a specific user, identified by a session ID stored in a cookie. It...

SHA-256 (Secure Hash Algorithm 256-bit) is a cryptographic hash function that produces a 256-bit (64 hex character) dige...

snake_case is a naming convention where words are separated by underscores and all letters are lowercase: my_variable_na...

SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) is a messaging protocol that uses XML for structured information exchange. It defin...

SQL injection is a code injection attack where malicious SQL statements are inserted into input fields. If the applicati...

SSH (Secure Shell) is a cryptographic network protocol for secure remote access to servers. It encrypts all communicatio...

TLS (Transport Layer Security) and its predecessor SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) are cryptographic protocols that secure co...

String matching is the algorithmic process of finding occurrences of a pattern within a text. Methods range from simple ...

SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) is an XML-based format for two-dimensional vector graphics. Unlike raster images (PNG, JP...

Tailwind CSS is a utility-first CSS framework that provides low-level utility classes (flex, pt-4, text-center, rotate-9...

TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is a reliable, connection-oriented network protocol that ensures data arrives in ord...

TOML (Tom's Obvious Minimal Language) is a configuration file format that aims to be easy to read due to clear semantics...

TOTP generates short-lived one-time passwords based on a shared secret and the current time. The algorithm (RFC 6238) pr...

TSV (Tab-Separated Values) is a text format for tabular data where columns are separated by tab characters instead of co...

TypeScript is a typed superset of JavaScript developed by Microsoft. It adds static type checking, interfaces, enums, an...

Unicode is a universal character set that assigns a unique code point to every character across all writing systems. It ...

A Unix timestamp (epoch time) is the number of seconds that have elapsed since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 UTC (the Unix e...

URL encoding (percent-encoding) replaces unsafe or reserved characters in a URL with a percent sign followed by two hexa...

UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks. It is the successor t...

UTF-8 is a variable-width character encoding that can represent every character in the Unicode standard. It uses 1 to 4 ...

A UUID (Universally Unique Identifier) is a 128-bit identifier written as 32 hexadecimal digits in 5 groups: 550e8400-e2...

The viewport is the visible area of a web page in the browser window. The HTML meta viewport tag (<meta name='viewport' ...

The Virtual DOM is an in-memory representation of the real DOM. When state changes, the framework creates a new virtual ...

A webhook is an HTTP callback — a URL that receives automated POST requests when an event occurs. Instead of polling an ...

WebP is a modern image format developed by Google that provides superior compression for both lossy and lossless images....

WebSocket is a communication protocol that provides full-duplex (two-way) communication over a single TCP connection. Un...

XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is a markup language for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and...

XSS (Cross-Site Scripting) is a web security vulnerability where an attacker injects malicious JavaScript into a page vi...

YAML (YAML Ain't Markup Language) is a human-readable data serialization format that uses indentation to represent struc...