Developer Glossary

Plain-English definitions of common developer terms — each linked to a free tool you can use right away.

A defined interface that lets software components talk to each other.

A 7-bit character encoding for English letters, digits, and symbols.

A binary-to-text encoding that represents data using 64 printable ASCII characters.

A deliberately slow password-hashing algorithm with a built-in salt.

A distributed network of servers that delivers content from near the user.

A browser security mechanism controlling cross-origin requests.

A time-based job scheduler defined by five-field expressions.

A plain-text format for tabular data, one record per line.

The system that translates domain names into IP addresses.

Epoch / Unix Time

The number of seconds since 1 January 1970 UTC.

A query language for APIs where clients request exactly the data they need.

A one-way function that maps data of any size to a fixed-size value.

A base-16 number system using digits 0–9 and A–F.

A keyed hash used to verify both integrity and authenticity of a message.

A property where repeating an operation has the same effect as doing it once.

A lightweight, human-readable data-interchange format.

JWT (JSON Web Token)

A compact, signed token format used to securely transmit claims between parties.

A fast 128-bit hash algorithm, now insecure for cryptography.

A label that tells software the format of a file or data.

An open standard for delegated authorization without sharing passwords.

Restricting how many requests a client can make in a time window.

Regular Expression (Regex)

A pattern language for matching and extracting text.

An API style that models data as resources accessed over HTTP verbs.

A secure 256-bit cryptographic hash from the SHA-2 family.

A URL-friendly version of a string, used in clean web addresses.

The encryption protocol that secures data in transit (the S in HTTPS).

A universal standard that assigns a unique number to every character.

Encoding characters so they can safely appear in a URL.

A 128-bit universally unique identifier, written as 36 hex characters.

A user-defined HTTP callback triggered by an event.

A protocol for full-duplex, real-time communication over one connection.

A human-friendly, indentation-based data serialization format.