Intermediate terms
Credential Stuffing
PHP 5.0+
Automated injection of username/password pairs from previous data breaches to gain access to accounts where users reused credentials.
CWE-307 OWASP A7:2021
6mo ago
Security intermediate
8.1
CRLF Injection
PHP 5.0+
Injecting carriage-return and line-feed characters into HTTP headers splits responses or injects new headers, enabling log poisoning and XSS.
CWE-93 OWASP A3:2021
6mo ago
Security intermediate
6.1
CSPRNG
PHP 7.0+
1
Cryptographically Secure Pseudo-Random Number Generator — produces unpredictable values suitable for security tokens.
6mo ago
Security intermediate
CSS Animations & Transitions
CSS3 CSS transitions animate property changes smoothly; keyframe animations define multi-step sequences — both should use GPU-composited properties (transform, opacity) for smooth 60fps.
6mo ago
Frontend intermediate
CSS Cascade, Specificity & Inheritance
CSS3
1
How browsers decide which CSS rule wins — cascade layers, origin, specificity score, and source order all play a role.
6mo ago
Frontend intermediate
CSS Container Queries
CSS4
A CSS feature that lets elements adapt their styles based on their parent container's size rather than the viewport — enabling truly reusable responsive components.
6mo ago
Frontend intermediate
CSS Flexbox & Grid
CSS3
Flexbox handles one-dimensional layouts (row or column); Grid handles two-dimensional layouts — together they replace float and table hacks.
6mo ago
Frontend intermediate
CSS Specificity
CSS3
The algorithm browsers use to determine which CSS rule wins when multiple rules target the same element — calculated as a three-part score (ID, class, element).
6mo ago
Frontend intermediate
cURL in PHP
PHP 5.0+
2
PHP's cURL extension enables making HTTP, FTP, and other protocol requests — the standard way to consume external APIs and services.
6mo ago
PHP intermediate
Cyclomatic Complexity
4
A count of linearly independent paths through a function — each if, for, while, case, and && adds 1.
6mo ago
Code Quality intermediate
Closures & Anonymous Functions
PHP 5.3+
1
First-class anonymous functions that can capture variables from their enclosing scope via the use keyword.
7mo ago
PHP intermediate
Cognitive Complexity
7
A readability-focused complexity metric that penalises nesting more heavily than cyclomatic complexity.
7mo ago
Code Quality intermediate
Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
PHP 5.0+
4
A forged request tricks an authenticated user's browser into performing an unintended action on a site they're logged into.
CWE-352 OWASP A1:2021
7mo ago
Security intermediate
6.5
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)
PHP 5.0+
2
User-supplied content rendered in the browser without escaping, allowing script injection into other users' sessions.
CWE-79 OWASP A3:2021
7mo ago
Security intermediate
6.1