Intermediate terms
API Deprecation
The process of signalling that an API version, endpoint, or parameter will be removed — giving consumers time to migrate while maintaining backwards compatibility.
3mo ago
api_design intermediate
API Design Principles
3
Guidelines for designing interfaces — method signatures, HTTP endpoints, error responses — that are intuitive, consistent, and evolvable.
3mo ago
architecture intermediate
API Error Handling
Returning structured, machine-readable error responses using appropriate HTTP status codes — enabling clients to handle errors programmatically without parsing message strings.
3mo ago
api_design intermediate
API Gateway Pattern
A single entry point for all clients that handles routing, authentication, rate limiting, and protocol translation for backend services.
3mo ago
architecture intermediate
API Pagination Patterns
Strategies for returning large collections in manageable chunks — offset/page-based, cursor/keyset, and hybrid approaches each suit different use cases.
3mo ago
api_design intermediate
API Rate Limiting
Controlling how many requests a client can make in a time window — protecting against abuse, ensuring fair usage, and preventing accidental DoS from misbehaving clients.
3mo ago
api_design intermediate
Arbitrary File Upload
PHP 5.0+ Accepting file uploads without validating type, extension, and content can allow PHP shell uploads and RCE.
CWE-434 OWASP A4:2021
3mo ago
security intermediate
9.8
Argon2 Password Hashing
PHP 7.2+
1
The Password Hashing Competition winner (2015) — a memory-hard algorithm that resists GPU and ASIC brute-force attacks better than bcrypt.
OWASP A2:2021
3mo ago
security intermediate
ARIA Live Regions
HTML5
3
HTML attributes that instruct screen readers to announce dynamic content changes — essential for notifications, status messages, and search results that update without a page reload.
3mo ago
accessibility intermediate
ARIA Roles & Attributes
HTML5
1
Accessible Rich Internet Applications attributes add semantic meaning to HTML elements for screen readers — supplementing native HTML semantics for custom widgets.
3mo ago
frontend intermediate
Array Destructuring ([] = …)
PHP 7.1+
1
PHP's short list() syntax — [$a, $b] = $arr — assigns array elements to variables in a single expressive statement.
3mo ago
php intermediate
Array Unpacking with String Keys (PHP 8.1)
PHP 8.1+
PHP 8.1 allows the spread operator to unpack arrays with string keys — previously only integer-keyed arrays could be spread.
3mo ago
php intermediate
assert() — Code Execution Risk
PHP 5.0+
2
Passing a string to assert() causes PHP to evaluate it as code, equivalent to eval() if the argument is user-controlled.
CWE-95 OWASP A3:2021
3mo ago
php intermediate
9.8
Async Processing / Job Queues
PHP 5.0+
2
Deferring time-consuming work (emails, image processing, third-party API calls) to background workers via a queue, improving response times.
3mo ago
performance intermediate
async/await
ES2017 Syntactic sugar over Promises — async functions always return a Promise; await pauses execution until the awaited Promise settles.
3mo ago
javascript intermediate
Asynchronous vs Parallel Execution
PHP 7.0+ Async enables concurrency within a single thread by interleaving tasks during I/O waits; parallel execution uses multiple threads/processes for true simultaneous CPU execution.
3mo ago
concurrency intermediate
Attack Surface
PHP 5.0+
1
The sum of all points where an attacker can try to enter or extract data from a system.
3mo ago
general intermediate
Attributes / Annotations (PHP 8.0)
PHP 8.0+
Native structured metadata attached to classes, methods, properties, and parameters using #[AttributeName] syntax.
3mo ago
php intermediate
Auto Scaling
PHP 5.0+
1
Automatically adding or removing compute instances based on load metrics — ensuring capacity matches demand without over-provisioning or under-provisioning.
3mo ago
cloud intermediate
Autocomplete & Typeahead
PHP 5.0+
1
Showing relevant suggestions as the user types — requiring fast prefix search, debouncing, and careful UX to be helpful rather than distracting.
3mo ago
search intermediate