Intermediate terms
Load Balancer Types — L4 vs L7
Layer-4 load balancers forward raw TCP/UDP packets based on IP and port; layer-7 load balancers terminate HTTP and route based on paths, headers and cookies — different trade-offs for different traffic.
2mo ago
cloud intermediate
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
A Core Web Vital that measures when the largest above-fold content element (typically the hero image or main heading) becomes visible — target under 2.5 seconds. The most impactful page speed metric.
2mo ago
performance intermediate
LLM Temperature & Sampling Strategies
Parameters that control the randomness and diversity of LLM output — temperature scales token probabilities, while top-p and top-k limit the candidate pool before sampling.
2mo ago
ai_ml intermediate
Late Static Binding — PHP 5.3 Feature
PHP 5.3+
static:: (Late Static Binding, PHP 5.3) refers to the called class at runtime — unlike self:: which always refers to the class where the method is defined.
3mo ago
php intermediate
LLM Hallucination
6
When a large language model generates confident-sounding text that is factually incorrect, fabricated, or unsupported by any source — a fundamental property of how language models work.
3mo ago
ai_ml intermediate
LLM Streaming Responses
PHP 8.0+
Receiving LLM output token-by-token as it is generated rather than waiting for the full response — dramatically improving perceived latency for users and enabling real-time displays of AI-generated content.
3mo ago
ai_ml intermediate
Log Aggregation (ELK/Loki)
3
Log aggregation collects logs from all services into a central searchable store — ELK (Elasticsearch+Logstash+Kibana) for full-text search, Loki (Prometheus-style) for cost-efficient label-based search.
3mo ago
observability intermediate
Lookahead & Lookbehind
PHP 5.3+
Zero-width assertions that match a position based on what precedes or follows it, without consuming characters — allowing conditions on surrounding context without including that context in the match.
3mo ago
regex intermediate
Latency vs Bandwidth
Latency is delay per request (physics + processing); bandwidth is throughput — high bandwidth does not fix high latency for small interactive responses.
3mo ago
networking intermediate
Legacy Date Functions
PHP 5.0+
Using date(), mktime(), strtotime(), and date_create() instead of DateTimeImmutable — the legacy functions are mutable, timezone-unsafe, and cannot be easily mocked.
3mo ago
php intermediate
Linux Log Files
2
Log locations, rotation, and analysis tools on Linux — /var/log/ structure, journald, logrotate, and essential log analysis commands.
3mo ago
linux intermediate
Linux Memory Management
1
How Linux allocates RAM — virtual memory, the page cache, swap, and the OOM killer — and what PHP developers need to know when PHP processes run out of memory.
3mo ago
linux intermediate
Linux Networking Tools
PHP 5.0+
Essential tools for diagnosing network issues on Linux servers — ss, netstat, curl, dig, tcpdump, and ping each reveal different layers of connectivity problems.
3mo ago
linux intermediate
Linux Performance Tools
1
Essential tools for diagnosing CPU, memory, IO, and network performance on Linux — top, htop, vmstat, iostat, perf, strace, and ltrace.
3mo ago
linux intermediate
Linux User & Group Management
2
Managing users and groups on Linux servers — useradd, usermod, passwd, groups — and best practices for PHP web server user isolation and privilege separation.
3mo ago
linux intermediate
LLM Context Window
1
The maximum amount of text an LLM can process in one call — everything the model sees at once, including system prompt, conversation history, and retrieved context.
3mo ago
ai_ml intermediate
Log Levels Best Practices
PHP 5.0+
Using the correct severity level — ERROR, WARNING, INFO, DEBUG — ensures alerting triggers on real issues while debug noise stays suppressible in production.
3mo ago
observability intermediate
Long Polling vs SSE vs WebSockets
PHP 5.0+
1
Long polling (HTTP hacks), SSE (one-way push over HTTP), WebSockets (full-duplex) — use SSE for server-to-client only, WebSocket for bidirectional.
3mo ago
networking intermediate
Low Cohesion
A class or module that does many unrelated things — high coupling's counterpart, making code hard to understand, test, and reuse.
3mo ago
quality intermediate
Large Language Models (LLMs)
2
Neural network models trained on vast text corpora that can generate, summarise, translate, and reason about text — the technology behind ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.
3mo ago
ai_ml intermediate