Beginner guides.
No background assumed. What a database, a domain or an environment variable actually is, and how to get an app you built with AI online and keep it there.
131 posts · page 2 of 5
What Is an ORM? Prisma, Drizzle, and Friends Explained
An ORM lets you work with your database using your programming language instead of raw SQL. What ORMs are, what Prisma, Drizzle, and others look like, the schema-and-migration workflow, the N+1 trap, and when writing SQL directly is the better choice.
What Is an LLM? Large Language Models Explained Without the Hype
Claude, GPT, and Gemini are large language models. What an LLM actually is, how it's trained, why it's good at code, why it confidently makes things up, what 'model', 'prompt', and 'temperature' mean, and what that means for building apps with AI.
What Is an API? Explained Without the Jargon
APIs are how apps talk to each other — how your app takes a payment, sends an email, or asks an AI model a question. What an API actually is, what requests and responses look like, what an API key does, and the few terms you'll keep running into.
What Is an AI Coding Agent? (And How It's Different From a Chatbot)
AI coding tools come in three flavours: chatbots that answer, assistants that autocomplete, and agents that take actions — editing files, running commands, and checking their own work. What makes something an agent, why it matters, and what agents need to work well and safely.
What Is a Webhook? Explained for Beginners
A webhook is how another service tells your app that something happened — a payment went through, a form was submitted, a file finished processing. How webhooks differ from normal API calls, what you need to receive one, and the three safety rules every webhook handler must follow.
What Is a Tech Stack? How to Choose One When AI Writes the Code
Your tech stack is the set of tools your app is built from: language, framework, database, and hosting. Even if AI writes the code, the choice matters — for how well the AI performs, what it costs, and who can help you later. A beginner's guide with a safe default.
What Is a Server? A Plain-English Explanation
'Server' can mean a computer, a program, or a rented slice of a data centre. What a server actually is, what it does when someone visits your app, the difference between physical, virtual, and serverless, and why your laptop isn't a good one.
What Is a Pull Request? A Beginner's Guide
A pull request is how a change gets proposed, checked, and merged into a project — and it's the single best safety net when an AI agent is writing your code. What PRs are, how they work on GitHub, what to look at before you click Merge, and why you want one for every change.
What Is a JWT? JSON Web Tokens Explained Simply
Supabase, Firebase, Auth0, and Clerk all hand your app JWTs. What a JSON Web Token is, its three parts, why anyone can read it but nobody can forge it, how apps use it for login, and the mistakes AI-generated code makes with tokens.
What Is a Framework? React, Next.js, and Friends Explained
React, Next.js, Vue, Svelte, Django, Laravel — the names come up constantly and blur together. What a framework is, how it differs from a library, how the popular ones relate to each other, and why AI tools keep choosing the same few.
What Is a Domain Name? (And How to Buy One Without Getting Caught Out)
A domain name is your app's address on the internet — and the one part of it you should truly own. What domains are, how to pick one, where to buy it, and the renewal-price and ownership traps that catch first-time buyers.
What Is a Database? A Beginner's Guide for People Building Apps
Almost every app needs somewhere to remember things — users, orders, messages. That's a database. What databases are, how tables and rows work, the difference between SQL and NoSQL, and the three things every beginner should know before real users arrive.
What Is a Context Window? Why AI Tools 'Forget' Things
An AI model can only consider so much text at once — its context window. What's in it, why long sessions get worse, what 'compacting' does, and practical habits for working with Claude Code and other tools so the right information is always in view.
What Is a CDN? Why Your Site Loads Fast (or Doesn't) Far From Home
A CDN keeps copies of your site's files on servers around the world, so a visitor in Sydney doesn't wait for a server in Virginia. What a CDN does, what it can and can't speed up, how caching fits in, and the stale-content surprise that confuses beginners.
What Are Tokens in AI? Why Your Usage Is Counted in Pieces of Words
AI models read and write in tokens, not words — and pricing, limits, and context windows are all measured in them. What a token is, roughly how many words it equals, input vs output tokens, why code uses more of them, and practical ways to use fewer.
What Are WebSockets? Real-Time Features Explained
Chat, live notifications, multiplayer cursors, and dashboards that update themselves all need the server to push data to the browser. How WebSockets work, the simpler alternatives (polling and server-sent events), hosted real-time services, and what real-time needs from your hosting.
Web App vs Mobile App: Which Should You Build First?
Should your idea be a website, an iPhone app, an Android app, or all three? The real differences in cost, distribution, app store rules, updates, and capabilities — plus progressive web apps and cross-platform tools like React Native and Flutter — and why most first products start on the web.
VS Code for Beginners: The Setup and Shortcuts That Matter
Visual Studio Code is the most popular code editor, and the one most AI tools integrate with. How to open a project, find your way around, use the built-in terminal and search, the handful of extensions and shortcuts worth learning, and how it fits alongside Claude Code.
A Security Checklist for Vibe-Coded Apps
AI-built apps fail security in predictable ways: open databases, keys in the browser, authorization checked only in the UI. A practical checklist for non-security people — what to check, how to test it yourself, and what to fix before real users arrive.
How to Update Your App's Dependencies Safely
The packages your app is built on get security fixes and new versions constantly. Ignore them and you accumulate risk; update carelessly and the app breaks. What version numbers mean, a safe routine for updating, how to handle security warnings, and how to let an AI do the tedious part.
How to Undo Almost Anything in Git (Including an AI Agent's Mess)
An agent committed to the wrong branch, rewrote files you needed, or ran a reset it shouldn't have. Git can almost always get your work back. Which undo command fits which situation — restore, revert, reset, and the reflog that rescues 'deleted' commits — explained with the exact commands.
How to Test Your App Before Launch (Without Writing Tests)
You don't need to be a programmer to find most bugs before your users do. A practical, one-afternoon testing plan for AI-built apps: the journeys to walk through, the 'try to break it' checks, the security tests, and how to keep track of what you find.
The Terminal for Complete Beginners: 15 Commands You'll Actually Use
The black window with blinking text isn't as scary as it looks. What the terminal is, why AI coding tools use it, and the fifteen commands that cover almost everything a beginner needs — plus the few that deserve respect.
Technical Debt in AI-Built Apps: What It Is and When to Pay It Down
AI tools let you build fast, and some of that speed is borrowed. What technical debt is, the specific kinds AI-generated code accumulates — duplication, dead code, inconsistent patterns, no tests — how to tell when it's hurting, and a practical way to pay it down without a rewrite.