Backend foundations

Before you start

• Basic programming in any language

What you will cover

• HTTP and REST APIs
• Authentication and sessions
• Relational databases and SQL

The curriculum

1. Request/Response Fundamentals

   • System Overview and Request Flow
   • HTTP Protocol Basics
   • HTTP Headers Deep Dive
   • HTTP Methods and Semantics
   • CORS and Preflight Requests
   • HTTP Responses and Status Codes
   • HTTP Caching
   • HTTP/1.1 vs HTTP/2 vs HTTP/3
   • Content Negotiation and Compression
   • TLS/SSL and HTTPS
   • Routing Fundamentals
   • API Versioning and Serialization
   • CDN and Edge Caching
   • Capstone Project — Request/Response Fundamentals

2. API Layer and Request Handling

   • Validation Fundamentals
   • Transformation and Normalization
   • Complex Validation Logic
   • Middleware Fundamentals
   • Common Middleware Patterns
   • Request Context
   • Handlers, Controllers, and Services
   • CRUD Deep Dive
   • RESTful Architecture and Best Practices
   • OpenAPI Standards
   • Capstone Project — API Layer and Request Handling

3. Authentication and Authorization

   • Auth Fundamentals — Stateful vs Stateless
   • Sessions and Cookies
   • JWT Deep Dive
   • OAuth2 and OIDC
   • API Keys and Service-to-Service Auth
   • MFA and Password Security
   • Authorization Models
   • Securing Auth in Practice
   • Capstone Project — Authentication and Authorization

4. Databases and the Data Layer

   • Relational vs Non-Relational Databases
   • ACID and the CAP Theorem
   • Querying and Joins
   • Schema Design and Indexing
   • Transactions and Concurrency Control
   • ORMs and Migrations
   • Business Logic Layer and Separation of Concerns
   • Query Optimization and Connection Pooling
   • Replication and Sharding
   • OLAP and Data Warehousing
   • Multi-Tenancy Patterns
   • Capstone Project — Databases and the Data Layer