Hamropedia

Phase 1 of 9 · 5 lessons

Networking and APIs

Understand how a request travels from a phone or browser to your servers and back, and how to design the API it calls.

Every design starts at the edge: DNS finds your servers, a connection carries the request, a proxy or gateway receives it, and an API defines what can be asked. Getting these basics clear makes every later diagram easier to explain.

By Manoj Kumar Thapa

AI Software Engineer ·

0 of 5 done

Lessons, in order

  1. 1.1

    Client–server, DNS, and what happens when you type a URL

    Must know

    Clients (browsers, apps) send requests; servers process them and send responses. DNS turns a name like example.com into an IP address the client can connect to.
  2. 1.2

    HTTP and REST API design

    Must know

    HTTP is the request–response protocol of the web. REST is a style of API design built around resources (nouns) and standard methods (GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE).
  3. 1.3

    Real-time communication: polling, long polling, WebSockets, SSE

    Should know

    Ways for a server to get new data to a client quickly: the client keeps asking (polling), waits on an open request (long polling), keeps a two-way connection open (WebSockets), or receives a one-way stream (server-sent events, SSE).
  4. 1.4

    CDN (content delivery network)

    Must know

    A network of servers around the world that caches static content (images, video, scripts) close to users.
  5. 1.5

    Proxies, reverse proxies and API gateways

    Should know

    A reverse proxy sits in front of your servers and receives requests on their behalf. An API gateway is a reverse proxy with API features: authentication, rate limiting and routing to the right service.