📘 Developer’s Reference Sheet — Key Concepts, Acronyms & Best Practices

Software development involves a lot of terminology and acronyms — many reused across domains. This reference sheet summarizes the most common ones every modern developer should know. 📘

🔧 Core Development Concepts

  • SDLC — Software Development Life Cycle: process from planning to maintenance.
  • CI/CD — Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery: automated build, test, and deployment.
  • API — Application Programming Interface: contract for communication between systems.
  • SDK — Software Development Kit: tools for building apps on a platform.
  • CLI — Command-Line Interface: text-based control interface for developers.

☁️ Cloud & Infrastructure

  • IaaS — Infrastructure as a Service (e.g., Azure VM, AWS EC2).
  • PaaS — Platform as a Service (e.g., Azure App Service, Heroku).
  • SaaS — Software as a Service (e.g., Office 365, Salesforce).
  • IaC — Infrastructure as Code: provisioning infra via code (Terraform, ARM, CloudFormation).
  • GitOps — Managing infra and app delivery through Git workflows.

🧱 Architecture & Patterns

  • DDD — Domain-Driven Design: modeling software around the business domain.
  • CQRS — Command Query Responsibility Segregation: separating read and write models.
  • EDA — Event-Driven Architecture: systems reacting to emitted events asynchronously.
  • SOA — Service-Oriented Architecture: predecessor of microservices.
  • API Gateway — Entry point handling routing, security, and rate limiting.

🧪 Testing & Quality

  • TDD — Test-Driven Development: write tests before implementation.
  • BDD — Behavior-Driven Development: test system behavior in human-readable scenarios.
  • Mocking — Simulating dependencies for isolated testing.
  • Regression — Unintended breakage of existing functionality.
  • Static Analysis — Automated code inspection (e.g., SonarQube).

🔒 Security & Identity

  • OAuth2 — Authorization framework allowing secure delegated access.
  • OIDC — OpenID Connect: authentication layer on top of OAuth2.
  • JWT — JSON Web Token: compact token for user identity claims.
  • RBAC — Role-Based Access Control.
  • Secret Management — Secure storage for credentials (Azure Key Vault, HashiCorp Vault).

📊 Observability & Operations

  • Logs — Record of events and system behavior.
  • Metrics — Quantitative system indicators (CPU, memory, latency).
  • Traces — End-to-end request tracking across services.
  • SLI/SLO/SLA — Service Level Indicator / Objective / Agreement.
  • FinOps — Cloud cost management and financial accountability.

🧠 Best Practices & Principles

  • 💡 DRY — Don’t Repeat Yourself.
  • 🧩 KISS — Keep It Simple, Stupid.
  • 🧱 SOLID — 5 object-oriented design principles for maintainability.
  • ♻️ YAGNI — You Aren’t Gonna Need It (avoid premature features).
  • 🧭 Shift Left — Integrate testing and security earlier in development.

🌟 Conclusion

Knowing the vocabulary helps teams collaborate efficiently across roles — from developers and DevOps engineers to architects and testers. Use this sheet as a quick mental map of the modern software landscape. 🚀

Labels: Reference, Acronyms, Glossary, DevOps, Architecture, Testing, Cloud

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