#IT Knowledge
58 posts
MIT vs. GPL vs. Apache: Open-Source Licenses Made Simple
This post explains, without any code, that "free" in open source comes with conditions. It covers how the leading licenses — MIT, Apache, and GPL — differ on commercial use and the duty to publish your source, and what to check when you bring one into a product, at a non-developer's level.
Catching Problems Before They Ship — Testing, QA, and Staging
This post explains, without any code, what developers mean by testing, QA, and staging. It unpacks where and how a team filters out problems before sending work to users, at a non-developer's level.
How Development Teams Work — Agile, Sprints, and MVP
This post explains, without any code, what agile, sprints, and MVP mean. It unpacks why building in short, repeated cycles rather than all at once took hold, at a non-developer's level.
Why a Site Suddenly Goes Down — Domains, DNS, and Certificates
This post explains, without any code, what domains, DNS, and SSL certificates are and why a site stops when they expire. It covers how typing an address reaches a site, and what happens when you miss a renewal, at a non-developer's level.
What the Padlock in Your Address Bar Protects — HTTPS and Encryption
This post explains, without any code, what the padlock icon and HTTPS actually protect. It covers how communication is encrypted, why services do not store your password as is, and how two-factor authentication helps, all at a non-developer's level.
Why They Tell You to "Clear Your Cache" — Caching and CDNs
This post explains, without any code, what developers mean when they suggest "clearing the cache" or "a hard refresh." It unpacks how a cache, which keeps frequently used things close by, and a CDN, which scatters copies around the world, speed up the web.
How LLMs Predict the Next Word — AI Explained for Non-Engineers
Learn how large language models like ChatGPT do not understand text but instead predict the next word by probability, explained so that anyone without a technical background can follow.
Why You Stay Logged In — Cookies, Sessions, and Tokens
This post explains, without any code, why you stay logged in even as you move from page to page. Starting from the fact that the web doesn't remember you by default, it unpacks what cookies, sessions, and tokens each are.
IT Literacy for Non-Developers #5: Git and Version Control — How Many People Edit One Codebase
This post explains, without any code, what developers mean by commit, push, merge, and PR. It closes the series by unpacking Git and version control - the way many people edit the same code without losing track of versions - at a non-developer's level.
Why Simple-Looking Features Take So Long — Development Estimates and Technical Debt
This post answers the question, "It's just adding one button, so why does it take two weeks?" Without any code, it unpacks the work hidden behind a small visible change, and what technical debt is and how it eats into development speed.
What Do Developers Actually Do — A Map of Development Roles
We call them all "developers," but front-end, back-end, DevOps, data, and AI engineers do completely different work. This post maps out what each role actually does, for people weighing a career and for people who work alongside developers.
IT Literacy for Non-Developers #4: Bugs, Hotfixes, and Rollbacks — How Developers Respond to Incidents
This post explains what developers mean by bug, hotfix, and rollback when something breaks - without any code. It walks through how a dev team responds when a problem hits, and what changes once a non-developer understands that flow.