String Similarity: Levenshtein, Jaro and Jaro–WinklerHow a program decides that two strings are almost the same: where the idea came from, the families of methods, … Oct 21, 2026 · 20 min What Is a Unit Test? Where Unit Testing Came From and How to Write Good OnesA unit test is a small, fast, automated check that one piece of code does what it should. Here is what that … Oct 20, 2026 · 36 min How Do Programs Talk to Each Other? JSON, XML, Protobuf, RPC, REST, gRPC, GraphQL and MessagingEvery pair of programs that exchange data makes two choices: how to encode the data and how to shape the … Oct 20, 2026 · 60 min How Do Computer Networks Work? TCP/IP, the OSI Model and the Protocols Every Programmer UsesAlmost every program talks to another one over a network. Here is how that works: packet switching and its … Oct 20, 2026 · 52 min How Does a Web Browser Work? From a URL to Pixels on the ScreenA web browser turns a URL into a working application in a fraction of a second. Here is how it does it: the … Oct 20, 2026 · 23 min What Is Text Encoding? From Telegraph Codes to Unicode and UTF-8Computers store only numbers, so every piece of text is a sequence of numbers under some agreed code. Here is … Oct 20, 2026 · 21 min What Are Data Structures? From Arrays to Hash Tables, and How to Choose OneA data structure is a way of arranging data in memory so that the operations a program needs are fast. Here is … Oct 20, 2026 · 27 min What Is a Compiler? How Source Code Becomes a Running ProgramA compiler translates a program from the language people write into the language a machine runs. Here is what … Oct 20, 2026 · 31 min Processes and Threads: What They Are, Where They Came From and How They WorkA process is a running program with its own private world; a thread is one line of execution inside it. Here … Oct 20, 2026 · 27 min What Is a Processor? History, Architectures and How a CPU WorksA processor is the part of a computer that actually carries out instructions. Here is what that means, how it … Oct 20, 2026 · 33 min