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Module
Module 1 of 6Lesson 1 of 1~3 min

Course overview

This course is for Product Managers and founders who want to understand what happens between a click and a page showing up. From DNS to the database, through HTTP, caching and environments, you learn to locate a problem and speak the same language as the engineering team. You leave with a commented technical map of your product.

Take this lesson: your first course is freeSee the full syllabus

Lesson objective

By the end of this overview, you will know what you will be able to explain (the full journey of a request through a web product), the deliverable you will produce on your own product and which five modules get you there.

Topics covered

  • how websites work
  • technical skills for PMs
  • web architecture
  • HTTP
  • Product Manager

Where it fits

Overview

What will I be able to explain by the end of this course, and in what order?

Lessons in this module

  1. Course overview (this lesson)

What you will learn in the course

This lesson is part of the course Explain how a web product works, from browser to server

  • Describe the steps of a web request, from the typed address to the displayed page (URL, DNS resolution, encrypted connection, HTTP request and response, browser rendering).
  • Read an HTTP exchange in the browser's Network tab (method, URL, status code, headers, cookies, duration) and draw a first diagnosis from it.
  • Explain how responsibilities are split between browser, frontend, backend, API, database and third-party services, and place where a business rule must run.
  • Explain the role of a CDN and of caches (browser, CDN, server) and anticipate their effects on speed, data freshness and releases.
  • Tell apart local, preview, staging and production environments, and say what changes from one to another (configuration, data, secrets).
  • Place a symptom (slowness, blank page, error, stale data) in the right layer and ask the technical team precise questions.
  • Produce the annotated diagram of a request's journey through your own product and have it validated by a developer.

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