#developer
14 articles tagged “developer”.
How a Blogger and a Teenage Prodigy Gave the Whole Internet Its Writing Style: The Story of Markdown
The asterisks that bold your Slack messages, every GitHub README, your Reddit comments — they all trace back to a tiny format built in 2004 by John Gruber and Aaron Swartz. Here's how a language desig
The Image Format You Can Actually Read: Why SVG Is Secretly Just Text
Open an SVG in a text editor and you can read it — angle brackets, shapes, colors in plain hex. It's not a picture, it's a recipe. Here's why that changes everything, from infinite scaling to the scri
Could Two Random UUIDs Ever Collide? The Surprising Math Behind Unique IDs
Every UUID is a bet that a random string has never existed before, anywhere, without checking with anyone. It sounds reckless — here's the staggering math that makes it one of the safest bets in compu
The Year 2038 Problem: How a Single Number Could Break Computers (and Why Time Starts in 1970)
Most computers track time as one ever-growing number of seconds since 1970 — an almost accidental choice that powers the internet and hides a built-in expiry date in 2038. Inside the Epochalypse, leap
The alg:none Trap: How JSON Web Tokens Get Forged — and How to Sign Them Right
JWTs feel almost too clever — until you learn how they get broken. The alg:none bypass, the RS256-to-HS256 key confusion, weak-secret cracking, and the revocation problem nobody warns you about.
Base64 Isn't Encryption: What It Actually Does (and Why the Web Needs It)
It looks scrambled, so people assume it's secret — but Base64 hides nothing. Here's what Base64 really is, how 3 bytes become 4 characters, why it's 33% bigger, and where it quietly runs the internet.
Discovered, Not Invented: The Quietly Strange Story of JSON
It's the napkin-sized format that quietly runs the internet — discovered rather than invented, licensed with a joke a corporation took seriously, and frozen forever on purpose. Here's the curious hist
Barcode Generator Guide: Code 128, EAN-13, UPC & More
From retail products to inventory labels, barcodes encode data in a form any scanner can read. A barcode generator lets you create standards compliant codes and download them for p
URL Encode & Decode Guide: Master Percent-Encoding
Spaces, ampersands, and emoji can all break a URL if they're not encoded correctly. A URL encoder/decoder makes sure your links and query parameters travel safely across the web.
Diff Checker Guide: Compare Two Texts and Spot Every Change
Trying to figure out what changed between two versions of a document, config, or code snippet? A diff checker highlights every addition, deletion, and edit so nothing slips past yo
JWT Decoder Guide: Inspect JSON Web Tokens, Claims & Expiry
When an authentication bug strikes, the fastest way to understand what's happening is to look inside the token. A JWT decoder reveals every claim, header, and expiry time in a read
QR Code Generator Guide: Create Codes for URLs, WiFi & Contacts
QR codes bridge the physical and digital worlds — one scan can open a website, join a WiFi network, or save a contact. Here's how to make your own in seconds, for free.
JSON Formatter Guide: Beautify, Validate & Minify JSON Online
Raw JSON from an API is often a single unreadable line. A JSON formatter turns that mess into clean, indented, color coded structure you can actually read and debug.
The Complete Color Picker Guide: HEX, RGB, HSL, CMYK & Palettes
Whether you're designing a website, building a brand, or just trying to match a shade you saw online, a good color picker turns guesswork into precision. Here's how to pick any col