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Web Development Intermediate

What is Caching?

Storing copies of frequently accessed data in faster storage to reduce load times and server processing.

Caching stores computed results or fetched data for quick reuse. Types include browser cache (assets), CDN cache (edge content), application cache (computed data in Redis/Memcached), and database cache (query results).

Cache headers (Cache-Control, ETag, Last-Modified) control browser caching. Cache invalidation — knowing when to update cached data — is famously one of the hardest problems in computer science.

Related Terms

Progressive Enhancement
A web design strategy that starts with basic functionality for all browsers and progressively adds advanced features for capable ones.
Content Negotiation
An HTTP mechanism where client and server agree on the best representation of a resource based on format, language, or encoding preferences.
JSON
JavaScript Object Notation — a lightweight data interchange format that is easy for humans to read and machines to parse.
API (Application Programming Interface)
A set of rules and protocols that allows different software applications to communicate and exchange data.
WebSocket
A communication protocol that enables full-duplex, real-time data exchange between a browser and server over a single connection.
Brotli Compression
A modern compression algorithm developed by Google that achieves better compression ratios than Gzip for web content delivery.
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