Programming Concepts Intermediate

What is Twelve-Factor App?

A methodology of twelve best practices for building modern, scalable, maintainable software-as-a-service applications.

The Twelve-Factor App methodology (by Heroku co-founder Adam Wiggins) defines best practices for cloud-native applications: 1) Codebase (one repo per app), 2) Dependencies (explicitly declared), 3) Config (stored in environment variables), 4) Backing Services (treated as attached resources), 5) Build/Release/Run (strictly separated stages), 6) Processes (stateless and share-nothing), 7) Port Binding (self-contained web servers), 8) Concurrency (scale via processes), 9) Disposability (fast startup, graceful shutdown), 10) Dev/Prod Parity (keep environments similar), 11) Logs (treat as event streams), 12) Admin Processes (run as one-off tasks). These principles align naturally with container deployments and cloud platforms.

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A step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or performing a computation, defined as a finite sequence of instructions.

Composition over Inheritance

A design principle favoring object composition (has-a relationships) over class inheritance (is-a relationships) for code reuse.

An optimization technique that caches function results for given inputs, avoiding redundant computations for repeated calls.

Code that is easy to read, understand, and maintain — following consistent conventions, meaningful naming, and single-responsibility functions.

The practice of designing application programming interfaces that are consistent, intuitive, and maintainable for developers to consume.

A bug that occurs when the behavior of software depends on the timing or order of uncontrolled events like thread scheduling.

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