/full-stack-study-guide

A Full-Stack Web Development Study Guide for HTML, CSS, PHP, JS, MYSQL, and MORE

Full-Stack Study Guide

Table of Contents

Overview

🏗️ Backend Architecture (PHP/Laravel)

Service Container & Dependency Injection

  • Centralizes object creation and dependency management.
  • Constructor, method, and property injection patterns.
  • bind() vs singleton() in the container.
  • Auto-resolution of type-hinted dependencies.
  • Swapping implementations for testing (contracts vs concrete classes).

Service Providers

  • register() vs boot() methods.
  • Deferred providers for performance.
  • Organizing providers for modular apps.

Design Patterns in Laravel

  • Repository Pattern: abstracts DB layer from business logic.
  • Service Pattern: organizes domain/business logic.
  • Observer/Event Pattern: decoupled event handling.
  • Strategy Pattern: interchangeable algorithms (e.g., payments, notifications).
  • Command Pattern: queued jobs or tasks.
  • Decorator Pattern: dynamically extend object behavior.
  • Facade Pattern: static interface over container services.

Eloquent & Database Layer

  • Query scopes, polymorphic relations, pivot tables, and many-to-many.
  • Optimized eager loading vs lazy loading.
  • Repository + Service layer for clean architecture.
  • Database caching strategies.
  • Migration & seeding best practices.

Security & Authentication

  • Laravel built-in auth (Sanctum, Passport, JWT).
  • CSRF, XSS, SQL injection protection.
  • Role-based and policy-based authorization.
  • Secure password hashing and token management.

Testing & Quality

  • Unit tests (PHPUnit), integration tests, feature tests.
  • Mocking dependencies using container binding.
  • Test-driven development workflow in Laravel.

🌐 Frontend Architecture (JS/React)

Component Architecture

  • Functional vs Class components.
  • Hooks (useState, useEffect, useReducer, custom hooks).
  • Prop drilling vs Context API for state management.
  • Lifting state vs global state solutions (Redux, Zustand).

Design Patterns

  • Container/Presentational pattern.
  • Higher-Order Components (HOC) vs Render Props.
  • Hook-based composition pattern.
  • Lazy-loading components for performance.

State Management & Data Flow

  • Centralized store patterns (Redux or Context).
  • Optimistic updates, caching, and immutability.
  • Handling async API calls with fetch, Axios, or RTK Query.

Security

  • XSS prevention in JSX.
  • CSRF handling in SPA + API.
  • Authentication flows: JWT, OAuth2, session tokens.

Performance & Optimization

  • Code splitting, lazy loading, memoization (React.memo, useMemo, useCallback).
  • Virtualization for large lists.
  • Minimizing re-renders and unnecessary state updates.

💾 Database & API Architecture

Database Design

  • Normalization vs denormalization trade-offs.
  • Indexing, query optimization, and foreign keys.
  • Polymorphic associations and pivot tables in relational DBs.
  • Transactions, optimistic vs pessimistic locking.

API Design

  • RESTful principles: resource-based endpoints, proper status codes.
  • GraphQL: queries vs mutations, resolvers, batching.
  • Versioning strategies for long-term maintenance.
  • Pagination, filtering, and caching for large datasets.

Security

  • Rate limiting and throttling.
  • Input validation and output encoding.
  • Authentication and authorization strategies (OAuth2, JWT, API tokens).

🛠️ DevOps & Deployment

Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment

  • Automated testing pipelines (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD).
  • Deployment pipelines: staging → production.
  • Rollbacks, blue/green deployments, canary releases.

Containerization & Virtualization

  • Docker for development and production parity.
  • Docker Compose for multi-service apps.
  • Kubernetes for orchestrating container clusters.

Monitoring & Logging

  • Centralized logging (Monolog, ELK stack).
  • Application performance monitoring (New Relic, Blackfire, Sentry).
  • Health checks and uptime monitoring.

Scaling & Load Management

  • Horizontal vs vertical scaling.
  • Database read replicas and load balancers.
  • Caching strategies: Redis, Memcached.

🧩 Architectural Principles & Patterns

SOLID Principles

  • Single Responsibility, Open/Closed, Liskov Substitution, Interface Segregation, Dependency Inversion.

Clean Architecture

  • Separation of concerns: Controllers → Services → Repositories → Models.
  • Dependency rule: inner layers unaware of outer layers.

Modular & Package-based Design

  • Reusable modules, Laravel packages, npm packages.
  • Service-oriented or microservice architecture considerations.

Testing & Maintainability

  • Test coverage and automation.
  • Mocking dependencies and using contracts/interfaces.
  • Refactoring strategies and code reviews.

⚡ Advanced Topics

  • CQRS (Command Query Responsibility Segregation) in Laravel apps.
  • Event sourcing and audit logging.
  • WebSockets and real-time applications (Laravel Echo + Pusher).
  • Multi-tenant architecture in Laravel (single DB vs multiple DBs).
  • Caching patterns: query caching, fragment caching, full-page caching.
  • API rate limiting, throttling, and request validation.