The Ten Concepts for Software Engineer (4)

9. Security
With the rise of hacking and data sensitivity, the security is paramount. Security is a broad topic that includes authentication, authorization, and information transmission.

Authentication is about verifying user identity. A typical website prompts for a password. The authentication typically happens over SSL (secure socket layer), a way to transmit encrypted information over HTTP. Authorization is about permissions and is important in corporate systems, particularly those that define workflows. The recently developed OAuth protocol helps web services to enable users to open access to their private information. This is how Flickr permits access to individual photos or data sets.

Another security area is network protection. This concerns operating systems, configuration and monitoring to thwart hackers. Not only network is vulnerable, any piece of software is. Firefox browser, marketed as the most secure, has to patch the code continuously. To write secure code for your system requires understanding specifics and potential problems.


10. Relational Databases
Relational Databases have recently been getting a bad name because they cannot scale well to support massive web services. Yet this was one of the most fundamental achievements in computing that has carried us for two decades and will remain for a long time. Relational databases are excellent for order management systems, corporate databases and P&L data.

At the core of the relational database is the concept of representing information in records. Each record is added to a table, which defines the type of information. The database offers a way to search the records using a query language, nowadays SQL. The database offers a way to correlate information from multiple tables.

The technique of data normalization is about correct ways of partitioning the data among tables to minimize data redundancy and maximize the speed of retrieval.

Troubleshooting is often characterized as a skill but there are learn able concepts that make you more efficient than just running by instinct. For example, when you see your programmer burning a hole through their screen grab a coffee and talk them through an example of the "division by halves" method of solving complex problems. When you're in the heat of battle you often don't think consciously of these simple tricks.