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14. Tech Fundamentals

📄️ 14.1 Core Functionality I

Billions of people use the internet every day. You're one of them. But how much do you actually know about it? Few people are aware of what it takes to make such large amounts of information easily available online. But as a product manager, you'll be expected to know what's going on behind the scenes. You'll need to understand how technology—and specifically the internet—works. This foundational knowledge will help you understand the basics of the work your development team is doing and improve your ability to communicate with them. Prospective employers are also likely to ask you interview questions testing your technical knowledge.

📄️ 14.2 Core Functionality II

Believe it or not, the fundamental structure of the internet has been in place since the 1980s. In the previous checkpoint, you learned about the core protocols of that structure and how they work. In this checkpoint, you'll explore the more advanced features of the internet—additional elements that make the internet more secure, more personalized, and more stable for the billions of users and devices that access it daily. You'll also learn a bit about the features that make the internet a more nice-looking, aesthetically pleasing tool.

📄️ 14.9 Version Control

Developers don't work on a single, monolithic application. The team delegates out tasks so that different developers will be working on different parts of the application simultaneously. Work done by different team members at different times will come together to enable a single new feature or update. The lead engineer or engineering architect will manage how these different portions of work are broken up and delegated out. Specialized source code management (SCM) software is used to orchestrate who is doing what with which versions or branches of code and to determine when a portion is effectively locked and released as a build.