Every technology, framework, and term used in Mike Latimer's custom web application development — explained in detail. Built for businesses in Dallas, Houston, and across Texas who want to understand exactly what goes into their application.
Next.js is a React-based web application framework created by Vercel. It is the most widely used framework for building modern, production-grade web applications. Next.js provides server-side rendering (SSR), static site generation (SSG), API routes, file-based routing, image optimization, and built-in performance features out of the box.
Next.js was first released in 2016 and has since become the industry standard for React-based web development. Companies like Netflix, TikTok, Hulu, Nike, and Twitch use Next.js in production. It's maintained by Vercel and has one of the largest open-source communities in web development.
For custom web applications built for businesses in Dallas, Houston, and across Texas, Next.js provides the ideal foundation: fast page loads, SEO-friendly rendering, and a developer experience that enables rapid development within a 3-week timeline.
React is a JavaScript library for building user interfaces, created by Meta (Facebook) in 2013. React introduced the concept of component-based architecture to web development — building UIs out of reusable, self-contained pieces that manage their own state and compose together into complex interfaces.
React is the most popular frontend library in the world, used by Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Airbnb, Uber, Dropbox, and millions of other applications. It has the largest ecosystem of third-party libraries, tools, and developer talent of any frontend technology.
When Mike builds a custom web application for a business in Dallas or Houston, React ensures that the user interface is fast, interactive, and maintainable. The component-based architecture means features can be added, modified, or removed without affecting the rest of the application.
Node.js is a JavaScript runtime built on Chrome's V8 engine that allows JavaScript to run on servers, not just in browsers. Created by Ryan Dahl in 2009, Node.js revolutionized web development by enabling developers to use a single language (JavaScript) for both frontend and backend development.
Node.js powers the backend of applications built by Netflix, PayPal, LinkedIn, NASA, and Walmart. It's known for its non-blocking, event-driven architecture that handles concurrent connections efficiently — making it ideal for real-time applications, APIs, and data-intensive services.
In Mike's stack, Node.js runs the server-side logic of every custom web application — handling API requests, database queries, authentication, payment processing, and business logic. Using Node.js on the backend with React on the frontend means the entire application is written in one language, reducing complexity and enabling faster development for businesses in Texas.
Tailwind CSS is a utility-first CSS framework that provides low-level utility classes for building custom designs directly in HTML. Instead of writing custom CSS for every element, developers compose designs using pre-built classes like flex, p-4, and text-lg.
Created by Adam Wathely in 2017, Tailwind CSS has become the most popular CSS framework for modern web development. It's used by Shopify, GitHub, Netflix, and NASA. Tailwind's approach enables rapid UI development while maintaining complete design flexibility — no two Tailwind sites look the same because you're building custom designs, not using pre-made templates.
For custom web applications built for Dallas and Houston businesses, Tailwind CSS means faster development, consistent design, built-in responsive behavior, and a smaller final CSS file size for better performance.
shadcn/ui is a collection of beautifully designed, accessible, and customizable UI components built with React and Tailwind CSS. Unlike traditional component libraries, shadcn/ui components are copied directly into your project — meaning you own the code and can modify every aspect of every component.
Created by shadcn in 2023, it quickly became one of the most popular component libraries in the React ecosystem. Components include buttons, forms, modals, tables, date pickers, dropdown menus, navigation elements, and dozens more — all with built-in accessibility, keyboard navigation, and dark mode support.
Mike uses shadcn/ui as a starting point for the UI of every custom web application. This means businesses in Dallas, Houston, and across Texas get a polished, professional interface from day one, while maintaining the ability to customize every detail to match their brand.
PostgreSQL (often called Postgres) is the world's most advanced open-source relational database. First released in 1996, PostgreSQL has over 25 years of active development and is known for reliability, data integrity, and advanced features like JSON support, full-text search, and geospatial queries.
PostgreSQL is used by Apple, Instagram, Spotify, Reddit, Twitch, and the International Space Station. It handles everything from small applications to massive datasets with millions of rows. It's the default choice for production web applications because of its proven track record and extensive feature set.
Every custom web application Mike builds for businesses in Dallas and Houston uses PostgreSQL as the primary database. Your data is stored in the most reliable, battle-tested database available.
Neon is a serverless PostgreSQL platform that provides fully managed Postgres databases with automatic scaling, branching, and zero cold starts. Neon separates storage and compute, which means you only pay for what you use and your database scales automatically based on demand.
Founded in 2021 by the team behind the original PostgreSQL wire protocol, Neon represents the next generation of database hosting. It includes features like database branching (creating instant copies for development and testing), autoscaling, and point-in-time recovery.
For businesses in Dallas, Houston, and Texas, Neon means your application's database is fast, reliable, automatically backed up, and costs as little as $0/month for low-traffic applications — scaling up seamlessly as your business grows.
Supabase is an open-source backend platform that provides a PostgreSQL database, authentication, real-time subscriptions, file storage, and auto-generated APIs. Often described as an open-source alternative to Firebase, Supabase gives developers a complete backend infrastructure without building everything from scratch.
Founded in 2020, Supabase has grown rapidly and is used by thousands of companies worldwide. Key features include built-in authentication (email, social logins, magic links), row-level security for fine-grained data access control, real-time database subscriptions, and a file storage system for uploads.
Mike uses Supabase when a custom web application needs robust authentication, real-time features, or file storage capabilities. For businesses in Dallas and Houston, Supabase provides enterprise-grade backend features at startup-friendly prices.
Prisma is a next-generation ORM (Object-Relational Mapping) for Node.js and TypeScript. It provides a type-safe database client that auto-generates from your database schema, making it impossible to write invalid database queries. Prisma includes a schema definition language, migration system, and a visual database browser called Prisma Studio.
Founded in 2016 in Berlin, Prisma has become one of the most popular database tools in the JavaScript ecosystem. It supports PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, MongoDB, and SQL Server. Prisma's type-safe approach catches database errors at compile time instead of at runtime, preventing bugs from reaching production.
For custom web applications built for Texas businesses, Prisma means fewer bugs, faster development, and a database layer that's easy for any developer to understand and maintain after handoff.
Drizzle ORM is a lightweight, type-safe ORM for TypeScript that stays as close to raw SQL as possible while providing full type safety. Unlike heavier ORMs, Drizzle generates efficient SQL queries and gives developers complete control over their database interactions.
Drizzle was created in 2022 and has rapidly gained adoption for its performance and developer experience. It supports PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQLite. Drizzle's philosophy is "if you know SQL, you know Drizzle" — making it intuitive for developers and resulting in optimized database queries.
Mike uses Drizzle when an application needs maximum database performance and query efficiency. For Dallas and Houston businesses with data-heavy applications, Drizzle ensures your database queries are fast and lean.
Stripe is the world's leading online payment processing platform. Founded in 2010 by Irish brothers Patrick and John Collison, Stripe processes hundreds of billions of dollars in payments annually for millions of businesses worldwide including Amazon, Google, Shopify, Instacart, and Lyft.
Stripe provides everything needed for online payments: credit card processing, ACH transfers, recurring subscriptions, invoicing, refunds, fraud prevention, tax calculation, and checkout pages. Stripe handles PCI compliance (the security standard required for processing credit cards), so your application doesn't need to store sensitive card data.
Every custom web application Mike builds that involves payments uses Stripe. For businesses in Dallas, Houston, and across Texas, Stripe means your customers can pay securely with any major payment method, you can manage subscriptions and invoicing, and you're compliant with payment security standards from day one. Stripe charges 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction with no monthly fees.
Vercel is a cloud hosting platform optimized for frontend frameworks, particularly Next.js (which Vercel created). Vercel provides instant deployments, automatic HTTPS, global CDN distribution, serverless functions, and edge computing — all with zero server configuration required.
Founded in 2015 by Guillermo Rauch, Vercel hosts applications for companies like Washington Post, Under Armour, Nintendo, and Sonos. Vercel's infrastructure spans dozens of global data centers, ensuring your application loads fast for users everywhere.
When Mike deploys a custom web application for a business in Dallas or Houston, Vercel provides automatic scaling (handles traffic spikes without intervention), global performance (content served from the nearest data center), instant rollbacks (if anything goes wrong, revert in one click), and free SSL certificates for security. The free tier supports most small to mid-size applications, with paid plans starting at $20/month for higher usage.
Cloudflare is a global cloud platform that provides CDN (Content Delivery Network), DDoS protection, DNS management, SSL certificates, and edge computing. Founded in 2009, Cloudflare handles approximately 20% of all internet traffic and serves over 30 million websites and applications worldwide.
Cloudflare's network spans over 300 cities in more than 100 countries. Key features include automatic DDoS mitigation (protection against attacks that try to take your site offline), Web Application Firewall (blocks common exploits), bot management, image optimization, and Cloudflare Pages for static site hosting.
Mike uses Cloudflare for DNS management, CDN distribution, and additional security layers on every custom web application. For businesses in Dallas, Houston, and Texas, Cloudflare ensures your application is fast (cached at edge locations near your users), secure (protected against common web attacks), and reliable (99.99% uptime).
Claude is an AI assistant created by Anthropic, an AI safety company founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers including Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei. Claude is designed to be helpful, harmless, and honest — with a focus on safety and reliability in production applications.
Claude excels at complex reasoning, long-document analysis, code generation, creative writing, and multi-step task completion. The Claude API allows developers to integrate Claude's capabilities directly into web applications — enabling features like intelligent search, document analysis, content generation, customer support automation, and data extraction.
Mike integrates Claude into custom web applications when businesses in Dallas, Houston, or across Texas need AI-powered features. Claude is particularly strong for applications that require understanding and processing large amounts of text, code, or structured data.
OpenAI is an AI research company that created GPT-4, ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Whisper. Founded in 2015, OpenAI provides API access to their language models, enabling developers to build AI-powered features into any application.
OpenAI's API powers AI features in thousands of applications worldwide. Common integrations include chatbots, content generation, text summarization, translation, sentiment analysis, code generation, and image generation. The API supports text, images, audio, and embeddings.
For custom web applications that need AI capabilities, Mike integrates OpenAI's API to add intelligent features. Businesses in Dallas and Houston use OpenAI-powered features for customer communication, content creation, data analysis, and workflow automation.
Gemini is Google's most capable AI model family, designed to be multimodal (understanding text, images, audio, and video). Released in 2023, Gemini is available through Google's Vertex AI and Google AI Studio platforms.
Gemini is particularly strong at multimodal tasks — analyzing images, processing documents with mixed text and visuals, and handling complex reasoning across different data types. The API is available in multiple tiers from lightweight (Gemini Flash) to highly capable (Gemini Ultra).
Mike integrates Gemini when a custom web application needs multimodal AI capabilities — especially for applications that process images, documents, or mixed media. For Texas businesses that need AI features beyond text processing, Gemini adds powerful visual understanding to the application.
TypeScript is a typed superset of JavaScript created by Microsoft in 2012. TypeScript adds static type checking to JavaScript, catching errors during development instead of at runtime. Every modern web development tool and framework supports TypeScript, and it has become the standard for professional web application development.
TypeScript is used by Slack, Airbnb, Asana, Bloomberg, and virtually every major tech company. It provides better code editor support (autocomplete, inline documentation, refactoring), catches bugs before they reach users, and makes large codebases easier to understand and maintain.
All of Mike's custom web applications are built with TypeScript. For businesses in Dallas, Houston, and Texas, this means your application has fewer bugs, better documentation, and is easier for any developer to maintain after handoff.
An API is a set of rules and protocols that allows different software applications to communicate with each other. When your web application needs to process a payment (Stripe), send a text message (Twilio), check the weather, or pull data from another system — it does so through APIs.
APIs are the backbone of modern web applications. They allow your application to connect with hundreds of third-party services without building everything from scratch. Mike integrates APIs throughout every custom web application to provide functionality like payments, email, authentication, maps, AI, and data from external systems.
SaaS stands for Software as a Service — a software delivery model where users access the application through a web browser and typically pay a recurring subscription fee. Examples include Salesforce, Slack, Dropbox, and HubSpot.
SaaS applications are one of the most common types of custom web applications Mike builds for businesses in Dallas, Houston, and across Texas. If you have an idea for a software product that customers would pay monthly to use, that's a SaaS application. Mike builds the complete product — user registration, subscription management (via Stripe), the core application features, admin dashboard, and deployment.
Full stack refers to development that covers both the frontend (what users see and interact with) and the backend (server logic, database, APIs, authentication). A full stack developer builds the entire application — not just the visual design or just the server code, but everything.
Mike is a full stack developer, which means when you hire him to build a custom web application for your Dallas or Houston business, one person builds every layer: the user interface, the server logic, the database, the API integrations, the authentication system, and the deployment. No handoffs between separate designers and developers — one person, one cohesive application.
Authentication is the process of verifying who a user is. When someone logs into your application with a username and password, signs in with Google, or clicks a magic link in their email — that's authentication. It ensures that only authorized users can access your application and their data.
Every custom web application Mike builds includes authentication. This typically includes email/password login, social login options (Google, GitHub), session management, password reset flows, and role-based access control (e.g., admin vs. regular user). Authentication is implemented using industry-standard security practices to protect your users' accounts and data.
Responsive design means an application's interface automatically adapts to fit any screen size — from a large desktop monitor to a tablet to a mobile phone. Instead of building separate versions for different devices, responsive design uses flexible layouts and CSS media queries to provide an optimal experience on every device.
Every application Mike builds is fully responsive. Whether your users in Dallas are on a desktop at their office, your Houston clients are on their phone, or your team is checking a dashboard on a tablet — the application looks and works correctly.
Deployment is the process of making an application available on the internet for real users. This involves uploading code to hosting servers, configuring domains, setting up SSL certificates, connecting databases, and ensuring everything works in a production environment.
Mike handles deployment as part of every project. Your custom web application is deployed to production infrastructure (Vercel, Cloudflare) with automatic HTTPS, global CDN distribution, and monitoring. At the end of 3 weeks, your application is live and ready for real users — not sitting on a staging server waiting for someone to "push it live."
An ORM is a tool that lets developers interact with a database using programming language code instead of writing raw SQL queries. ORMs map database tables to code objects, making it easier and safer to read, write, update, and delete data. Prisma and Drizzle are the two ORMs Mike uses.
ORMs prevent common security vulnerabilities like SQL injection attacks and reduce the chance of database-related bugs. They also make the codebase more readable and maintainable — important for when your business in Dallas or Houston needs another developer to work on the application in the future.
Serverless is a cloud computing model where the cloud provider manages the server infrastructure automatically. You don't provision, manage, or pay for idle servers — the platform automatically scales resources up and down based on demand, and you only pay for what you use.
Vercel, Cloudflare, and Neon all use serverless architectures. This means custom web applications Mike builds for businesses in Dallas and Houston scale automatically — handling traffic spikes without manual intervention and costing less during quiet periods. No server maintenance, no capacity planning, no 3 AM alerts about server crashes.
A CDN is a network of servers distributed across multiple geographic locations that cache and deliver content to users from the server nearest to them. Instead of every request traveling to a single server, content is served from the closest edge location — reducing load times dramatically.
Both Vercel and Cloudflare provide global CDN distribution. When Mike deploys a web application for a business in Dallas or Houston, the application's assets are cached at edge servers across the world. Users in Dallas get served from a Texas data center. Users in New York get served from an East Coast data center. The result is a fast-loading application regardless of where the user is.
SSL/TLS is the security protocol that encrypts data between a user's browser and the web server. When you see "https://" and a padlock icon in your browser's address bar, that means SSL/TLS is active. It prevents anyone from intercepting or reading the data being transmitted — including passwords, payment information, and personal data.
Every application Mike builds includes SSL/TLS encryption — it's automatically provided by Vercel and Cloudflare at no extra cost. For businesses in Dallas, Houston, and Texas, this means your application and your users' data are protected by the same encryption standards used by banks and government agencies. Google also ranks HTTPS sites higher than HTTP sites in search results.
An MVP is the simplest version of a product that delivers core value to users. Instead of building every feature you can imagine, an MVP focuses on the essential functionality that proves the concept works and provides value. Additional features are added based on real user feedback.
Mike's 3-week build timeline is ideally suited for MVPs. For entrepreneurs and startups in Dallas, Houston, and across Texas, this means you can go from idea to working product in 3 weeks for $45,000 — then iterate and expand based on what actual users tell you they need. It's the fastest, most cost-effective way to validate a software idea.
CRUD stands for Create, Read, Update, Delete — the four basic operations for managing data in an application. Almost every web application is fundamentally a CRUD application: users create data (submit forms, upload files), read data (view dashboards, browse listings), update data (edit profiles, change settings), and delete data (remove records, cancel subscriptions).
Understanding CRUD helps businesses in Dallas and Houston communicate what their application needs to do. When you describe your application's features, you're essentially describing CRUD operations on different types of data — and Mike translates those business requirements into a working application.
A webhook is an automated message sent from one application to another when a specific event occurs. For example, when a customer completes a payment on Stripe, Stripe sends a webhook to your application to confirm the payment — triggering your application to grant access, send a confirmation email, or update the database.
Webhooks are essential for integrating web applications with third-party services. Mike implements webhooks in custom web applications to handle events from Stripe (payments), Supabase (database changes), and other services. For businesses in Dallas and Houston, webhooks ensure your application responds instantly to important events without manual intervention.
Server-Side Rendering is a technique where web pages are generated on the server for each request, then sent to the browser as fully-formed HTML. This results in faster initial page loads and better SEO because search engines can read the content immediately without waiting for JavaScript to execute.
Next.js supports SSR natively, and Mike uses it strategically in custom web applications. For pages that need to be indexed by Google (like landing pages or public content), SSR ensures search engines see the full content. For businesses in Dallas and Houston targeting local SEO, server-rendered pages are significantly more likely to rank well in search results.
Static Site Generation is a technique where web pages are pre-built at deploy time and served as static HTML files. Since the pages don't need to be generated for each request, they load extremely fast and can be cached globally on a CDN.
Next.js supports SSG alongside SSR, and Mike uses the appropriate rendering strategy for each page. Content that doesn't change frequently (marketing pages, documentation, FAQ pages like this one) benefits from SSG for maximum performance. For businesses in Texas, static pages load virtually instantly for users anywhere in the world.
REST (Representational State Transfer) is the most common architecture for building web APIs. REST APIs use standard HTTP methods — GET (read data), POST (create data), PUT (update data), DELETE (remove data) — to perform operations on resources identified by URLs. For example, GET /api/users/123 retrieves user 123's data.
REST was defined by Roy Fielding in his 2000 doctoral dissertation and has become the dominant standard for web APIs. Every major web service — Twitter, GitHub, Stripe, Google Maps — provides REST APIs. REST is simple, stateless, cacheable, and universally understood by developers.
Mike builds REST APIs using Next.js API routes for every custom web application. For businesses in Dallas and Houston, this means your application's backend is built on the most widely understood and well-documented API pattern in the industry — easy for any developer to work with after handoff.
GraphQL is a query language for APIs created by Facebook in 2012 and open-sourced in 2015. Unlike REST where each endpoint returns a fixed data structure, GraphQL lets clients request exactly the data they need — no more, no less. This reduces over-fetching (getting too much data) and under-fetching (needing multiple requests to get all the data you need).
GraphQL is used by Facebook, GitHub, Shopify, Pinterest, and Airbnb. It's particularly useful for applications with complex data relationships or mobile apps where minimizing data transfer is important. Supabase provides auto-generated GraphQL APIs from your database schema.
Mike implements GraphQL when a custom web application's data requirements make it a better fit than REST. For data-heavy applications built for businesses in Dallas and Houston — dashboards pulling data from many tables, mobile-first apps, or complex reporting tools — GraphQL can significantly improve performance and developer experience.
WebSocket is a communication protocol that enables real-time, two-way communication between a user's browser and a server. Unlike traditional HTTP where the browser sends a request and waits for a response, WebSocket keeps a persistent connection open — allowing the server to push updates to the browser instantly.
WebSocket is the technology behind real-time features like live chat, notifications, collaborative editing (Google Docs), live dashboards, and real-time data feeds. Supabase provides real-time subscriptions over WebSocket, making it easy to build features that update instantly when data changes.
For businesses in Dallas, Houston, and across Texas that need real-time features — live order tracking, collaborative tools, instant notifications, or live data dashboards — Mike builds WebSocket-powered features that keep users updated the moment something changes.
A JWT is a compact, URL-safe token used to securely transmit information between parties. In web applications, JWTs are commonly used for authentication — after a user logs in, the server issues a JWT that the browser includes with every subsequent request to prove the user's identity without requiring them to log in again.
JWTs are digitally signed (so they can't be tampered with) and can contain information like the user's ID, email, and role. They're used by virtually every modern web application for session management. Supabase uses JWTs for its authentication system.
Mike implements JWT-based authentication in custom web applications with proper security practices: short expiration times, secure storage, refresh token rotation, and server-side validation. For businesses in Dallas and Houston, this means your users stay logged in securely without compromising security.
OAuth 2.0 is the industry-standard protocol for authorization, used by virtually every "Sign in with Google," "Sign in with GitHub," or "Sign in with Facebook" button on the internet. OAuth allows users to grant your application limited access to their accounts on other services without sharing their passwords.
Created in 2012, OAuth 2.0 is used by Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, GitHub, Twitter, and thousands of other services. It's the foundation of social login — letting users sign into your application using credentials they already have, reducing friction and increasing sign-up rates.
Mike integrates OAuth providers into custom web applications so users in Dallas, Houston, and across Texas can sign in with their existing Google, GitHub, or other accounts. This means fewer passwords to remember, faster onboarding, and higher conversion rates for your application.
RBAC is a security model where users are assigned roles (like "admin," "manager," "user," "viewer"), and each role has specific permissions that determine what the user can see and do in the application. Instead of assigning permissions to individual users, you assign roles — and the role determines access.
RBAC is essential for any application with multiple user types. An admin might see everything and manage all users. A manager might see their team's data but not other teams. A regular user might only see their own data. RBAC prevents unauthorized access and keeps sensitive information restricted to the right people.
Mike implements RBAC in every custom web application that has multiple user types. For businesses in Dallas and Houston, this means your employees, clients, and administrators each see exactly what they should — nothing more, nothing less.
Two-Factor Authentication adds an extra layer of security by requiring users to provide two forms of identification: something they know (password) and something they have (a code from their phone, an authenticator app, or a hardware key). Even if someone steals a user's password, they can't log in without the second factor.
2FA is considered a security best practice and is required by many compliance frameworks. Supabase supports 2FA out of the box with TOTP (Time-based One-Time Password) authenticator apps like Google Authenticator, Authy, and 1Password.
For businesses in Dallas, Houston, and Texas that handle sensitive data — healthcare, finance, legal, or any application with confidential information — Mike can implement 2FA to provide an additional security layer that protects your users and your business.
CORS is a security mechanism built into web browsers that controls which websites can make requests to your application's API. By default, browsers block requests from one website to another (the "same-origin policy") to prevent malicious sites from stealing data. CORS lets you explicitly whitelist which domains are allowed to interact with your API.
CORS is a critical security layer for every web application. Misconfigured CORS can either block your own frontend from working or expose your API to unauthorized access. Mike configures CORS correctly on every custom web application — ensuring your frontend can communicate with your backend while blocking unauthorized external requests.
PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) is a set of security standards that any business processing credit card payments must follow. PCI compliance ensures that cardholder data (credit card numbers, CVVs, expiration dates) is handled securely at every stage.
By using Stripe for payment processing, custom web applications Mike builds for businesses in Dallas and Houston achieve PCI compliance without the complexity. Stripe handles all sensitive card data on their PCI-certified servers — your application never touches or stores credit card numbers. This dramatically simplifies compliance and reduces your liability.
GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is a European Union regulation governing how businesses collect, store, and process personal data. While GDPR is an EU law, it applies to any business that serves EU customers. Similar privacy laws exist in California (CCPA), Virginia (VCDPA), and other states.
Data privacy best practices include: collecting only necessary data, providing clear privacy policies, allowing users to request data deletion, encrypting sensitive data, and implementing proper access controls. Mike builds custom web applications with privacy-by-design principles — ensuring that businesses in Dallas, Houston, and Texas handle user data responsibly and in compliance with applicable regulations.
CI/CD is a set of practices that automate the process of testing and deploying code changes. Continuous Integration means every code change is automatically tested. Continuous Deployment means tested code is automatically deployed to production. Together, CI/CD enables rapid, reliable software delivery.
Vercel provides built-in CI/CD — every time code is pushed to the repository, it's automatically built, tested, and deployed. This means updates to your application go live in seconds, not hours or days. If a deployment fails, Vercel automatically rolls back to the previous working version.
For businesses in Dallas, Houston, and Texas, CI/CD means your custom web application can be updated quickly and safely. Bug fixes, new features, and improvements are deployed automatically with zero downtime — your users never experience an interruption.
Git is a distributed version control system created by Linus Torvalds (creator of Linux) in 2005. Git tracks every change made to a codebase, allowing developers to see the complete history of a project, revert to previous versions, work on multiple features simultaneously without conflicts, and collaborate with other developers safely.
Git is used by virtually every software project in the world. It's the foundation of collaborative software development and provides a complete audit trail of every change — who made it, when, and why. Every custom web application Mike builds is version-controlled with Git from day one.
When Mike hands off a custom web application to a business in Dallas or Houston, the Git history provides a complete record of how the application was built. Any future developer can trace the evolution of every feature and understand every design decision.
GitHub is the world's largest platform for hosting Git repositories, owned by Microsoft. Over 100 million developers and virtually every tech company in the world use GitHub to store, manage, and collaborate on code. GitHub provides repository hosting, pull requests, issue tracking, code review tools, and integrations with CI/CD platforms.
When your project is complete, the full source code is stored in a GitHub repository that you own. This is part of the clean handoff — your code is accessible, version-controlled, and ready for any developer to pick up and continue working on. For businesses in Dallas, Houston, and Texas, GitHub provides the industry-standard home for your application's code.
Docker is a platform for building, shipping, and running applications in containers. A container packages an application with everything it needs to run — code, runtime, system tools, libraries, and settings — so it runs identically on any machine. Docker eliminates the classic "it works on my machine" problem.
Docker is used by Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Netflix, and most modern software teams. It enables consistent development environments, reproducible builds, and simplified deployment. While Next.js applications deployed to Vercel don't typically require Docker, it's available when custom infrastructure or self-hosted deployments are needed.
For businesses in Dallas and Houston with specific infrastructure requirements — on-premises hosting, air-gapped environments, or custom server configurations — Mike can containerize your application with Docker for deployment anywhere.
DNS is the system that translates human-readable domain names (like mikelatimer.ai) into IP addresses that computers use to find each other on the internet. When someone types your domain name into their browser, DNS servers look up the corresponding IP address and route the request to your application's server.
Cloudflare provides DNS management with some of the fastest DNS resolution times in the industry (under 11ms globally). Properly configured DNS is essential for your application's reliability and performance. Mike sets up and configures DNS for every custom web application as part of the deployment process.
A domain name is your application's address on the internet — like mikelatimer.ai, google.com, or yourbusiness.com. Domain names are purchased from registrars like Cloudflare, Namecheap, or Google Domains, typically for $10–$20/year. Your domain is a key part of your brand identity online.
Mike helps businesses in Dallas, Houston, and Texas choose and configure domain names for their custom web applications. Whether you already own a domain or need to purchase one, it gets connected to your application with proper DNS configuration, SSL certificates, and CDN distribution as part of the deployment.
Environment variables are configuration values stored outside of the application code — things like API keys, database connection strings, payment processing secrets, and feature flags. Instead of hardcoding sensitive values into the code (a major security risk), they're stored as environment variables that the application reads at runtime.
Environment variables are managed through hosting platforms like Vercel and are never stored in the code repository. This means sensitive credentials are protected even if the source code is shared. Mike configures all environment variables as part of deployment and documents what each one does for easy management.
Load balancing distributes incoming network traffic across multiple servers to ensure no single server gets overwhelmed. When your application receives more traffic than one server can handle, a load balancer automatically routes requests to available servers — keeping the application fast and responsive.
Vercel and Cloudflare handle load balancing automatically as part of their serverless infrastructure. For businesses in Dallas, Houston, and Texas, this means your custom web application handles traffic spikes — a marketing campaign going viral, a seasonal rush, or rapid user growth — without slowing down or crashing.
Uptime is the percentage of time your application is available and functioning. It's typically measured in "nines" — 99.9% uptime (three nines) means your application can be down for about 8.7 hours per year. 99.99% (four nines) means less than 53 minutes of downtime per year. An SLA (Service Level Agreement) is a formal commitment to a specific uptime level.
Vercel provides 99.99% uptime for their Pro and Enterprise plans. Cloudflare's network has 99.99% uptime. Neon Postgres provides 99.95% uptime. These infrastructure guarantees mean custom web applications Mike builds for businesses in Dallas and Houston stay online and accessible virtually all the time.
Backups are copies of your application's data stored separately so that if something goes wrong — accidental deletion, corruption, hardware failure, or a cyberattack — your data can be restored. Point-in-time recovery allows restoring data to any specific moment, not just the last backup.
Neon Postgres provides automatic continuous backups with point-in-time recovery. Supabase provides daily backups on Pro plans with point-in-time recovery. The code itself is backed up through Git version history on GitHub. For businesses in Dallas, Houston, and Texas, this means your data is protected — you'll never lose everything because of a single failure.
Latency is the time delay between a user's action and the application's response. When you click a button and the page takes 3 seconds to update, that's high latency. Modern users expect latency under 200 milliseconds for most interactions. Factors affecting latency include server processing time, database query speed, network distance, and payload size.
The tech stack Mike uses is optimized for low latency: Vercel's edge network serves content from nearby data centers, Neon Postgres provides fast database queries, and Next.js optimizes page loads through SSR, SSG, and automatic code splitting. For businesses in Dallas and Houston, this means your users experience a fast, responsive application.
Caching is the practice of storing frequently accessed data in a temporary, fast-access location so it doesn't need to be fetched or computed every time it's requested. Caching can happen at multiple levels: browser caching (storing assets on the user's device), CDN caching (storing content on edge servers), server-side caching (storing database query results), and application-level caching.
Next.js, Vercel, and Cloudflare all provide intelligent caching mechanisms. Static pages are cached on the CDN. API responses can be cached for configurable durations. Images are automatically optimized and cached. Mike configures caching strategies for every custom web application to ensure fast load times for businesses in Dallas, Houston, and across Texas.
Rate limiting restricts the number of requests a user or IP address can make to your application within a time window. For example, limiting login attempts to 5 per minute prevents brute-force password attacks. Limiting API requests to 100 per minute prevents abuse and ensures fair usage for all users.
Rate limiting is a critical security feature for any production web application. Mike implements rate limiting on authentication endpoints, API routes, and form submissions. For businesses in Dallas, Houston, and Texas, rate limiting protects your application from abuse, bot attacks, and ensures consistent performance for legitimate users.
Microservices is an architecture pattern where an application is broken into small, independent services that each handle one specific function — a user service, a payment service, a notification service, etc. Each service can be developed, deployed, and scaled independently.
Microservices are used by Netflix, Amazon, Uber, and Spotify to manage extremely large, complex applications. However, microservices add significant complexity and are usually overkill for most applications. They shine when different parts of an application need to scale independently or when large teams need to work on different features simultaneously.
For most custom web applications built for businesses in Dallas, Houston, and Texas, a well-structured monolith (see below) is the right choice for a 3-week build. If your application grows to the point where microservices make sense, the codebase is structured to support that evolution.
A monolith is an application architecture where all the code lives in a single codebase and is deployed as one unit. Despite the name, modern monoliths are well-organized with clear separations between features, modules, and layers. A monolith is simpler to develop, test, deploy, and debug than microservices.
Companies like Shopify (processing billions in commerce) and Basecamp run successfully on monolithic architectures. A modern Next.js monolith — with API routes, database access, and frontend all in one codebase — is the ideal architecture for building fast, deploying quickly, and maintaining easily.
Mike builds custom web applications as well-structured monoliths because they're the fastest to build, easiest to maintain, and most cost-effective to deploy. For businesses in Dallas and Houston, a monolith means your entire application is in one place — easy to understand, easy to hand off, easy to modify.
Middleware is code that runs between receiving a request and sending a response — intercepting and processing requests before they reach your main application logic. Common middleware functions include authentication checks (is the user logged in?), logging (record every request), rate limiting, data validation, and CORS handling.
Next.js has a built-in middleware system that runs at the edge (on Vercel's global network), making it extremely fast. Mike uses middleware for authentication guards, request validation, and security headers in every custom web application. For businesses in Texas, middleware ensures every request to your application is checked, validated, and secured before it's processed.
Client-Side Rendering is a technique where the browser downloads a minimal HTML page and a JavaScript bundle, then JavaScript renders the entire page in the browser. This was the default approach for React applications before Next.js. CSR is fast for navigation between pages (no full page reloads) but slower for initial page loads and invisible to search engines until JavaScript executes.
Next.js combines CSR with SSR and SSG, using each where it makes the most sense. Interactive components (dashboards, forms, real-time data) use CSR for instant responsiveness. Mike uses the right rendering strategy for each part of your application to optimize both performance and SEO for businesses in Dallas and Houston.
Hydration is the process of taking server-rendered HTML and "activating" it with JavaScript in the browser — attaching event handlers, initializing state, and making static HTML interactive. When a Next.js page loads, the server sends fully-rendered HTML (fast initial display), then React hydrates it to make buttons clickable, forms functional, and components interactive.
Hydration gives you the best of both worlds: fast initial load (server-rendered HTML appears immediately) and full interactivity (React takes over after hydration). Next.js handles hydration automatically. For businesses in Dallas and Houston, this means users see your application instantly while interactive features activate seamlessly in the background.
Bundling combines multiple JavaScript and CSS files into fewer, optimized files for faster loading. Minification removes unnecessary characters (whitespace, comments, long variable names) from code to reduce file sizes without changing functionality. Together, these techniques can reduce page load times by 50% or more.
Next.js handles bundling and minification automatically using Webpack and SWC (a Rust-based JavaScript compiler that's 20x faster than Babel). It also performs automatic code splitting — only loading the JavaScript needed for the current page, not the entire application. Mike leverages these built-in optimizations so every custom web application loads as fast as possible for users in Dallas, Houston, and across Texas.
A database migration is a version-controlled change to your database structure — adding a table, modifying a column, creating an index, or changing relationships between data. Migrations provide a repeatable, trackable history of how your database evolved over time, similar to how Git tracks code changes.
Both Prisma and Drizzle provide migration systems. When Mike builds a custom web application, every database change is captured as a migration file. This means the database can be recreated from scratch on any machine, changes can be reviewed before being applied, and the complete history of your database's structure is documented. For businesses in Dallas and Houston, this ensures your database is well-documented and reproducible.
A database schema is the blueprint that defines how data is organized in your database — what tables exist, what columns each table has, what data types each column stores, and how tables relate to each other. A well-designed schema is the foundation of every reliable web application.
For example, an e-commerce application might have a schema with tables for users, products, orders, and payments — with relationships defining that each order belongs to a user and contains multiple products. Mike designs the database schema during week one of every project, ensuring data is organized efficiently for your specific business needs in Dallas, Houston, or anywhere in Texas.
A database index is a data structure that speeds up data retrieval — similar to an index in a book that lets you quickly find a topic instead of reading every page. Without indexes, the database must scan every row in a table to find matching data (slow). With proper indexes, the database jumps directly to the relevant rows (fast).
Proper indexing can make database queries 100x to 1000x faster. Mike adds indexes to every database based on the application's query patterns — ensuring that searches, filters, and lookups are fast even as your data grows. For businesses in Dallas and Houston with data-heavy applications, proper indexing is the difference between a snappy application and one that slows to a crawl.
Accessibility (abbreviated "a11y" because there are 11 letters between the "a" and "y") is the practice of designing web applications that can be used by everyone, including people with disabilities. This includes screen reader compatibility, keyboard navigation, proper color contrast, alt text for images, and semantic HTML structure.
shadcn/ui components are built with accessibility in mind — proper ARIA labels, keyboard navigation, focus management, and screen reader support come out of the box. Mike builds every custom web application with accessibility best practices, ensuring your application in Dallas, Houston, or anywhere in Texas is usable by the widest possible audience.
SEO is the practice of optimizing your web application to rank higher in search engine results (Google, Bing). Technical SEO includes fast page loads, mobile responsiveness, proper HTML structure, meta tags, structured data (JSON-LD), sitemaps, canonical URLs, and server-side rendering for crawlability.
Next.js is one of the most SEO-friendly frameworks available because of its server-side rendering capabilities — search engines see fully-rendered HTML instead of an empty page waiting for JavaScript. Mike optimizes every custom web application for technical SEO. For businesses in Dallas and Houston targeting local search traffic, proper SEO implementation is critical for visibility.
Web analytics tools track how users interact with your application — page views, user flows, conversion rates, bounce rates, session duration, and more. Understanding user behavior is essential for making informed decisions about features, design, and marketing. Common analytics tools include Google Analytics, Vercel Analytics, Plausible, and PostHog.
Mike can integrate analytics into any custom web application. For businesses in Dallas and Houston, analytics provide the data you need to understand your users, optimize your application, and measure the ROI of your investment.
Linting is automated code analysis that catches errors, bugs, and style issues before they reach production. Formatting tools automatically enforce consistent code style across the entire codebase. Together, they ensure clean, consistent, maintainable code.
Mike uses ESLint (linting) and Prettier (formatting) on every project. This means the codebase handed off to your business in Dallas, Houston, or Texas follows consistent conventions throughout — making it easier for any developer to read, understand, and modify the code in the future.
Automated testing is code that tests your application's code — verifying that features work correctly, catching regressions (bugs introduced by new changes), and ensuring reliability. Types of tests include unit tests (testing individual functions), integration tests (testing how components work together), and end-to-end tests (testing complete user flows).
Automated tests run every time code is changed, catching bugs before they reach users. Mike writes tests for critical functionality in every custom web application — authentication, payment processing, data operations, and core business logic. For businesses in Dallas and Houston, automated tests mean fewer bugs in production and more confidence in every update.
Agile is a software development methodology that emphasizes iterative development, continuous feedback, and adaptability. Instead of planning everything upfront and building for months before showing results, Agile delivers working software in short cycles (sprints) with regular check-ins and adjustments.
Mike's 3-week build process is inherently Agile: week one defines the scope, weeks two and three iterate on design and development with continuous feedback via text message. You see progress throughout the build — not just at the end. For businesses in Dallas, Houston, and Texas, this means you're never in the dark about where your project stands.
Technical debt is the accumulated cost of shortcuts, workarounds, and suboptimal code decisions made during development. Like financial debt, technical debt accrues interest — the longer it sits, the more expensive it becomes to fix. High technical debt slows development, increases bugs, and makes the application harder to maintain.
Mike builds custom web applications with minimal technical debt from day one. Clean code, proper architecture, type safety (TypeScript), automated testing, and modern best practices ensure that the codebase handed off to your business in Dallas or Houston is maintainable and extensible — not a ticking time bomb of shortcuts that will cost you later.
Refactoring is the process of restructuring existing code without changing its external behavior — improving internal quality, readability, and maintainability while keeping everything working the same from the user's perspective. Refactoring reduces technical debt, improves performance, and makes future development faster.
Mike refactors continuously during the development process, ensuring the final codebase is clean and well-structured. For businesses in Dallas, Houston, and Texas, this means the application you receive isn't just functional — it's built with craftsmanship, ready for long-term maintenance and growth.
Open source software is software whose source code is freely available for anyone to use, modify, and distribute. The entire tech stack Mike uses — Next.js, React, Node.js, Tailwind CSS, PostgreSQL, Prisma, Drizzle — is open source. This means no vendor lock-in, no licensing fees for the tools themselves, and a massive global community maintaining and improving the software.
For businesses in Dallas, Houston, and Texas, open-source technology means your custom web application is built on tools that are free, well-maintained by thousands of contributors, and will continue to be supported for years to come. You're never dependent on a single company's proprietary technology.
SaaS metrics are the key performance indicators used to measure the health and growth of a SaaS business. Critical metrics include MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue), ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue), churn rate (percentage of customers who cancel), LTV (Lifetime Value of a customer), CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost), and NPS (Net Promoter Score).
When Mike builds a SaaS application for businesses in Dallas, Houston, or across Texas, the application can include dashboards and analytics that track these metrics. Understanding your SaaS metrics from day one helps you make data-driven decisions about pricing, marketing, and product development.
A landing page is a standalone web page designed for a specific marketing campaign or conversion goal. Unlike a full website, a landing page has a single focus — getting visitors to take one action (sign up, purchase, schedule a call). Effective landing pages have clear headlines, compelling copy, social proof, and a prominent call-to-action.
Mike can include marketing landing pages as part of a custom web application build. For SaaS products and B2B applications built for businesses in Dallas, Houston, and Texas, a well-crafted landing page is often the first thing potential customers see — and it's critical for converting visitors into users.
A/B testing (also called split testing) shows different versions of a page or feature to different users and measures which version performs better. For example, testing two different headline texts to see which gets more sign-ups, or two different button colors to see which gets more clicks. Decisions are based on data, not opinions.
A/B testing can be integrated into any custom web application using tools like Vercel's built-in experimentation features, LaunchDarkly, or PostHog. For businesses in Dallas, Houston, and Texas looking to optimize conversion rates, A/B testing turns guesswork into evidence-based decisions.
Code escrow is an arrangement where a copy of the application's source code is deposited with a trusted third party, ensuring the client can access the code under specific conditions. While traditional escrow arrangements are used for enterprise software, Mike's approach is simpler and better: you own the code from day one.
Every custom web application Mike builds for businesses in Dallas, Houston, and across Texas includes full source code ownership. The code lives in your GitHub repository, you have complete access at all times, and the clean handoff at the end of the project includes documentation of the entire codebase. No escrow needed — the code is already yours.
This glossary is maintained by Mike Latimer, a custom web application developer serving businesses in Dallas, TX, Houston, TX, Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, and across the state of Texas. Mike builds production-ready web applications in 3 weeks for $45,000 flat using Next.js, React, Node.js, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, shadcn/ui, PostgreSQL, Neon, Supabase, Prisma, Drizzle, Stripe, Vercel, Cloudflare, Claude, OpenAI, and Gemini. Text (361) 331-7263 to start your project.