Formatting

Since there are a few customized formatting styles in this course, I’d like to briefly go over them so that they won’t be a surprise while reading.

Links

I try not to hide links, for example, example.com. In some cases, this form would break the flow of a sentence, so I might opt for a different solution, linking parts of the sentence to the intended URL.

Important words

Italic denotes important words in the context of the current sentence. For example, I might want to introduce man in the middle attacks at some point in the course and use italics to highlight the importance of the text within the sentence.

Verbatim text

Verbatim text will appear when referencing text copied from a particular context, such as a URL, a command, or an HTTP header. For example, I might want to explain that curl -I example.com is a valid curl command that should be copied verbatim should you wish to try it out yourself.

Abbreviations

Sometimes I might want to include abbreviated versions of a specific expression for the sake of readability. HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) is an example of an abbreviation.

I might also use some abbreviations that you may already be familiar with:

• HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol
• MDN: the Mozilla Developer Network, available at developer.mozilla.org/en-US/
• OWASP: the Open Web Application Security Project, an online community that produces security-related documentation and recommendations at owasp.org

🔑 Important advice

These blocks of texts will remark on an important concept or give you a piece of crucial advice. You could get a condensed version of the course just by going through all these boxes.

ℹ️ In my experience

Stories from my personal experience. If you are interested in anecdotal knowledge, you might find these blocks enjoyable.

Quoted text appears in this form and is generally used to include a portion of texts quoted verbatim from external sources.

– Alex, the author of this course

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In the next lesson, we’ll look at errata and additional content.