Software Engineering From Scratch

A hands-on journey toward becoming a well-rounded software engineer by learning programming, computer science, systems, backend engineering, and production practices from first principles.

This repository records both the lessons and the code written while learning. Each track progresses through small exercises that are explained, implemented, verified, and committed before moving forward.

Current Progress

Completed foundations

• C basics — memory, pointers, structs, allocation, and low-level programming
• Go basics — packages, interfaces, concurrency, testing, files, JSON, HTTP, middleware, and context
• PostgreSQL raw SQL — tables, constraints, joins, transactions, indexes, query plans, and parameterized application queries

Other tracks in progress

• Python basics — language fundamentals and common Python patterns
• FastAPI foundations — API basics and CRUD application structure
• FastAPI CRUD — database-backed API practice
• Production Go HTTP server — module structure, routing, /health, timeouts, and environment configuration (lessons 1–4 complete)

Current track

• Production Go HTTP server → PostgreSQL — opening a long-lived connection pool, startup verification, and graceful ownership; then versioned migrations and SQLC

Engineering Roadmap

programming foundations
        |
        v
data structures and algorithms
        |
        v
operating systems + networking
        |
        v
databases + backend engineering
        |
        v
testing + debugging + tooling
        |
        v
distributed systems
        |
        v
production software projects

Machine learning may be explored later as a specialization. The primary goal is broad, transferable software-engineering ability.

Repository Tracks

Track	Purpose	Status
c-basics/	Low-level programming and memory fundamentals	Complete
python-basics/	Python language foundations	In progress
go-basics/	Go and backend-concurrency foundations	Complete
fastapi-basics/	Python HTTP API foundations	In progress
fastapi-crud/	Database-backed API practice	In progress
dsa-go/	Data structures, algorithms, and complexity	In progress
databases/	Persistent data, SQL, indexes, and transactions	Complete
go-http-server/	Production Go HTTP server connected to PostgreSQL	Current
networking/	Protocols, packets, HTTP, and network debugging	Planned
operating-systems/	Processes, memory, files, and concurrency	Planned
system-design/	Scalable and reliable system architecture	Planned
security/	Threats, trust, authentication, and secure software	Planned
deployment/	Delivery, containers, observability, and operations	Planned
production-projects/	Complete production-quality software projects	Planned

Learning Method

Each problem follows the same feedback loop:

read the concept
      |
      v
implement one focused problem
      |
      v
format + analyze + test + run
      |
      v
understand failures
      |
      v
commit and continue

Conceptual guides live in each track's lessons/ directory. The current exercise remains in that track's main source file unless the concept specifically requires multiple files.

Current Exercise

cd go-http-server
go run ./cmd/api

See go-http-server/lessons/05-postgres-connection.md for the next server lesson: connect the Go server to PostgreSQL.