🧑‍💻 5 Tools Every Beginner Developer Should Understand

If you're starting to build real-world apps, you'll eventually hear terms like ORM, ODM, Webhooks, Clerk, Drizzle, LocalTunnel.

Here's what they actually mean 👇

1. Drizzle ORM 🗄️

Drizzle helps your JavaScript/TypeScript code communicate with a SQL database without writing raw SQL everywhere.

Think:

Your code → Drizzle → PostgreSQL

Instead of manually writing SQL, you can work with your database using TypeScript.

2. ORM / ODM 🔄

ORM = Object-Relational Mapper
Used with SQL databases like PostgreSQL/MySQL.

It maps:

JavaScript/TypeScript objects ↔ Database tables

ODM = Object-Document Mapper
Usually used with NoSQL databases like MongoDB.

So:

SQL → ORM
MongoDB/Document DB → ODM

Drizzle is an ORM.

3. Webhook 🔔

A webhook lets another service notify your application when something happens.

Example:

User signs up on Clerk → Clerk sends webhook → Your server creates the user in your database.

Instead of your app constantly asking:

“Did something happen?”

The service tells your app:

“Hey, something just happened!”

4. Clerk 🔐

Clerk handles authentication and user management for your application.

It can handle things like:

• Sign up
• Login
• Email verification
• Sessions
• User profiles
• Social login

So you don't have to build authentication completely from scratch.

5. LocalTunnel 🌐

Your local app normally lives at:

localhost:3000

Other people/services on the internet can't normally access it.

LocalTunnel gives your local server a temporary public URL.

localhost:3000
       ↓
LocalTunnel
       ↓
https://something.loca.lt

This is especially useful when testing webhooks locally.

🧠 Easy way to remember

Clerk → Who are you? 🔐
Drizzle → How do I talk to my database? 🗄️
ORM/ODM → How does my code map to database data? 🔄
Webhook → Tell me when something happens. 🔔
LocalTunnel → Let the internet reach my local app. 🌐