The Controlvar books
Engineering and programming books that use Controlvar's own code for their examples. Every concept is taught twice: once in general terms, and once in Controlvar's own source, which you can clone, run and break on your own machine.
Who they are for
- Newcomers to a language or framework (Python, FastAPI, TypeScript, React, Next.js) who want to learn it the way it is used in production.
- Engineers who already code and want the next layer: data modelling and migrations, access control, testing strategy, release engineering, and the statistics behind experimentation.
- Contributors to Controlvar who want to understand why the code is shaped the way it is before changing it.
Licence
The books are licensed CC BY 4.0. You may share and adapt them for any purpose, including commercially, as long as you give credit (“The Controlvar Books, The Controlvar authors”), link to the licence and say what you changed. Code quoted from Controlvar keeps its own licences, Apache-2.0 and MIT.
Core path
In order.
Learn Python in 24 Hours
Python from absolute zero to the modern, typed Python the backend is written in.
Learn FastAPI in 24 Hours
The backend framework layer: FastAPI, Pydantic v2, SQLAlchemy 2, Alembic and the background schedulers.
Learn TypeScript, React & Next.js in 24 Hours
TypeScript, React and Next.js through the real dashboard.
Build an Experimentation Platform in 28 Days
The whole architecture end to end; after this capstone you can read and extend the codebase.
Specializations
After the core path, in any order.
Experimentation Statistics
The mathematics the product is built on, and how the code implements it.
SDK Engineering
One HTTP contract, many SDKs, and proving that every implementation agrees.
Platform Operations
Running it: Compose, the CDK stacks, logging, metrics, deploys, migrations and releases.
Production Engineering
Decisions, reliability and safe change.
Before your first change
At any point.
Working with AI coding tools
Alongside any of the others.