Glossary

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Glossary

Commonly used words, phrases, abbreviations, and acronyms across software development, UI/UX, security, and general computing.

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ACM

Association for Computing Machinery

agile development

Software development methodology

Artificial Intelligence

Adobe Illustrator

algorithm

Set of steps to solve a problem

ANSI

American National Standards Institute

API

Application Programming Interface

APK

Android application package

app

Software application

Augmented reality

ASCII

American Standard Code for Information Interchange

Assembly

Assembly language

B2B

Business to Business

back end

actions that happen on the server side

bash

a type of UNIX shell

BDD

Behavior-driven Development

BIOS

Basic Input/Output System

Boolean

Data type that holds either true or false

branch

A copy of a repository to work on in parallel

bug

problem in the code

Certificate Authority

call stack

data structure where a subroutine/function goes when it runs

callback

executable code passed as an argument

camel case

camelCase - each word begins with a capital letter

certificate

public key certificate

character

letter, space, or puntuation mark

character encoding

mapping of each character to a number

Continuous integration

class

building block of object-oriented programming

CLI

Command-line Interface

client

computer that requests information over a network

code block

grouping of code

code review

checking the code of teammates

command line

text-based user interface

comment

non-executable annotations in code

commit

saving the latest changes to the repository

compiled language

language that must be compiled to run

compiler

program that rewrites source code into machine code

compression

data compression

conditional

checking if something is true or false

console

computer console

constant

value that does not change

context menu

menu with additional options activated by right-click or alt click

small text file used to personalize the experience to a website

CORS

Cross-origin resource sharing

CPU

Central processing unit

CSRF

Cross-site request forgery

CSS

Cascading Style Sheets

data analysis

inspecting, cleaning, and analyzing data

data science

study of gaining knowledge from data

data structure

organization or container of data

data type

type of data that tells the program how it may be used

database

A system for storing information

debug

find and correct errors in a program

delimiter

character used for separation of values

deprecation

marking a feature that will be removed or discouraged.

diff

tool to compare differences between files

digital literacy

Ability to use or create data/information on a computer or mobile device.

DNS

Domain Name System

docblock

specially formatted comments

DOM

Document Object Module

domain name

registered name of a network of computers

encapsulation

principle restricting access to an object’s components

EOF

end-of-file

ethernet

cable to connect computers together

exception

a special case that block the program from continuing

expression

an evaluation as opposed to an instruction

float

Floating point number

FTP

File transfer protocol

GDPR

General Data Protection Regulation

git

Distributed version control system

GNU

GNU’s Not Unix (recursive acronym)

hamburger menu

HDD

Hard disk drive

HTML

Hypertext Markup Language

HTTP

Hypertext Transfer Protocol

IDE

Integrated development environment

IEEE

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

iOS

Operating system on iPhones

Internet Protocol

ISO

International Organization for Standardization

ISP

Internet service provider

JPEG/JPG

File format for pictures. Also known as JPG

JSON

JavaScript Object Notation

MDN

MDN Web Docs

npm

Originally “Node package manager”

numpy

Python data analysis library

OOP

Object-oriented programming

Operating system

OSI model

Open Systems Integration Model

OWASP

Community devoted to web security

PHP

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor

PNG

Portable Network Graphics

RAM

Random-access memory

REST

Representational state transfer

root

superuser or admin account

Sass

Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets

SDK

Software Development Kit

SFTP

SSH File Transfer Protocol or Secure File Transfer Protocol

slug

A user-friendly version of a webadress

SQL

Structured Query Language

SSD

Solid-state drive

SSH

Secure Shell

sudo

“superuser do”

TCP

Transmission Control Protocol

TDD

Test-driven development

TLS

Transport Layer Security

User interface

URI

Uniform Resource Identifier

URL

Uniform Resource Locator

URN

Uniform Resource Name

abbreviation for user experience

VCS

Version Control System

virtual environment

Sandboxed place to run your apps

Virtual Reality

W3C

World Wide Web Consortium

WCAG

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

web browser

Also called browser for short

XML

Markup language

XSS

Cross-site scripting

YAML

Recursive acronym meaning YAML Ain’t Markup Language

zsh

Short for Z-shell

ACM