Developer Glossary

A

A/B Testing

A/B testing is the practice of comparing two versions of online content—websites, apps, marketing emails, etc.—in order to see which version performs better. The two versions (A and B) are presented to users at random in order to gauge reactions.

Example

The A/B testing really helped us decide which version of our software was more preferred.

Example

My team uses Agile Software Development to quickly iterate on our product, providing quick and meaningful value to our customer.

Example

Instagram is an app(lication) that allows users to share visual stories of their lives and interests.

Example

We need to show a map on our site, let’s use the Google Maps API.

B

Back End

The back end of software or an application deals with the servers, databases and applications that power user interactions on the front end. Developers who work in the back end use server-side languages like PHP and Java and databases like MySQL to build applications.

Example

Back-end development can be much more varied than front-end development, which is largely driven by JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and various front-end frameworks using these languages.

Example

In the 1890s, boilerplate was actually cast or stamped in metal ready for the printing press and distributed to newspapers around the United States. Until the 1950s, thousands of newspapers received and used this kind of boilerplate from the nation’s largest supplier, the Western Newspaper Union. Some companies also sent out press releases as boilerplate so that they had to be printed as written.

Example

He used the Bézier curve to control the direction of the vector’s animation.

C

Camel Case

Camel Case is the practice of writing phrases without spaces or punctuation, indicating the separation of words with a single capitalized letter, and the first word starting with either case

Example

iPhone, eBay, const isUserLogged = true;

Example

CSS can be used to define the cell padding of table cells, the style, thickness, and color of a table’s border, and the padding around images or other objects.

Example

Companies like DigitalOcean, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and more provide cloud computing services.

Example

I used cloud storage to save my work.

Example

System administrators use the command-line interface to SSH into virtual machines running in datacenters.

Example

Comments are useful to help developers understand design patterns and decisions.

Examples

A developer wrote a program in C++. In order to generate and run a binary, they need to compile the C++ source code to machine language.

D

Data Transfer Object

A data transfer object is a type of design pattern that enables a client to pass data with multiple attributes to the server. An advantage of this is that this reduces the number of calls that the client makes to the server, and thus decreases the computer resources being used and boosts performance.

Example

Below is a simple class that holds a user’s information, and can act as a data transfer object.

public class User {
	public final String name;
	public final String email;
	public final Integer phoneNumber;
	public final String country;

	public User(String name, String email, Integer phoneNumber, String country) {
		this.name = name;
		this.email = email;
		this.phoneNumber = phoneNumber;
		this.country = country;
	}
}

Example

The New York Stock Exchange data is loaded into a Dataframe for further Analysis.

Example

Debugging can be a time consuming process as it involves a couple of steps - locating the line number, identifying the type, take the help of google and finally, fixing the error.

Example

My IT team and software development team will bridge the gap between roles by working together as one unit to share accountability for each stage of the development lifecycle. They will work together through collaboration and automation to build, test, and deploy applications at a higher velocity.

F

FAANG

The acronym FAANG refers to the names of the five most popular tech companies in the US:

Facebook
Amazon
Apple
Netflix
Google

Originally coined as a stock market term to represent the largest tech companies by market capitalization–FAANG is the latest alias colloquially used among the software/IT community to describe a collective of pretigious household-name tech companies, known for their highly competitive hiring process and their generous total monetary compensation package.

Example

Microsoft is a FAANG company based in Redmond, WA.

Example

A web designer can create such an icon and upload it to a website (or web page) by several means, and graphical web browsers will then make use of it.

Further Reading

Here’s a Wikipedia article that talks about its history and provides a good overview.

Flutter

Flutter is a UI software development kit that is used for developing iOS, Android, Linux, Mac, Windows, Google Fuchsia, and web applications. It is based on Dart programming language.

It provides fast development (with its Stateful Hot Reload feature) and beautiful Material Design and Cupertino widgets which incorporate critical platform differences between Android and iOS.

Example

I learned mobile application development using Flutter before beginning an internship.

Example

We used the Django framework to build our website and it was quite satisfying.

Example

For an application, the front end is the part that is exposed to the user.

G

Graphical User Interface

A graphical-user-interface allows users to interact with devices and software through graphical icons such as menus, buttons, and text forms. They were created to be a user-friendly alternative to the command-line.

Example

Using a GUI file explorer to find, edit, or delete a file can be more intuitive than navigating a terminal.

H

HyperText Markup Language (HTML)

HyperText Markup Language, or HTML, is the markup language used to build the web. It defines the structure and basic layout of web pages, and is often used in tandem with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and JavaScript (JS).

Example

I created my first website in bootcamp using HTML, CSS, and JS.

Example

Please use HTTPS instead of HTTP to improve security.

I

Integrated Development Environment

An Integrated Development Environment (IDE) allows developers to execute a number of tasks related to creating a computer program within one environment. A text editor, terminal, debugging tools, and code snippets are tools that may be included in an IDE.

Example

I am using Visual Studio Code as my IDE of choice because of its ease-of-use, code snippets, and customization options.

Example

Various smart devices ranging from interconnected home appliances to self-driving cars to smart lights– there is a new great wave of IOT products coming in this field.

J

JavaScript

JavaScript (JS) is a programming language that enables you to create dynamic web content, such as displaying live updates, interactive maps, or animated graphics.

The first ever JavaScript was created by Brendan Eich at Netscape.

Example

Java and JavaScript are both programming languages but they are not the same or related in any way at all. Java is a programming language that needs to be compiled and is object-oriented, while JavaScript is an interpreted language and is prototype-based.

Example

The following example shows a possible JSON representation describing a person.

{
  "firstName": "John",
  "lastName": "Smith",
  "isAlive": true,
  "age": 27,
  "address": {
    "streetAddress": "21 2nd Street",
    "city": "New York",
    "state": "NY",
    "postalCode": "10021-3100"
  },
  "phoneNumbers": [
    {
      "type": "home",
      "number": "212 555-1234"
    },
    {
      "type": "office",
      "number": "646 555-4567"
   }
    ],
   "children": [],
   "spouse": null
}

K

Kluge

A kluge is a term in the developer world for the kind of fix or solution to a problem that is rushed, “hacky” and not well thought out.

It’s used to describe the kind of solution that works, but you’re not proud of it.

Example

The product manager kept pinging me asking when the fix was deployed, so I shipped a kluge that just hardcoded some of the configuration, I’ll fix it properly next week.

L

Linter

A linter is a tool for static code analysis that flags programming errors, bugs, and mistakes in a given style or programming language. The name originates from the extraneous fluff or lint shed from clothing.

Linting a program before manually running its code can help to minimize the debugging process, often catching bugs ahead of time.

Example

When I ran my code through a linter, I discovered I’d forgotten a closing bracket that would have broken my application.

M

Markdown

Markdown is a lightweight markup languange to help format plain text. The formatted text is then often converted to HTML.

Example

The project maintainer should update the README markdown file of the project to reflect the new changes made.

Example

That was a good MVP, allowed out team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.

P

PascalCase

PascalCase, also known as UpperCamelCase, is a type of naming convention in which the first letter of every word is capitalized.

Example

NintendoSwitch

WaterBottle

TypeOfAnimal

Example

We use a proxy server to prevent our employees from spacing out on Facebook all day.

R

React

React.js (or simply React) is an open-source Javascript library for building user interfaces (UI). React enables the creation of module-like pieces of code called Components, which reflect a particular part of the UI and can be reused across several web pages.

In contrast to the traditional ways of manipulating the DOM through query selectors, React utilizes the virtual DOM - a localized copy of the DOM - to keep the UI and the state (of the changing data) in sync. It uses reconciliation to compare the current copy to the previous one and only update part of the DOM where there are changes.

React was originally created by Jordan Walke, a software engineer at Facebook.

Example

Although React is defined as a JavaScript library, it has several characteristics of a framework.

Example

“My code is written using ruby.”

“Ruby is my main programming language”

S

SASS/SCSS

SASS or Syntactically Awesome Stylesheets is a preprocessor stylesheet language that’s compiled into CSS. It gives you more power while writing CSS, and includes variables, functions, nesting, mixins, and more. SCSS (Sassy CSS) is another style of SASS.

Example

The following example is implementation of SCSS

/* SCSS */
.card {
  padding: 2rem 1rem;
  box-shadow: 0 5px 10px #0002;`

  &__title {`
      font-size: 1.3rem;
  }
}

/* Compiled CSS */
.card {
  padding: 2rem 1rem;
  box-shadow: 0 5px 10px #0002;`
}

.card__title {
  font-size: 1.3rem;
}

Example

All markup languages, HTML, XML, etc creates semi-structured data.

Example

The java.lang.Runtime.getRuntime static method, part of the Java library, returns a singleton.

Example

“BTW…what do you call that naming style? snake_case? That’s what I’ll call it until someone corrects me.”

Example

We use SQL to retrive, insert, update, delete data in relational database.

T

Test-Driven Development

Refers to process of software development, where the developer will design and implement test cases first, and later develop the application logic needed to pass the tests.

Example

The goal of Test-Driven Development (TDD) is to ensure that the developer always produces testable code.

Example

Typescript is a language that extended from JavaScript to make JavaScript code more typed.

U

Unicorn

A Unicorn software developer is someone who knows web development and also has design skills.

Employers love a good unicorn developer so it’s always a good idea for a web designer to learn coding skills (and vice-versa)!

Example

I’m a unicorn developer — Android developer cum UX consultant + graphic designer & graphic artist. You might wonder how I can be all that, you may not believe that I can do all the above. But yes, I exist.

W

Web Server

The term web server can refer to hardware or software, or both of them working together, that can satisfy client requests on the web. It processes incoming network requests over HTTP and several other related protocols.

Example

Web servers make it possible for websites to be made available on the internet.

Example

“Take some more [[tea]],” the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

“I’ve had “‘nothing”’ yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone, “so I can’t take more.”

“You mean you can’t take “less”,” said the Hatter. “It’s very easy to take “more” than nothing.”