Web Development Glossary

ActionScript— A scripting language used in Adobe Flash and Flex applications.

AIR— Adobe Integrated Runtime. A runtime environment allowing applications typically created for browser based
viewing on the web to run as a desktop application.

Ajax— Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. The collective web development technologies that allow multiple user
interactions with a server without reloading XHTML documents. Originally, the term Ajax was used to describe user
interactions with a web application displayed using standards compliant XHTML and CSS by way of XML data sent
via XMLHttpRequests controlled asynchronously with JavaScript and updated on the current web page by way of the
DOM. However, there are many approaches to Ajax, and some do not use JavaScript or XML.

Alchemy— A research project that allows compiled C and C++ code targeted to run on an ActionScript Virtual
Machine (AVM2). Alchemy is open source.

Apace Web Server— The Apache HTTP Server Project is one of many projects from Apache Software Foundation.
Apache is the most popular web server and it is open source.

API— Application Programming Interface. Specific objects and methodology abstracts for building a certain type of
application.

ASP— Active Server Pages. Uses VBScript and JScript programming languages. Used for dynamic web pages.

ASP.NET— Active Server Pages as a part of the Microsoft .NET products. ASP.NET is used for dynamic web pages.

Bytecode— Instructions in the form of numeric codes, constants and references intended to be run by software.
Bytecode allows for better performance by machines than human-readable source code.

CGI— Common Gateway Interface. Protocols for a web server to talk to a web browser. Defines a way of executing
commands on a server and returning results to a client.

Client-side— Refers to operations performed by the last hardware or software closest to the end-user (client) such as a
web-browser.

CLR— Common Language Runtime. A Microsoft runtime environment that is language-neutral.

CMS— Content Management System. Many web content managements systems are available such as Drupal, Joomla
or Mambo. These three examples are open source solutions.

Cobol— Common Business-Oriented Language. It was originally intended for business related programming. A
committee of six computer manufacturers and three government agencies created the language specifications.

Coldfusion— Adobe's web application server. Similar in functions to Microsoft ASP.NET.

Compiler— Software that translates programming code into a lower level code more suitable for execution by a
computer such as bytecode or machine code. A decompiler reverses this process.

CPU— Central Processing Unit. A CPU is the circuitry in a computer that executes computer programs.

CSS— Cascading Style Sheets. CSS describes the presentation of data such as XHTML pages. It is used to indicate
layout, colors, fonts, etc.
DBMS— Database management system. DBMS is software that manages databases such as SQL.

DHTML— Dynamic Hypertext Markup Language. DHTML is a group of technologies for interactive and animated
web pages. An example of a possible strategy for DHTML could be HTML (or XHTML), JavaScript, CSS and the
DOM.

DLR— Dynamic Language Run. DLR is used to implement dynamic languages such as Python and Ruby on the .NET
framework. One promise of DLR is to let these and other languages easily communicate with each other.

DOM— Document Object Model. DOM is a standard for representing documents in a web browser or other
application. The DOM is used to modify or access the content of what a web browser is currently displaying without
reloading a page. This can be done dynamically, with or without user intervention. The DOM also establishes the
browser’s current state.

EDML— Extension Data Markup Language or Elastic Deployment Markup Language.

Flash— Adobe's authoring package for their ShockWave Flash rich media delivery system. The Adobe Flash Player is
implemented as a plug-in for browsers.

Flex— Flex is collection of Adobe web-related technologies based on the Flash platform.

Folksonomy— Social or collaborative classification, indexing and tagging of content.

FTP— File Transfer Protocol. FTP is a communications protocol for transferring data (files) over the Internet.

GPL— GNU General Public License. GPL is a well-known license specification that is used to remove restrictions to
allow free software usage. It makes use of copyright law to remove restrictions on copying, distributing and modifying
versions of a work, a practice that is sometimes referred to as "copyleft" licensing. Also called GPL2.

GUI— Graphical User Interface. A GUI is an interactive visual method of controlling software function. Most often,
the term is used to describe a screen-based human interface device (HID).

haXe— Haxe is a multi-platform, open source programming language with a standardized language, standard library
and platform-specific libraries. haXe can be compiled to JavaScript, Flash, PHP, NekoVM and C++.

HID— Human Interface Device. HIDs are devices used by people for one-way or bi-directional communication with a
computer.

High-level Language— High-level languages use programming syntax that is more easily understood by humans.

HTML— Hypertext Markup Language. A markup language written in the form of tags. Primarily used for Web pages
however, it use has increasingly been responsible for tag soup. More recently written web pages often adhere to a
slightly stricter form for web documents, namely XHTML.

HTTP— Hypertext Transfer Protocol. A communications protocol for transferring interlinked text documents (web
pages) over the Internet.

IIS— Internet Information Services. Microsoft's web server application software made up of a number of different
applications.

InnerHTML— A property that returns all of the markup and content of a particular element contained in an HTML
document. InnerHTML utilizes an XMLHttpRequest object allowing the sending of HTTP request and receiving of
HTTP response. This use of InnerHTML is often part of an approach to designing Ajax web applications.
Interpreter— A computer program that executes programming language.

IRC— Internet Relay Chat. A communications protocol for real-time text messaging over the Internet.

ISAPI— Internet Server Application Programming Interface. It is a high performance, lower-level programming
system. It was co-developed by Microsoft and a few other vendors. It is not widely used today mostly due to an
associated increase in development time.

J#— J Sharp. J# is similar to Java but with additional syntax to support Microsoft's .NET environment. It is mostly
used to allow programmers with existing knowledge of Java on the .NET platform.

J2EE— See Java EE.

Java— Sun Microsystem's programming language. Similar to C and C++ but has a simpler object model. Compiled
Java, or Java bytecode, runs on any platform that includes a required Java virtual machine environment.

Java EE— Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition. Previously called J2EE. Java EE is a platform for programming in Java
that is frequently used for application servers. It includes fault-tolerant and modular Java libraries.

JavaScript— A scripting language used often for, but not limited to, client-side web functions. It was designed to
resemble Java, hence its name. All current browsers can run JavaScript, although there are some differences in the
specifications for JavaScript among them.

JSF— JavaServer Faces. JSF is a web application framework that uses JSP for Java EE.

JSON— JavaScript Object Notation. A notation format using JavaScript syntax that provides a method of dataset
storage and transfer. JSON is commonly used with JavaScript for Ajax applications.

JSP— JavaServer Pages. A java technology that adds tags similar to XML that allow for dynamically generated
websites. JavaServer Pages are compiled into Java Servlets that are generated as Java or bytecode.

Library— See Standard Library

Low-level Language— Low-level languages use programming syntax that is more easily executed by computers.

Machine code— Low-level instructions or native code that can be directly run by a computer's CPU and do not need to
be interpreted first.

Microsoft .NET Framework— The .NET framework is an extensive library of common programming solutions and a
runtime environment that is language-neutral called Common Language Runtime or CLR.

MIME— Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension. Though originally created for email applications, the MIME standards
are currently used to support many types of data on the web such as file attachments and other non-ascii data. MIME
types are specified so browsers are able to determine how to handle data that it is sent especially in the case of data
types that are not directly supported by the browser and may require a plug-in.

MVC— Model View Controller. A pattern used in software engineering. A key approach in the programming design
process or structuring of code is to separate the software layers used for GUI view, the associated controller or user
interactions and the model logic and data from each other. This facilitates altering one of the three constituents without
affecting the others.

MySQL— A relational database management system. This database software and it associated SQL language for
controlling it, has widespread use on the web.
Neko— Neko is a high-level programming language. It has a compiler and virtual machine. Mod_neko is one of its
libraries that can embed the NekoVM into the Apache web server so the language can be used as an embedded
scripting languague.

NNTP— Network News Transfer Protocol. A communications protocol primarily used for reading and posting news
(often Usenet newsgroup articles) over the Internet.

NSAPI— Netscape Server Application Programming Interface. NSAPI is an API for extending web server software. It
is similar in function to the widely used CGI.

ODBC— Open Database Connectivity. ODBC is a software API for using database management systems (DBMS).

OSS— Open Source Software. Computer software that is in the public domain and can be utilized, modified and
redistributed. Collaboration is a common feature of OSS.

Perl— Practical Extraction and Reporting Language. Perl is a programming language geared towards working with
text. It was developed to replace Unix tools. However, since HTML and the web are often based on text, Perl is an
excellent tool for the web.

PHP— PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (originally stood for Personal Home Page). PHP is a server-side scripting
language and application server software package designed for web development. It is used to create dynamic, data-
driven web pages and often paired with mySQL for the database.

Processing— An open source programming language and environment used primarily to conceptualize and produce
images, animation and interaction.

Programming language— A language that is intended to be used by a computer or machine to perform specific tasks
or express concepts.

Python— Python is a widely used, general purpose programming language. It has a minimal core syntax supporting
several styles of programming (structured, functional, object and aspect oriented). It features an extensive standard
library.

RIA— Rich Internet application. RIAs are web-based applications that contain the type and extent of features typically
found in desktop applications.

RTP— Real-time Transfer Protocol. RTP is a communications protocol for transferring streaming media (video and/or
audio) over the Internet.

Ruby— Ruby is an open source programming language, though simple, very powerful. Its syntax is comparatively
easy read and write.

Ruby on Rails— Rails is an open source web application framework for the Ruby programming language. It uses the
MVC architecture pattern for application programming. Also referred to RoR.

Scripting Language— A programming language that is intended to control software applications.

SEO— Search Engine Optimization. SEO is when improvements are made to the visibility of a website to the public
by way of search engines such as Google.

Server-side— Refers to operations performed by the hardware and/or software of the server such as a web server. As
an example, most databases are created server-side.
Silverlight— Microsoft's rich media delivery system. Silverlight runs as a plug-in for browsers.

SMTP- Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. SMTP is an Internet standard for transferring email over the Internet.

SQL— Structured Query Language. SQL is a language created to manage, manipulated, store and retrieve data from
databases.

SSH— Secure Shell. SSH is a network protocol for securely exchanging data over the Internet.

SSL— Secure Sockets Layer. SSL is a cryptographic protocol that provides security and data integrity for
communication over the Internet. The communication can be in many forms such as web browsing, email, instant
messaging and voice-over-IP (VoIP).

Standard Library— A standard library is a set of definitions for algorithms and data structures to facilitate
programming in a particular language. It may also contain subroutines, macros, global variables, class definitions and
templates.

SVG— Scalable vector graphics. SVG is an XML-based, open standard of specifications for vector-based graphics and
animations. Most modern browsers are capable of directly rendering SVG data, however Microsoft Internet Explorer
requires a plug-in for full support of SVG.

Tag Soup— Tag soup refers to HTML Web page markup that only loosely observes structure and semantics, yet
generally is displayed properly by many web browsers. Browsers often have lenient requirements of some web
documents they display due to non-standardized approaches by markup authors and the demand for browser features.
The newer XHTML specification is in part an attempt to reduce tag soup.

TCP/IP— Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. TCP/IP is a term (formed from two protocols) that is used
to refer to the set of communication protocols used by the Internet. The TCP/IP model is made up of five commonly
defined layers of communication (though additional layers are not prohibited). These are the Link, Internet, Transport
and Application layers. Subset protocols include HTTP, FTP, NNTP, SMTP, IRC, Telnet, RTP,

Telnet— Telecommunications Network. Telnet is a protocol for used for network connections. Typically, Telnet
allows communication to remote computers.

URL- Uniform Resource locator. A URL specifies where an identifiable resource is located so that it can be retrieved.
It can also we thought of as a web address.

VB.NET— Visual Basic as a part of the Microsoft .NET products. VB.NET has been widely criticized because it
breaks backward compatibility with older versions of Visual Basic.

W3C— World Wide Web Consortium. W3C develops, recommends and maintains technologies widely accepted by
web development communities. These include but are not limited to Accessibility, CSS, HTML, XHTML and XML.

WAP— Wireless Application Protocol. WAP is a specification for wireless devices such as mobile phones.

Web 2.0— The concept of a second generation of the way the World Wide Web is used. Some use the term Web 2.0 as
the exploitation of the unique features of the Internet as a business and social platform. Web 2.0 applications can
implement Internet-based communities, hosted services, social-networking and high performance web applications.
Examples of these concepts in action are video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies.
Web Application Framework— A set of programming software for commonly needed routines that can be used to
create websites, web applications or web services. A framework can reduce the overtime usually associated with
writing code from scratch and help insure that best practices are followed. Frameworks can include libraries, templates
and management modules.

Web Development— Activities involved with many aspects of creating of a website or web application. Web
Development is considered by most to include programming, coding, scripting and database management. The term, as
generally used, does not refer to visual design or content authoring of websites.

WML— Wireless Markup Language. WML is based on XML and is a markup language for devices that implement
WAP. WML less commonly can refer to Website META Language.

WPF— Windows Presentation Foundation. WPF is a part of the Microsoft .NET framework. It uses XAML markup
for rich user interface. WPF applications can be run as desktop application or hosted in a web browser. Silverlight is a
subset of WPF.

WSAPI— Web Site Application Programming Interface. WSAPI is a high performance programming system used to
allow web servers to communicate with web browsers. The WSAPI specifications are

XAML— Extensible Application Markup Language. XAML is linked to the Microsoft .NET framework, XAML
elements and attributes directly correspond to CLR object instances and properties respectively. Since XAML is XML-
based, it can be processed by standard XML tools. XAML is used extensively in Silverlight. It is also available to
anyone with certain limitations under Microsoft's OSP (Open Specification Promise).

XHTML— XML formatted Hypertext Markup Language. XHTML is a current standard for web page documents. One
benefit of XHTML over HTML is that the documents can be processed using any method that can be performed on
XML data.

XLink— XML Linking Language. XLink allows for linking to XML documents. The XML version of HTML
Hyperlinks, however, with XLink any element in an XML document can function as an XLink.

XML— Extensible Markup Language. XML is a general-purpose specification for the format of data that is widely
implemented.

XMLHttpRequest— Allows an application such as a web browser to send, get and process data without reloading
pages or other distractions such as popup dialogs.

XPath— XML Path Language. XPath is used to address parts of an XML document. XPath can navigate through
elements and attributes in an XML document.

XPointer— XML Pointer Language. XPointer is used with XPath, XPointer allows for linking to more specific parts of
an XML document. The XML equivalent of HTML indexes, however, the XPointer does not need to have
predetermined points in the linked XML document to link to.

XQuery— XML Query Language. XQuery is used to query XML data included that found in sources other than XML
files such as a database. XQuery for XML is the equivalent to SQL for Data tables.

XSD— XML Schema Definition. XSD is an XML Schema language or set of rules that an XML document must follow
to be considered valid for XSD. Sometimes XSD is referred to as XML Schema because originally it was the only
XML schema language. However, XML Schema is currently referred to as XSD because there are now more than one
XML schema languages.
XSL— Extensible Stylesheet Language. XSL is a family of XML languages used to describe transformations of
different form of documents.

XSL-FO— XSL Formatting Objects. XSL-FO is a markup language Used to describe visual formatting of XML
documents. Usually the documents generated are PDFs. However, they can also be PostScript (PS), Rich Text Format
(RTF) and other formats including a window in a GUI.

XSLT— Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations. XSLT is an XML language used to transform documents
from one form to another.

XUL— User Interface Language. XUL is an XML-based language for building rich applications that can be deployed
on the desktop or web. The XUL specification is maintained by the Mozilla Foundation.

by Jason Gorman