Glossary
From Coder Merlin
Within these castle walls be forged Mavens of Computer Science ...
— Merlin, The Coder
A[edit]
- API
- an Application Programming Interface (API) connects computers or software to each other; a common example is logging-in to a third-party site via Google.
- ASCII
- American Standard Code for Information Interchange; ASCII codes represent characters and text in computers and other electronic communication devices
B[edit]
- Base
- aka Number Base is the number of unique digits, including zero, used to represent numbers in a positional number system
- Bash
aka Bourne-Again SHell, designed by Brian Fox for the GNU operating system, is the default shell for Linux and Mac operating systems
- Binary System
- is a number system that uses two digits (0 and 1) to represent a number); this is the system that computers use to store data.
- Bit
- aka "binary digit," the most basic unit of information or data in computing
- Boolean
- a data type that stores binary variables (true or false; 1 or 0; on or off)
- Boolean Algebra
- is the branch of algebra in which the values of the variables are true or false, usually represented as 0 or 1. It formalizes logical relations.
- Boolean Function
- a function that performs a logical operation on one or more binary inputs and produces one or more binary outputs
C[edit]
- C
- a low-level, general-purpose programming language, initially developed by Dennis Ritchie in 1972, many newer languages are based on C
- CSS
- Cascading Style Sheets is a programming language that is commonly used with HTML and provides styling for a web page
D[edit]
- Deprecated
- describes a piece of software or technology that is no longer recommended for use due to its obsolescence, or imminent obsolescence
- Directory
- a logical grouping of related files (and potentially other directories)
E[edit]
- emacs
- a powerful text editor and environment available on various operating systems, including Linux, Windows, and macOS
F[edit]
- File
- either a destination or source for a stream of data, most often persisted on a storage device
G[edit]
- GNU
- aka "GNU is not Unix" or GNU Project is a Unix-like operating system, or collection of software programs, launched by Richard Stallman in the 1980s
- GNU General Public License
- or GNU GPL or GPL is a series of licenses that allow users to freely copy, modify, study, and share software, originally written by Richard Stallman
H[edit]
- Hexadecimal System
- is a number system that uses 16 digits to represent a number. The digits are 0-10 and then A-F, where A = 11, B = 12, … , F = 15.
- HTML
- HyperText Markup Language, is one of the essential building blocks for web pages. It defines the general structure of a web page, as well as its content. Every single website on the internet uses HTML in one form or another.
I[edit]
J[edit]
- JavaScript
- a high-level programming language, which can be used to fetch data via an API, modify HTML and CSS, and is the core of modern web pages
K[edit]
L[edit]
- Logic Gate
- an idealized or physical device implementing a Boolean function, typically represented using graphical symbols
- Linux
- refers to the Linux kernel developed by Linux Torvalds in the 1990's, and also the family of open-source operating systems developed around the Linux kernel; these operating systems run most major websites, Android; common Linux distributions include Debian and Ubuntu
M[edit]
N[edit]
O[edit]
P[edit]
- PHP
- the most commonly used server-side language
- Process
- a program that is being executed by the operating system
- Positional Notation
- a method of encoding numbers that uses the same symbol for different orders of magnitude depending on its position; the value of a position is dependent on the location within the number (ex: 123 = 1*102 + 2*101 + 3*100)
- Python
- a free, high-level open source programming language that can be used in both front-end and back-end development
Q[edit]
R[edit]
S[edit]
- Shell
- a user interface that provides access to an operating system's services
- String
- a string of characters, a common data type in computer programming
- Syntactic Sugar
- syntax within a language which isn't strictly required but, in some manner, generally through increased clarity or readability, makes the syntax easier to understand for humans
- Swift
- a general-purpose, open-source programming language developed by Apple, a replacement for C-based languages
T[edit]
- Truth Table
- a means to specify the required output(s) for the specified input(s), given particular boolean algebraic expressions
- Tuple
- in mathematics, is a finite ordered list of elements. In Python, a tuple is an immutable data structure that stores an ordered sequence of values.
U[edit]
- Unix
- a family of operating systems developed in the 1960's and 1970's at AT&T's Bell Labs, basis for Linux and GNU operating systems