Web Development

Terms related to web development products and services provided by UW Creative Communications.

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API: Application Programming Interface. An interface for letting a program communicate with another program. In web terms: An interface for letting web browsers or web servers communicate with other programs.
ASCII: American Standard Code for Information Interchange. A set of 128 alphanumeric and special control characters used for computer storing and printing of text. Used by HTML^I when transmitting data over the web.
ASP: A Microsoft technology allowing the insertion of server executable scripts in web pages.
Authentication: In web terms: the method used to verify the identity of a user, program or computer on the web.
Binary Data: Data in machine readable form^I.
CGI: Common Gateway Interface. A set of rules that describes how a CGI^I program communicates with a web server^I.
Client/Server: In web terms: The communication and separation of workload between a web client and a web server^I.
CMS: A content management system (CMS^I) such as a document management system (DMS) is a computer application used to manage work flow needed to collaboratively create, edit, review, index, search, publish and archive various kinds of digital media and electronic text. CMSs are frequently used for storing, controlling, versioning, and publishing industry-specific documentation such as news articles, operators' manuals, technical manuals, sales guides, and marketing brochures. The content managed may include computer files, image media, audio files, video files, electronic documents, and Web content. These concepts represent integrated and interdependent layers.
Communication Protocol: A standard (language and a set of rules) to allow computers to interact in a standard way. Examples are IP, FTP^I, and HTTP.
Cookie: Information from a web server^I, stored on your computer by your web browser. The purpose of a cookie^I is to provide information about your visit to the website for use by the server during a later visit.
CSS: Cascading Style Sheets. A W3C^I recommended language for defining style (such as font^I, size, color, spacing, etc.) for web documents.
Database: Data stored in a computer in such a way that a computer program can easily retrieve and manipulate the data.
DBA: Database^I Administrator. The person (or the software) who administers a database. Typical task are: backup, maintenance and implementation.
DHCP: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. An Internet standard protocol that assigns new IP addresses to users as need.
DHTML: Dynamic HTML^I. A term commonly to describe HTML^I content that can change dynamically.
DNS: Domain Name^I Service. A computer program running on a web server^I, translating domain names into IP addresses.
DNS Server: A web server^I running DNS^I.
DOM: Document Object Model. A programming model for web page objects. (See HTML^I DOM^I and XML^I DOM).
Domain Name: The name that identifies a web site.
DTD: Document Type Definition. A set of rules (a language) for defining the legal building blocks of a web document like HTML^I or XML^I.
Encryption: To convert data from its original form^I to a form that can only be read by someone that can reverse the encryption^I. The purpose of encryption is to prevent unauthorized reading of the data.
Ethernet: A type of local area network.
Flash: A vector-based multimedia format developed by Adobe for use on the web.
FTP: File Transfer Protocol. One of the most common methods for sending files between two computers.
FTP Server: A web server^I you can logon to, and download files from (or upload files to). Anonymous FTP^I is a method for downloading files from an FTP server^I without using a logon account.
GIF: Graphics Interchange Format. A compressed format for storing images developed by CompuServe. One of the most common image formats on the Internet.
HTML: HTML^I, which stands for HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for web pages. It provides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, lists etc as well as for links, quotes, and other items. It allows images and objects to be embedded and can be used to create interactive forms. It is written in the form of HTML^I elements consisting of "tags" surrounded by angle brackets within the web page content. It can include or can load scripts in languages such as JavaScript^I, which affect the behavior of HTML processors like Web browsers, and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS^I) to define the appearance and layout of text and other material. The use of CSS is encouraged over explicit presentational markup. - From Wikipedia
HTML: Hypertext Markup Language. HTML^I is the language of the web. HTML^I is a set of tags that are used to define the content, layout and the formatting of the web document. Web browsers use the HTML tags to define how to display the text.
HTML Editor: A software program for editing HTML^I pages. With an HTML editor^I you can add elements like lists, tables, layout, font^I size, and colors to a HTML^I document like using a word processor. An HTML editor will display the page being edited exactly the same way it will be displayed on the web (See WYSIWYG^I).
IMAP: Internet Message Access Protocol. A standard communication protocol^I for retrieving e-mails from an e-mail server. IMAP^I is much like POP but more advanced.
IP Address: Internet Protocol Address. A unique number identifying every computer on the Internet (like 197.123.22.240)
JavaScript: The most popular scripting language on the internet, developed by Netscape.
JPEG: Graphic format for storing compressed images.
Meta Tags: Tags inserted into documents to describe the document.
MIME: Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions. An Internet standard for defining document types. MIME^I type examples: text/plain, text/html^I, image/gif^I, image/jpg.
MySQL: Free open source database^I software often used on the web.
PDF: Portable Document Format. A document file format developed by Adobe. Most often used for text and proof documents.
Perl: Practical Extraction and Reporting Language. A scripting language for web servers. Most often used on Unix^I servers.
PHP: PHP^I is a widely used, general-purpose scripting language that was originally designed for web development, to produce dynamic web pages. It can be embedded into HTML^I and generally runs on a web server^I, which needs to be configured to process PHP^I code and create web page content from it. It can be deployed on most web servers and on almost every operating system and platform free of charge. PHP is installed on over 20 million websites and 1 million web servers.
PHP: PHP^I: Hypertext Preprocessor. A technology allowing the insertion of server executable scripts in web pages. Mostly for Unix^I, Linux and Solaris platforms.
PNG: Portable Network Graphics. A format for encoding a picture pixel by pixel and sending it over the web. A W3C^I recommendation for replacing GIF^I.
Port: A number that identifies a computer IO (input/output) channel. In web terms: A number that identifies the I/O channel used by an Internet application (A web server^I normally uses port^I 80).
RGB: Red, green and blue. The combination of the three primary colors that can represent a full color spectrum used on the web.
Script: A collection of statements written in a Scripting Language.
SOAP: Simple Object Access Protocol. A standard protocol for letting applications communicate with each other using XML^I.
SQL: Structured Query Language. An ANSI standard computer language for accessing and manipulating databases.
SQL Server: A database^I system from Microsoft. Mostly used on high traffic web sites running on the Windows platform.
SSI: Server Side Include. A type of HTML^I comment inserted into a web page to instruct the web server^I to generate dynamic content. The most common use is to include standard header or footer for the page.
SSL: Secure Socket Layer. Software to secure and protect web site communication using encrypted transmission of data.
Static IP: An IP address^I that is the same each time connect to the Internet. (See also Dynamic IP).
Streaming: A method of sending audio and video files over the Internet in such a way that the user can view the file while it is being transferred.
Tag: In web terms: Notifications or commands written into a web document. (See HTML^I)
TCP/IP: Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol. A collection of Internet communication protocols between two computers. The TCP protocol is responsible for an error free connection between two computers, while the IP protocol is responsible for the data packets sent over the network.
Unix: Computer operating system, developed by Bell Laboratories. Mostly used for servers and web servers.
URL: Uniform Resource Locator. A web address. The standard way to address web documents (pages) on the Internet (like: http://www.w3schools.com/)
VPN: Virtual Private Network. A private network between two remote sites, over a secure encrypted virtual Internet connection (a tunnel).
W3C: World Wide Web Consortium. The organization responsible for managing standards for the WWW.
Web Server: A computer program that is responsible for accepting HTTP requests from clients (user agents such as web browsers), and serving them HTTP responses along with optional data contents, which usually are web pages such as HTML^I documents and linked objects (images, etc.). - From Wikipedia
Web Server: A server is a computer that delivers services or information to other computers. In web terms: A server that delivers web content to web browsers.
WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get. In Web terms: To display a web page being edited exactly the same way it will be displayed on the web.
XHTML: Extensible Hypertext Markup Language. HTML^I reformulated as XML^I. XHTML^I is the latest version of HTML. Developed by W3C^I.
XML: Extensible Markup Language. A simplified version of SGML especially designed for web documents, developed by the W3C^I.
ZIP: A compressing format for computer files. Commonly used for compressing files before downloading over the Internet. ZIP^I files can be compressed (ZIPPED) and decompressed (UNZIPPED) using a computer program like WINZIP.