Glossary

ANSI: American National Standards Institute, among other things the set the guide lines of what makes some thing ANSI C compliant. You should look for a compiler that meets the ANSI C standard as a minimum.

API: Application Programming Interface. Functions and libraries that are specific to an OS that enable the programmer to take advantage of the systems unique features. API programming can produce quality programs with little effort but are not portable to other OS's.

ASM:

Assembly:

BASIC: Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. Made popular by Microsoft, this simple language is available for many systems. There is no object version of BASIC so advanced programmers will tend to abandon it for a more powerful language like C++

COBAL: COmmon Business Oriented Language. One of the oldest programming languages. Though still in use in older systems it is very limited and is regarded as a dead language.

CPU: Central Processing Unit. This is the main chip in a computer that does it all. It controls the interaction of all other devices in a computer. A computer program is instructions for the CPU to tell it what to do.

Debugger: A program that lets the developer of another program find problems in their software by simulation the running of the running of the tested program. A good debugger will allow the developer to run the test program in real time, monitor the status of variables and view the source code one line at a time as the test program is run.

FreeBSD:

FUBAR: Fu*ked Up Beyond All Recognition. Some people try to be politically correct and say it as foo-bar, but that is just a euphemism. Used to express that things have gone bad, very bad as in "... not nice and gentle like before but in a bad way.".

GUI:

GNU:

GNU GPL:

Hex-editor: A hex editor is a program that will allow the viewing and editing of a binary file in the from of hex numbers.

IDE: Integrated Development Environment. An IDE is a collection of tools for the purpose of programming, writing code, building and testing of programs. A good IDE will have an editor for writing and changing code, a compiler and a debugger. Many newer IDE are also available with code arching ability, graphical dialog editors and speed enhancing features to quickly write code.

JAFO: Just Another Fu*king Observer. If you are a JAFO, you are to be seen and not heard, you are a rookie, your opinion is not important.

Linux:

OOP:

OpenBSD:

OS: Operating System. Software in a computer system that allows uses to interact with it.

Pascal:

Perl:

Python:

RTFM: Read The Fu*king Manual. Experts in news groups often use this, I think it is a hot-key. It is used when some one has not bothered to read the documentation and some one else that knows the answer (or maybe not) has expressed annoyance with the asking of the question.

SNAFU: Situation Normal, All Fu*ked Up. Things are bad, not yet FUBAR bad but getting there. This situation is common. It is an unconfirmed that Apollo astronauts at NASA first coined this term. What Apollo mission what that? Lucky 13?

UNIX: An OS developed by Ken Thompson at Bell Laboratories around 1969. AT&T owned and controlled the UNIX name until 1993 when Novell Inc. purchased UNIX Systems Laboratories from AT&T.