The Web App Hornbook

The world’s most neoteric web app terms from A to Z

Hornbook in Derby Museum and Art Gallery

A

Aplextor

Technology and toolset for development, deployment and runtime support of web applications. Allows developing web apps the same way you develop native apps — with the same processes, patterns, and even programming languages.

aplex

Extended web application in Aplextor Architecture. Unlike common web app, aplex has server and browser parts running simultaneously.Ajax(Asynchronous JavaScript And XML) is a client-side web development technics, which allow building asynchronous web applications.

B

back-end

The “server-side” of the web site or web app, which the user can’t see in the browser, mainly databases and servers.

browser

A software program that allows a user to access the Internet.

C

CSS

(Cascading Style Sheets) — a style sheet language used to describe the style of an HTML document.

CMS

(Content management system) — a software system that allows a user to write, edit and publish content to the Web.

D

database

An organized collection of data, stored and accessed electronically.

DBMS

(Database Management System) — a software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and analyze data.

E

e-commerce

The activity of purchasing products/goods on online services, over the Internet.

executable code

Software in a form that can be run in the computer. It typically refers to machine language, which is the set of native instructions the computer carries out in hardware. Executable code may also refer to programs written in interpreted languages, such as JavaScript or PHP.

F

front-end

Code written in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, controls how a user sees a web app in the browser.

FIRE

(Fast, Integrated, Reliable, Engaging) — major features of progressive web apps (PWA).

G

GUI

(Graphic User Interface) — an interface that allows a user to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons or indicator.

H

HTML5

(Hypertext Markup Language revision 5) — a markup language for structure and presentation of content in Web.

HTTP

(The Hypertext Transfer Protocol) — an application protocol for distributed, collaborative, and hypermedia information systems.

hybrid web app

An application with functionality in both the web portion of the app and the native portion, but it is a cross-platform.

I

IDE

(Integrated Development Environment) — a web application development software that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development.

J

JavaScript

A client-side scripting language, which allows building interactive websites and creating web apps.

JSON

(JavaScript Object Notation) — an open-standard file format that uses human-readable text to transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and array data types (or any other serializable value).

jQuery

A cross-platform JavaScript library designed to simplify the client-side scripting of HTML.

K

key

A piece of information used by a cipher for encryption and/or decryption.

L

LAMP

A model of web service stacks. The name is an acronym: the GNU/Linux, the Apache HTTP Server, the MySQL database management system, and the PHP.

M

manifest

Web app manifests are part of a collection of web technologies called progressive web apps. The web app manifest provides information about an application (such as its name, author, icon, and description) in a JSON text file.

metadata

Data, that describes other data.

MVC

(Model-View-Controler) — an architectural pattern used to develop user graphic interfaces for web apps, where the model is a knowledge, the view is a visual representation of the model, the controller is the connection between the user and the system.

N

native app

An app for use on a particular platform or device.

O

object-oriented programming

A programming paradigm based on the concept of “objects”, which may contain data, in the form of fields, often known as attributes; and code, in the form of procedures, often known as methods.

P

PHP

Hypertext Preprocessor is a server-side scripting language designed for Web development, but also used as a general-purpose programming language.

PWA

(Progressive Web Application) — a web application that load like regular web pages or websites but can offer the user functionality such as working offline, push notifications, and device hardware access traditionally available only to native mobile applications.

Q

query string

A part of a uniform resource locator (URL) containing data that does not fit conveniently into a hierarchical path structure.

R

responsive design

An approach to web page creation that makes a web page/web app render well on different devices.

S

SSL

(Secure Sockets Layer) — see TLS.

SQL

(Structured Query Language) — a domain-specific language used in programming and designed for managing data held in relational databases.

T

TLS

(Transport Layer Security), previously known as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) — a protocol used by applications to communicate securely across a network, preventing tampering with and eavesdropping on email, web browsing, messaging, and other protocols.

U

UI

(User Interface Design) — design for effective interactions between humans and machines.

URL

(Uniform Resource Locator) also known as web address, is a reference to a web resource that specifies its location and a mechanism for retrieving it.

UX

(User Experience Design) — an attitude of a person about using a particular software.

V

viewport

A polygonal (normally rectangular) area in computer graphics that is currently being viewed. In web browser terms, it refers to the part of the document you’re viewing which is currently visible in its window.

W

WARRP

(Web Application Request/Response Protocol) — an integral part of Aplextor Architecture used for intercommunication between client and server parts of an extended web app (see aplex).

web app

Any software that runs in a web browser.

X

XML

(Extensible Markup Language) — a markup language that defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable.

XQuery

Specification for a functional programming language that queries and transforms data collections, usually in the form of XML.

Y

Yacc

(Yet Another Compiler-Compiler) — a parser generator, generating a part of a compiler that tries to make syntactic sense of the source code based on an analytic grammar written in a notation similar to Backus–Naur Form (BNF).

Z

ZIP

ZIP is an archive file format that supports lossless data compression. Based on the DEFLATE algorithm, which is a combination of LZ77 and Huffman coding.