Terminologies

Boxes and Arrows

An informal diagram style that uses boxes and arrows to represent relationships. Contrasts with formal methodologies like UML.

Bottleneck

The main limitation that restricts the performance of a system.

Buy vs Build

A choice between purchasing software or creating it from scratch.

Communication Languages

Languages designed primarily for standardization rather than execution.

Company

A group of people organized to make money.

Divide and Conquer

A problem-solving technique that breaks a problem down into smaller, more manageable parts.

Entrepreneur

The initiator of projects.

Garbage

Memory that's occupied by objects that aren't needed anymore.

Garbage Collector

A system that recycles garbage memory.

Heap Allocated

Memory that's freed using a complicated mechanism.

Hitting the Wall

When a system runs out of a particular resource, resulting in performance degrading sharply.

Information Hiding

A design principle that seeks to minimize the amount of information exposed in an interface.

Lingua Franca

A language that's so widely used that it's a de facto standard.

Logging

Writing a program so that it generates a configurable output log describing its execution.

Low-Hanging Fruit

Easy improvements that yield big results.

Master Node

The node at which a unique piece of information that serves as the official definition of cached data is stored.

Memory Leak

The accumulation of references to objects that prevents garbage collection and increases memory demands over time.

Mere Work

Work that requires little creativity and entails little risk. Can be estimated easily.

Object-Oriented Programming

A programming style that emphasizes the management of state within objects.

Printlining

The temporary insertion of statements into a program to output information for debugging purposes.

Speculative Programming

Producing a feature before its usefulness is confirmed.

Strawman

A document used to start a technical discussion that may lead to other documents like stickman, tinman, woodman, ironman, etc.

Wall Clock

Actual time as measured by a clock on a wall, as opposed to CPU time.

Whitepaper

An informative document used to explain or sell a product or idea to a non-technical audience.