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ADO.NET
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Stands for Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects
for the .NET Framework. A set of classes
that expose data-access services to the .NET
programmer. ADO.NET supplies a rich set of
components for creating distributed,
data-sharing applications. It is an integral
part of the .NET Framework, providing access
to relational data, XML integration, and
application data.
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ANSI
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Acronym for the American National Standards
Institute. The term “ANSI” as used to signify
Windows code pages is a historical reference,
but is nowadays a misnomer that continues to
persist in the Windows community. The source
of this comes from the fact that the Windows
code page 1252 was originally based on an ANSI
draft—which became International Organization
for Standardization (ISO) Standard 8859-1.
“ANSI applications” are usually a reference to
non-Unicode or code page–based applications.
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Anti-aliasing
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A software technique for smoothing the jagged
appearance of curved or diagonal lines caused
by poor resolution on a display screen.
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ASCII
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Acronym for American Standard Code for
Information Interchange, a 7-bit encoding.
Although primitive, ASCII’s set of 128
characters is the one common denominator
contained in most of the other standard
character sets and in all Windows and OEM code
pages.
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ASP.NET
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Stands for Microsoft Active Server Pages for
the .NET Framework. The new generation of
Active Server Pages (ASP) files written in a
managed language on the Common Language
Runtime (CLR) using the .NET Framework. Also
known as “ASP+,” and “ASPX.”
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ARRAY, MULTI-DIMENSIONAL
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A group of data cells arranged by the dimensions of the data. For
example, a spreadsheet exemplifies a
two-dimensional array with the data cells
arranged in rows and columns, each being a
dimension. A three-dimensional array can be
visualized as a cube with each dimension
forming a side of the cube, including any
slice parallel with that side. Higher
dimensional arrays have no physical
metaphor, but they organize the data in the
way users think of their enterprise. Typical
enterprise dimensions are time, measures,
products, geographical regions, sales
channels, etc.
Synonyms: Multi-dimensional Structure, Cube,
Hypercube
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ABI
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Application Binary Interface: the interface
by which an application program gains access
to operating system and other services,
designed to permit porting of compiled
binary applications between systems with the
same ABI.
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ACE
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Adaptive Communication Environment, a C++
Wrapper Library for communications from the
University of California at Irvine.
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Ada
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A high-level computer language sponsored by
the US Department of Defense. It has a
multitasking mechanism, and a number of
features useful for software engineering.
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Adaptable User Interface
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A toolkit from
Oracle allowing applications to
be written portably for different windowing
systems. It provides one call level
interface along with a resource manager and
editor across a range of "standard"
GUIs, including Macintosh,
Windows and the
X Window System.
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AES
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Application environment specification: a set
of specifications from
OSF for programming and user
interfaces, aimed at providing a consistent
application environment on different
hardware platforms. It includes O/S for the
operating system (user commands and program
interfaces), U/E for the User Environment
(Motif), and N/S for Network services.
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AIFF
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AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format) A
format developed by Apple for storing
high-quality sampled sound and musical
instrument info; also used by SGI and
several professional audio packages. AIFF
files are similar to Windows WAVE files in
both size and quality.
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Annealing
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A technique which can be applied to any
minimization or learning process based on
successive update steps (either random or
deterministic) where the update step
length is proportional to an arbitrarily
set parameter which can play the role of a
temperature. Then, in analogy with the
annealing of metals, the temperature is
made high in the early stages of the
process for faster minimization or
learning, and then is reduced for greater
stability.
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AOCE
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Apple Open Collaboration Environment. A set
of software for e-mail, directory services
etc.
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APA
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Application Portability Architecture: DEC's
plan for portable applications software.
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apE
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A graphics package from the Ohio
Supercomputer Centre. A
software utility written in Microsoft Visual
Basic® to aid in the design, deployment
planning, and performance tuning of
distributed client/server applications.
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API
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Application Program Interface: a term for
the interface by which an application
program gains access to operating system and
other services, defined at source-code
level.
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ATIS
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A Tools Integration Standard: an
object-oriented interface to a
set of services that allows the saving,
accessing, and managing of information in a
common
repository. Developed by
Atherton Technology and DEC,
based on an extended version of the
Software BackPlane, now proposed
as an industry standard.
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AtFS
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Attributed File System: the basis of the
Shape_VC toolkit. Cooperative
work within projects is supported by a
status model controlling visibility of
version objects, locking, and "long
transactions" for synchronizing concurrent
updates. The concept of object attributes
provides a basis for storing management
information with versions and passing this
information between individual tools. This
mechanism is useful for building integrated
environments from a set of unrelated tools.
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ASIC
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Application-Specific Integrated Circuit: an
integrated circuit designed to perform a
particular function by defining the
interconnection of a set of basic circuit
building blocks drawn from a library
provided by the circuit manufacturer.
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Base character
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An encoding code point that does not
graphically combine with preceding
characters and that is neither a control nor
a format character. The Latin “a” is an
example of a base character.
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Bidirectional (BiDi) rendering
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Refers to the script’s ability to handle
text that reads both left to right and right
to left. For example, in the bidirectional
rendering of Arabic, the default reading
direction for text is right-to-left, but for
numbers, it is left-to-right. Processing a
complex script must account for the
difference between the logical (keystroke)
order of input and the visual order of the
output glyphs. In addition, processing must
properly deal with caret movement and hit
testing. The mapping between screen position
and a character index for, say, selection of
text or caret display requires knowledge of
the layout algorithms.
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Big-endian
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A computer architecture that stores
multibyte numerical values with the most
significant byte values first. On systems
using big endian architecture, the letter
“A” (U+0041) is stored as 0x00 0x41.
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Binary file
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A file that has been encrypted, encoded, or
compiled, as opposed to a plaintext file.
The
file contains characters other than standard
ASCII characters. A binary file can contain
any type of information that can be
represented by an 8 bit byte - a possible
256 values.
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BASIC
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Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction
Code: a programming language, usually
interpreted, suitable for simple
applications. It was developed by Kemeny &
Kurtz in 1964.
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BSD
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Berkeley Source Distribution: the versions
of
UNIX developed and distributed by
the University of California at Berkeley.
Many commercial UNIX implementations such as
SunOS and Dynix are derived from
it.
