Web Development Glossary

A comprehensive, but not exhaustive list of frequently used web development acronyms and terms are detailed below. If you have reached this page from an acroynm link on another part of our website please use your browser's back button to return.

.NET Framework

Microsoft environment for building, deploying and running XML Web services and other applications.

Access

Microsoft Office's database program.

ActiveX

Microsoft's technology for the delivery of multimedia, especially over the web.

ADO

ActiveX Data Objects, enables web applications to access databases.

ADO.NET

Microsoft's latest ADO technologies.

Apache

An open source web server, primarily used on Linux and Unix servers.

ASP

Active Server Pages, a Microsoft Web Server scripting environment.

ASP.NET

Microsoft's latest version of ASP, part of the .Net framework.

BizTalk

A scheme for using XML for Business to Business transactions, spearheaded by Microsoft.

C#

A modern, object-oriented language that enables programmers to quickly build a wide range of applications for the new Microsoft .NET platform.

CGI

Common Gateway Interface.

COM

Component Object Model, Microsoft's framework for object-oriented programming, and the basis for ActiveX.

Commerce Server

The server that manages and maintains all transactional and backend data for a commerce website.

CMS

Content Management System is a system used to manage the content of a website.

Content Management System

(CMS) is a system used to manage the content of a website.

CRM

Customer Relationship Management web application allows a company find and retain potential customers.

Customer Relationship Management

(CRM) web application allows a company find and retain potential customers.

CSS

Cascading Style Sheets, a technology that uses embedded information to define font, colour and phrase elements on a HTML page.

DHTML

Dynamic HTML, a combination of HTML, scripts and DOM providing interactive content.

DOM

Document Object Model, the W3C specification for how the HTML, JavaScript, and CSS will interact to form DHTML. It defines the methods and objects available for Web Developers to use.

Dynamic Website

contains content that users can interact with, such as information that is tied to a database. The user can request that certain information be retrieved from a database.

e-GIF

e-Government Interoperability Framework.

Enterprise Resource Planning

(ERP) is an industry term describing a broad set of activities supported by multi-module applications that helps manufacturers manage the important aspects of their business, including product planning, parts purchasing, maintaining inventories, interacting with suppliers, providing customer service, and tracking orders.

ERP

Enterprise Resource Planning is an industry term describing a broad set of activities supported by multi-module applications that helps manufacturers manage the important aspects of their business, including product planning, parts purchasing, maintaining inventories, interacting with suppliers, providing customer service, and tracking orders.

Extranet

an application that allows the sharing of part of a business' information or operations with its suppliers, vendors, partners, customers, or other businesses.

Flash

A Macromedia software product that allows the delivery of highly compressed interactive animations and audio on web pages.

FTP

File Transfer Protocol, an internet protocol used to transfer files between computers.

HTML

Hypertext Markup Language, the language used to create documents on the World Wide Web.

HTTP

Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the protocol used for transporting HTML documents over the Internet.

IIS

Internet Information Server, Microsoft's web server.

Intranet

a web application designed to function in private network that is contained within an enterprise. Helpdesk and internal management applications can be included here.

Java

A computer programming language invented by Sun Microsystems.

Javascript

Scripting language developed by Netscape that allows interaction within HTML pages.

Linux

An open source version of UNIX that has gained popularity because of its stability as an operating system for hosting web services.

MTS

Microsoft Transaction Server.

MySQL

The World's Most Popular Open Source Database.

ODBC

Open DataBase Connectivity, a Microsoft standard for accessing different database systems from Windows, i.e. Oracle or SQL Server .

Oracle

Oracle is a relational database management system (RDBMS).

Perl

Practical Extraction and Report Language: the programming language most frequently used for writing CGI scripts.

PHP

Hypertext Preprocessor, a widely-used general purpose open source scripting language, often used in conjunction with MySQL.

Portal

a World Wide Web site that is intended to be a navigation starting point for users when they get connected to the Web.

RDBMS

Relational database management system.

ROI

Return On Investment.

Return On Investment

(ROI).

SMS

Short Message Service, text service for mobile phones.

SOAP

Simple Object Access Protocol, the standard for web services messages.

SQL

Structured Query Language, A standard programming language for communicating with a database.

SQL Server

Microsoft's enterprise level relational database product.

SVG

Scalable Vector Graphics, a vector graphics language written in XML.

T-SQL

Transact SQL, a sophisticated dialect of SQL used by Microsoft in SQL Server.

Unix

A multi-user, multi-tasking operating system.

VB Script

Visual Basic script, Microsoft's Scripting Language.

Visual Basic

A graphical programming language and development environment created by Microsoft in 1990.

W3C

World Wide Web Consortium, an academic and industrial consortium devoted to the development of Web standards and technologies.

WAI

Web Accessibility Initiative

Windows

A family of operating systems created by Microsoft, that run on Intel based IBM compatible machines.

Workflow

a process that automates tasks, procedural steps, organisations or people involved, required input and output information, and tools needed for each step in a business process .

XHTML

eXtensible Hypertext Markup Language, a reformulation of HTML designed make documents comply to XML rules for well-formedness.

XML

eXtensible Markup Language.

XSL

eXtensible Stylesheet Language, for transforming XML documents into other document formats like HTML.

Static Website

a site that can only supply information that is written in HTML code. This information will not change unless the site files are modified on the server.

XML

eXtensible Markup Language.