General glossary
25 General terms, from Novice to Journeyman. Start with the basics or jump to a level.
Updated
Novice
- Algorithm
- A set of instructions designed to solve a specific problem.
- All Caps
- All letters are capitalized, and each word is separated by an underscore.
- Boolean
- A boolean is a datatype that can only be either true or false.
- Camel Case
- First letter is lower case, each additional word begins with an upper case letter.
- Code Block
- Several lines of code grouped to work together.
- Expression
- A small piece of code that, when executed, produces a value.
- Float
- A data type that is a number that can store numbers with decimal places.
- Hungarian Notation
- The variable name has a prefix that indicates the data type of the variable. It follows camelCase rules.
- Integer
- Any whole number that can be positive or negative.
- Keyword
- A keyword is a word that is reserved by a programming language.
- Lower Case
- All letters of the variable name are lower case.
- Naming Conventions
- A rule or standard for how variables are named in a programing language.
- Operator
- A meaningful symbol that performs the action in an expression
- Pascal Case
- First letter of each word is upper case.
- Statement
- A line of code that contains one or more expressions.
- Syntax
- The rules that describe how code or markup must be written.
- Underscore Prefix
- The variable name begins with an underscore. It is commonly paired with camelCase.
Apprentice
- Absolute path
- A complete path that starts from the file system's root.
- End-of-line character
- A character sequence that marks where a text line ends.
- Function definition
- A reusable block of code that can be executed from other parts of your application.
- Path
- A file or folder location used by Git commands and patterns.
- Relative path
- A path described from another location, such as the repository root or current folder.
Journeyman
- Agile
- Agile is a software development methodology that focuses on short development cycles.
- Dry run
- A way to execute code that reports what an operation would do without actually making any changes.
- Linter
- A tool that checks your code for mistakes and messy styles without running it.