We’ve divided the most important technical IT terms into 10 categories.

Learning these terms will

boost your credibility in IT recruitment and improve your communication with developers.

Table of Contents

1. Glossary of general IT terms

2. Culture IT terms
3. Role IT terms
4. Programming language and technology IT terms list
5. Database IT terms
6. User Interface IT terms
7. Testing IT terms
8. Development tools and processes IT terms
9. Architecture IT terms
10. Infrastructure IT terms
11.

Glossary of general IT terms

Programming language

A programming language is used by programmers to instruct a computer to perform a certain job.

It’s normally a set of instructions that can be used to achieve the desired output of a computer
application written in a certain programming language.

Source code

As source code is a set of instructions and statements written by a programmer using a computer
programming language. This code is later translated into machine language (binary code) by a
compiler. The source code is the only stage where a programmer can read and modify a computer
program.

Framework

A framework is a code that is already written and covers low(er) level, generic functionalities.
Programmers can selectively change it with additional user-written code, thus providing application-
specific software. A software framework provides a standard way to build and deploy applications. It
consists of many predefined solutions for common functionalities that are used to help build
software applications, products, and solutions on top of it.

By using a framework, developers don’t have to write all the functionalities of the software that they
are working on. These functionalities are already implemented in the framework and ready to use
with a single command. Frameworks can improve developer productivity as well as the quality,
reliability, and robustness of new software. Thus, a knowledge of frameworks for a specific job is one
of the most important skills a developer can possess. Example frameworks: Bootstrap, React, Spring
Framework, Rails, Symfony.

Library
A library is a collection of predefined functions or routines that a program can use. Libraries are
particularly valuable for storing frequently used routines because you do not need to explicitly link
them to every program that uses them. Example libraries: JQuery, Google Guava, RxJava, d3.js.

Culture IT terms

Agile software development

Agile software development describes a set of values and principles for software development under
which requirements and solutions evolve through the collaborative effort of self-organizing cross-
functional teams. It advocates adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, and
continuous improvement, and it encourages rapid and flexible responses to change. Described in
Agile Manifesto.

DevOps

DevOps focuses on rapid IT service delivery through the adoption of agile, lean practices in the
context of a system-oriented approach. It is one of the IT terms that emphasizes people (and
culture) and seeks to improve collaboration between operations and development teams.

DevOps implementations utilize technology — especially automation and monitoring tools that can
leverage an increasingly programmable and dynamic infrastructure from a life cycle perspective. The
core principles are consistent with many of Site Reliability Engineering (see: SRE below) principles
and practices. One could view DevOps as a generalization of several core SRE principles to a wider
range of organizations, management structures, and personnel. One could equivalently view SRE as
a specific implementation of DevOps with some idiosyncratic extensions.

SRE (Site Reliability Engineering)

SRE is a discipline that incorporates aspects of software engineering and applies that to operations
whose goals are to create ultra-scalable and highly reliable software systems. It encourages product
reliability, accountability, and innovation.

Role IT terms

Front-End Developer

A front-end developer essentially creates whatever has a digital visual presence with which people
interact (client-side environment). Traditionally, a front-end developer is a person who is
comfortable with both design and coding; in other words someone who is comfortable using simple
design tools and is able to create a website using HTML code, style it using CSS, and make it
interactive using JavaScript.

UI designer

A UI (User Interface) designer is someone that designs what the application looks like from the
perspective of the user to enable users to interact with the application. UI designers must
understand what the front-end developer expects from him/her and know how to communicate
with them, as well as have design skills. Often this person does not have to be a programmer at all.

UX designer
UX or a “User Experience” designer, is a person who helps create a better experience of using the
application. This person simplifies the visual part of the application and brings out the features that
are used most often. His/her job is to make the application as easy and useful for the users as
possible to increase usability.

Back-End Developer

A Back-end developer is involved in the process of combining a server, an application, and a

database to solve a problem (server-side environment). This entire process is solidly entrenched in
logic, a network of processes and queries that are resolved in split seconds to give you a certain
desired output as a user. They are different from front-end developers in that the job of a back-end
developer is completely free of any visual design. Instead, it relies on logical reasoning and software
architecture that aims to deliver a particular output.

Full-Stack Developer

A full-stack developer is someone who is comfortable working with both back-end and front-end
technologies. A general understanding of technologies from every part of the development process
is necessary for a front-end developer. This, of course, means that they will not be an expert in any
one particular field. Instead, they can offer a better overview of applicational possibilities and the
capability to bridge the gap between how the system functions and how it looks and feels for the
user.

MEAN developer

A MEAN developer is someone who uses a JavaScript software stack for building dynamic websites
and web applications. MEAN stack developers are experts in using MongoDB, Express.js, AngularJS
(or Angular), and Node.js. Because all components of MEAN stack support programs written in
JavaScript, MEAN applications can be written in one language for both server-side and client-side
execution environments.

System administrator (SysOp, sysadmin)

System administrator is a person who is responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable
operation of computer systems, mostly servers.

Programming language and technology IT terms list

Java

Java is a compiled, object-oriented programming language, similar in syntax to C++. It is intended to

let application developers “write once, run anywhere” meaning that compiled Java code can run on
all platforms that support Java without the need for recompilation.

C is a general-purpose, imperative computer programming language supporting structured

programming, lexical variable scope, and recursion. While a static type system prevents many
unintended operations. C was originally developed by Dennis Ritchie between 1969 and 1973 at Bell
Labs, and used to reimplement the Unix operating system. It has since become one of the most
widely used programming languages of all time.
C++

C++ is a general-purpose programming language. It has imperative, object-oriented, and generic

programming features and it provides facilities for low-level memory manipulation.

C#

C# (C sharp) is a programming language that is designed for building a variety of applications that
run on the .NET Framework. C# is simple, powerful, type-safe, and object-oriented.

Python

Python is one of the most commonly used programming languages (top 3 according to IEEE
Spectrum research). It was first released in 1991 and has since gained popularity for being simple to
learn, yet powerful in solving problems. The syntax is similar to C++ family yet equipped with a
variety of modern solutions.

Visual Basic .NET

is a multi-paradigm, object-oriented programming language implemented on the .NET Framework.

Microsoft launched VB.NET in 2002 as the successor to its original Visual Basic language. Although
the “.NET” portion of the name was dropped in 2005, “Visual Basic [.NET]” is used to refer to all
Visual Basic languages releases since 2002 in order to distinguish between them and the classic
Visual Basic. Along with Visual C#, it is one of the two main languages targeting the .NET framework.

PHP

PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that
is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. PHP

JavaScript

JavaScript is a high-level, prototype-based, untyped, dynamic language. Depending on the

environment, JavaScript can be interpreted or compiled. It is a multi-paradigm programming
language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Perl
The Perl programming language is a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report
processing easier. It was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987. Since then, it has undergone
many changes and revisions. Perl 6, which began as a redesign of Perl 5 in 2000, eventually evolved
into a separate language. Both languages continue to be developed independently by different
development teams and they liberally borrow ideas from one another.

Ruby

Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, object-oriented, general-purpose programming language. It was

designed and developed in the mid-1990s by Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto in Japan. According to its
creator, Ruby was influenced by Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp.

Swift

Swift is a general-purpose, multi-paradigm compiled programming language developed by Apple Inc.

for iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and Linux.

R is an open-source programming language and software environment for statistical computing and
graphics. It is widely used among statisticians and data miners for developing statistical software and
data analysis.

Go

Go (often referred to as Golang) is a free and open-source programming language created by

Google.

Objective-C

Objective C is a general-purpose, object-oriented programming language that adds Smalltalk-style

messaging to the C programming language. It was the main programming language used by Apple
for the OS X and iOS operating systems, and their respective application programming interfaces
(APIs) Cocoa and Cocoa Touch prior to the introduction of Swift.

SQL
SQL is the most popular database programming language. Historically, this declarative programming
paradigm has been a key feature for ad-hoc queries run for data introspection executed by human
users directly with SQL (rather than with a UI). In modern times, SQL is also embedded in other,
more general-purpose programming languages like Java in order to access data from central
databases.

Scala

Scala is a general-purpose programming language providing support for functional programming and
a strong static type system. Designed to be concise, many of Scala’s design decisions are aimed to
address criticisms of Java.

Android

Android is the world’s most popular operating system (it’s not a programming language) dedicated
mainly to mobile devices. The source code was developed by Google under the Android Open Source
Project (AOSP). Subsequent versions are usually released annually and are announced at Google I/O
conferences.

Database IT terms

Database

is a collection of information stored and used by the software, organized in a way that can be easily
managed. Traditional databases are organized by fields, records, and files.

Relational Database

is a database organized with the relational model. Relationships are a logical connection between
different tables established on the basis of interaction among these tables. All relational databases
use SQL (Structured Query Language) to operate on data (insert, update, load). It looks like a
spreadsheet. Examples: Oracle, MySQL, Postgres, SQL Server.

NoSQL Database

non-relational or non-SQL database. Unlike relational databases, it uses other forms than tabular
data like key-value collections, multi-level structures, graphs, etc. Such databases are usually chosen
for their performance, scalability, and flexibility in schema design.

CAP theorem
states that it is impossible for a distributed data store to simultaneously provide more than two out
of the following three guarantees: consistency (every read receives the most recent write or an
error), availability (every request receives a non-error response without the guarantee that it
contains the most recent write) and partition tolerance (the system continues to operate despite an
arbitrary number of messages being dropped or delayed by the network between nodes). In other
words, CAP theorem states that in the presence of a network partition, one has to choose between
consistency and availability.

ACID

is an acronym consisting of the IT terms Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability. They are a set
of properties related to the database engines guaranteeing after finishing modification data will be
consistent.

User Interface IT terms

GUI/UI

or “Graphical User Interface”, is the visual part of the software or a website that allows the user to
interact with the application. Every time you use an application, you use it by clicking through the
GUI.

Responsive Design

is responsible for making the interface of the application display well on all possible devices, like
phones, PCs, or tablets, that we use to access it.

CSS

(Cascading Style Sheets) is a method of assigning formatting rules to an HTML page which allows the
content and presentation of a website to be separated. This separation gives web developers the
ability to instantly change the appearance of a specific HTML element, like position, colors, fonts,
etc., throughout an entire website.

Material design

is Google’s conceptual design philosophy that outlines how apps should look and work. It breaks
down everything from animation, style to layout and gives guidance on patterns, components, and
usability.

Bootstrap

is a free open-source front-end web framework for designing websites and web applications. It
makes it very easy to create web pages by empowering designers to select from a large collection of
pre-built elements, behaviors, and shortcuts. The aim is to unify design and allow both non-technical
and technical designers to improve the quality of their design.

Testing IT terms

Unit testing

is a software development process in which the smallest testable parts of an application (called
units) are individually and independently checked to see if they succeed. Most popular libraries are:
JUnit, Mocha, NUnit, RSpec.

Integration tests

Integration tests are a level of software testing where individual units are combined and tested as a
group. These tests are performed in order to expose defects in the interface and in interactions
between integrated components or systems. It occurs after unit testing and before validation
testing.

Acceptance tests

Acceptance tests are a level of software testing where a system is tested for acceptability. The
purpose of this test is to evaluate the system’s compliance with business requirements, user needs,
and business processes. Acceptance tests determine if a system satisfies the acceptance criteria and
to enable the user, customers or other authorized entity to determine whether or not to accept the
system.

Performance tests

Performance tests are a type of software testing that intends to determine how a system performs
in terms of responsiveness and stability under a certain workload (usually under stress).

Development tools and processes IT terms

Version control system

is the management of changes to documents, computer programs, large websites, and other
collections of information. Changes are usually identified by number or letter code, called a “revision
number,” “revision level,” or simply “revision.” For example, an initial set of files is “revision 1.”
When the first change is made, the resulting set is “revision 2,” and so on. Each revision is associated
with a timestamp and the person making the change. Revisions can be compared, restored, and with
some types of files, merged.

Subversion (svn)

is another popular open source version control system. In contrast to Git, all developers use one
centralized repository.
Git

Git is a free open source distributed version control system for tracking changes in computer files
and coordinating work on those files among multiple people. It is primarily used for source code
management in software development, but it can be used to keep track of changes in any set of files.

Commit

In version control systems, a commit is a saved change made to the source code. Commits are
usually added/deleted files or directories, changed file contents, etc.

Trunk Based Development

is the practice of merging all developer working copies to a shared mainline several times a day.

GitHub

GitHub is a popular Git hosting service. It is mostly used for code. In addition to Git, it provides
several collaboration features, important IT terms such as bug tracking, feature requests, task
management and wikis.

GitLab

GitLab.com is a Git repository hosting that provides wikis and issue tracking functionality. It’s an
open-source project developed by GitLab Inc.

Bitbucket

Bitbucket.org is a Git and Mercurial repository hosting service owned by Atlassian. Like its
counterparts, it provides several collaboration features such as issue tracking and wikis.

IDE

IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is a code editor application designed to help

programmers write, run, and debug code. Examples of IDEs include Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, Visual
Studio, PHP Storm

Build tools

Build tools are used to convert programming code written by the developer into binary code that is
executable by a computer and run it. It usually manages external dependencies (libraries or
frameworks) which are used in the project. Examples: Gradle, Maven, Rake, MSBuild, Phing.

Automation server (like Jenkins, Bamboo, TeamCity)

An automation server helps automate the non-human part of the software development process
with continuous integration and facilitating technical aspects of continuous delivery.

Continuous Integration

Continuous integration—an extension of Trunk Based Development practice—where each

integration is verified by automated tools and tested to give fast feedback and detect errors as fast
as possible.

Continuous Delivery

is a software engineering approach in which teams produce software in short cycles, ensuring that it
can be reliably released at any time. This means the deployment package is prepared and
automatically tested continuously (e.g. once per day) and ready to ship to production.

Continuous Deployment

Continuous deployment is similar to continuous delivery but ends up with the package being
deployed to production instead of just ready to be deployed.

Deployment

means pushing new software package version into its target environment.

Feature

is a distinguishing characteristic of a software item (e.g., performance, portability, or functionality).

Release

making the version package (features) available to end users.

Deployment Pipeline

defines the sequence of stages that must be completed before an application is rolled out to
production. By breaking up the deployment lifecycle into stages, you collect increasing confidence,
usually at the cost of extra time. Early stages reveal most problems yielding faster feedback, while
later stages provide slower and more thorough probing. Stages can include building, deploying,
testing, archiving, etc.

Ticket / Issue / Incident

is a running report on a particular problem, its status, and other relevant data within an issue
tracking system. They are commonly created in a help desk or call center environment and almost
always have a unique reference number, also known as a case, issue, or call log number. This
number is used to allow the user or help staff to quickly locate, add to or communicate the status of
the user’s issue or request.
Architecture IT terms

Architecture

Architecture is a term applied to both the process and the outcome of thinking out and specifying
the overall structure, logical components, and logical interrelationships of a computer, its operating
system, and network.

API

(Application Programming Interface) is a set of definitions, protocols, schemas, tools, and practices
to communicate with the application. To developers, API is what Graphical User Interface is to users.
It allows developers (and finally other applications) to communicate with applications.

REST

REST (Representational State Transfer) is a set of guidelines for building web services providing
interoperability between remote computers. It is focused on resources and basic operations (like
editing, reading, and adding) related to them. They are commonly used to expose public API.

SOAP

Simple Object Access Protocol is a way of exchanging structured information between computers.
Compared to REST, it’s more formal, less flexible, and requires schema definition (WSDL).

Monolith

is an architecture style based on running on a single application layer that tends to bundle all the
functionalities needed by the architecture together. To put it simply, it means being composed all in
one piece. Monolithic software is designed to be self-contained; components of the program are
interconnected and interdependent rather than loosely coupled as is the case with modular
software programs. Furthermore, if any program component must be updated, the whole
application has to be rewritten, whereas, in modular applications, any separate module (such as a
microservice) can be changed without affecting other parts of the program.

Distributed system

is a model in which components located on networked computers communicate and coordinate

their actions by passing messages, appearing to its users as a single coherent system. The
components interact with each other in order to achieve a common goal. Three significant
characteristics of distributed systems are: concurrency of components, lack of a global clock, and
independent failure of components.

Service-oriented architecture (SOA)

SOA is a style of software design based on discrete software components (services) that collectively
provide functionalities of larger software architecture. A service is a discrete unit of functionality
that can be accessed remotely and acted upon and updated independently, such as retrieving a
credit card statement online. In this approach, services are provided to other components by
application components, through a communication protocol over a network.

Basic principles of service-oriented architecture are independent of vendors, products, and

technologies. Service-oriented architecture has been mainly been used and focused on a big
enterprise scale.

Microservices

Microservices are a variant of the service-oriented architecture (SOA) architectural style. The idea
behind microservices is that some types of applications become easier to build and maintain when
they are broken down into smaller, composable pieces which work together. Each component is
autonomous, developed separately, and the application is then simply the sum of its constituent
components. This is in contrast to a traditional, “monolithic” application developed in one piece.

The Microservices style is used by many organizations (like Netflix, Uber, and Facebook) today as a
game-changer to achieve a high degree of agility, speed of delivery, and scale.

CRUD

CRUD is actually an acronym of Create, Read, Update, Delete. It describes a type of applications
focused on simple data editing without any rich business operations. Colloquially called “database
viewers.”

Infrastructure IT terms

Infrastructure

refers to the composite hardware, software, network resources, and services required for the
existence, operation, and management of an enterprise IT environment. It allows an organization to
deliver IT solutions and services to its employees, partners and/or customers and is usually internal
to an organization and deployed within owned facilities.

Cloud service

A cloud service is any service made available to users on-demand via the Internet from a cloud
computing provider’s servers (i.g Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services) as opposed to being
provided from physical on-premises servers.

Software as a Service (SaaS)

SaaS sometimes referred to as ‘on-demand software, is a software licensing and delivery model in
which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. It is the most familiar form
of cloud service for consumers. SaaS providers make the application available to users through the
Internet, usually a browser-based interface. Customers can then enjoy the software without having
to worry about development, maintenance, support, update, or backups.

The downside, however, is that your software experience is wholly dependent on the SaaS provider,
which is responsible for stability, reporting, billing, and security. Well-known examples of some SaaS
companies services are Gmail, Dropbox, Salesforce, and Netflix.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

PaaS is a category of cloud computing services that functions at a lower level than SaaS, typically
providing a platform on which software can be developed and deployed. PaaS providers abstract
much of the work of dealing with servers and give clients an environment in which the operating
system and server software, as well as the underlying server hardware and network infrastructure,
are taken care of. This leaves users free to focus on the business side of scalability, and the
application development of their product or service. It allows customers to develop, run, and
manage applications without the complexity of building and maintaining the infrastructure typically
associated with developing and launching an app.

PaaS makes the development, testing, and deployment of applications quick, simple, and cost-
effective. some PaaS examples include Pivotal Cloud Foundry and Heroku.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

IaaS is the most basic cloud-service model offering computing infrastructure – IT terms like virtual
machines and other resources – as a service to subscribers. It’s a lower level compared to PaaS.
Typically, IaaS provides hardware, storage, servers, and data center space or network components. It
allows you to quickly scale up and down with demand and pay only for what you use. This makes
IaaS well-suited for workloads that are temporary, experimental or change unexpectedly. IaaS
examples: Amazon Web Services and its EC2.

Automation

IT automation is the linking of disparate systems and software in such a way that they become self-
acting or self-regulating.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

IaC (programmable infrastructure), means writing code (which can be done using a high-level
language or any descriptive language) to manage configurations and automate the provisioning of
infrastructure in addition to deployments. IaC is not only about writing scripts, it also involves using
tested and proven software development practices that are already being used in application
development, e.g. version control, testing, small deployments, use of design patterns etc. In short,
this means you write code to provision and manage your server, in addition to automating
processes. It’s an approach to managing IT infrastructure for the age of cloud, microservices, and
continuous delivery.

Containers

consist of an entire runtime environment: an application, plus all its dependencies, libraries, and
other binaries, and configuration files needed to run it, bundled into one package. Containers are a
solution to the problem of how to get software to run reliably when moved from one computing
environment to another. This could be from a developer’s laptop to a test environment, from a
staging environment into production, and perhaps from a physical machine in a data center to a
virtual machine in private or public cloud.

Operating system

is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources and provides common
services for computer programs. All computer programs, excluding firmware, require an operating
system to function. Examples: Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux.

Shell

is an interface that enables the user to interact with a computer. It provides a user interface for
access to an operating system’s services. In general, operating system shells use either a command-
line interface (CLI) or graphical user interface (GUI), depending on a computer’s role and particular
operation. The name comes from the fact that shells are layers around the operating system kernel.

Metric

measurement of a particular characteristic of a program’s performance or efficiency.

Log

is a record of what has happened. Typically, it helps diagnose problems or get certain insights on
what is going on in an application’s lifecycle.