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technology Glossary
Explore clear, concise definitions for technology terms. Each entry is written for fast comprehension and quick reference.
Featured technology Terms
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5G
The fifth generation technology standard for broadband cellular networks.
AGI (Artificial General Intelligence)
A theoretical form of AI that possesses the ability to understand, learn, and apply knowledge across a wide variety of tasks, similar to human intelligence.
AI (Artificial Intelligence)
The simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems.
API Endpoint
A point at which an API -- the code that allows two software programs to communicate with each other -- connects with the software program.
Bug Bounty Program
A deal offered by many websites, organizations and software developers by which individuals can receive recognition and compensation for reporting bugs, especially those pertaining to security exploits and vulnerabilities.
Chain of Thought
A prompting technique that encourages the model to break down a complex problem into intermediate steps.
AGI (Artificial General Intelligence)
A theoretical form of AI that possesses the ability to understand, learn, and apply knowledge across a wide variety of tasks, similar to human intelligence.
AI (Artificial Intelligence)
The simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems.
API Endpoint
A point at which an API -- the code that allows two software programs to communicate with each other -- connects with the software program.
Chain of Thought
A prompting technique that encourages the model to break down a complex problem into intermediate steps.
Cloud Computing
The delivery of different services through the Internet, including data storage, servers, databases, networking, and software.
Container (Tech)
A standard unit of software that packages up code and all its dependencies so the application runs quickly and reliably from one computing environment to another.
Context Window
The amount of text (measured in tokens) that an LLM can consider at one time when generating a response.
CRUD
Create, Read, Update, Delete.
Cybersecurity
The practice of protecting systems, networks, and programs from digital attacks.
Generative AI
A category of artificial intelligence that can create new content, including text, images, audio, and video, in response to prompts.
Git Branch
A lightweight movable pointer to one of these commits.
Git Clone
A command that targets an existing repository and creates a clone, or copy of the target repository.
Git Commit
An operation which sends the latest changes of the source code to the repository.
Git Merge
A way to put a forked history back together.
Git Rebase
Reapplying commits on top of another base tip.
LLM (Large Language Model)
A type of artificial intelligence algorithm that uses deep learning techniques and massively large data sets to understand, summarize, generate, and predict new content.
Load Balancer
A device that acts as a reverse proxy and distributes network or application traffic across a number of servers.
Machine Learning
A subset of artificial intelligence that provides systems the ability to automatically learn and improve from experience without being explicitly programmed.
MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator)
A wireless communications services provider that does not own the wireless network infrastructure over which it provides services.
Neural Network
A computer system modeled on the human brain and nervous system.
NLP (Natural Language Processing)
A subfield of linguistics, computer science, and AI concerned with the interactions between computers and human language.
Normalization (Database)
The process of organizing data in a database.
NPM (Node Package Manager)
A package manager for the JavaScript programming language.
Package Manager
A collection of software tools that automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing computer programs.
Phishing
A type of social engineering where an attacker sends a fraudulent message designed to trick a human victim into revealing sensitive information.
Primary Key
A specific choice of a minimal set of attributes (columns) that uniquely specify a tuple (row) in a relation (table).
Prompt Engineering
The process of structuring text that can be interpreted and understood by a generative AI model.
Pull Request (PR)
A method of submitting contributions to an open-development project.
RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)
A technique for enhancing the accuracy and reliability of generative AI models with facts fetched from external sources.
Refactoring
The process of restructuring existing computer code—changing the factoring—without changing its external behavior.
Remote Repository
Versions of your project that are hosted on the Internet or network somewhere.
Semantic Versioning (SemVer)
A versioning scheme for software that uses a three-part number format: Major.Minor.Patch.
Serverless
A cloud computing execution model where the cloud provider runs the server, and dynamically manages the allocation of machine resources.
SIM Card
Subscriber Identity Module. A smart card inside mobile phones.
SQL Injection
A code injection technique, used to attack data-driven applications, in which malicious SQL statements are inserted into an entry field for execution.
Staging Area
A file (generally contained in your Git directory) that stores information about what will go into your next commit.
Technical Debt
The implied cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy (limited) solution now instead of using a better approach that would take longer.
Token (AI)
The basic unit of text that an LLM processes.
Transformer Model
A deep learning architecture that relies on the self-attention mechanism, detecting how different elements in a sequence of data depend on each other.