In our last blog, we offered a brief intro on what it’s like to work in the tech universe. This time, we’re going to help you understand the foreign language of programmers by defining complex terminology and perplexing abbreviations. (If only someone had done this for us a year ago, it would have saved us a lot of confusion!)
Us being confused
Blockchain? Machine learning? IoT? When you’re not sure how to strike up a conversation with a programmer, these hot words can be the perfect ice breaker.
When you find yourself drowning in a sea of unfamiliar tech jargon and jokes you don’t get, these basic term definitions might just be a lifesaver.
VOCABULARY:
- Bitcoin – It’s a well-known fact that developers have a lot of money they obviously don’t spend on material things. So where does this money go? They buy bitcoins and all the other coins you’ve never heard about. It’s a type of digital currency.
- Snippet – Imagine pulling a quote from a poem and using it as a photo caption on social media. That’s basically a code snippet.
- Revamp – A revamp is like a makeover, plastic surgery, or a new hairstyle. It’s something you do to refresh your appearance and look prettier. Let’s say you scheduled a date for 8 pm, but it’s 8:30 and she’s still not there. It’s probably because she’s revamping herself. The same thing can be done to an app.
- GitHub – What Instagram is for fashion bloggers, GitHub is for developers. If you’re any good, you’ll be there.
- Donuts – What cocaine is for investment bankers, donuts are for developers. Donuts are often served on various meetups as a treat. Developers love gathering and talking about code while enjoying a good donut on the side. Don’t forget about craft beer, though. It’s another developer favorite.
- Deploy – When you created that Tinder account, you put yourself out there. The same goes with code when deployed on a server.
- Backlog – Backlog is an imaginary place where tasks go to die. Remember when you were a kid, your mother told you to clean up your room, and you just tossed all your junk in the back of the closet? Same thing, just with tasks instead of toys.
- Build – Working on creating an app. (No muscles necessary.)
- Java vs. JavaScript – Turns out Java and JavaScript are not the same. Java is for server applications, while JavaScript is for browser applications. Someone just decided to use similar terminology to confuse the f*ck out of people. Thanks to that guy, we now live in a world of constant confusion.
- Language vs. Framework – Just like how a fish can’t live without water, the same applies here. Language is a basic set of operations and functions, while framework is an abstraction that makes working on a language easier.
- Staging – Before giving a speech or a presentation in front of an audience, most people usually rehearse it in a safe environment. This gives them a chance to practice and improve it before they stand in front of the crowd. The same goes for software changes; it’s just called staging instead of rehearsing.
- Production – The moment you step in front of the audience and put yourself out there. It’s now in production.
- UX/UI – Facebook is an app with the most users in the world, and they are always making a lot of display changes. How you feel about using it is called UX (user experience). On the other hand, the layout and where you can find buttons that you need are the UI (user interface).
- Inspector (web browser inspector) – What hides behind a pretty face? With the right click of your mouse on any website, you can dig deeper and find out. The inspector allows you to see how a website was built and what it’s made of. (If only we could do this with humans!)
- Swift – You know how French people speak French and speak to tourists only in their language? The same applies to iOS applications – they speak Swift only. Why? Because Apple. The rest of the app world (Android), speaks Kotlin.
- Refactor – This is a lot like when you are writing a thesis and your college professor asks you to rewrite it over and over again. Refactoring is a process of improving readability. The same thing happens with code that already exists but desperately needs polishing.
- Devops – They are like 911 of the tech world. When shit goes down (read server), Devops are your Ghostbusters.
Hopefully, you feel smarter after taking five minutes to read this short article. (You might even call it a sprint.) Now, go back to watching Silicon Valley. We promise it will never be the same now that you know these terms.
This crash course on tech terms should give you that extra push you need. So, put yourself out there and start exploring this world on your own! Now that you know a word or two, you can even start a conversation with developers, while the advanced ones can even make a qt joke.
