Content

ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Interchange

Most common and usual code table. If you use PC, most probably any latin letter or common punctuation sign, you type, is in ASCII.

Applets

Java programs to run from the browser and web page. Can be used to enhance a web page with dynamic content. Can be used (but not recommended) to run a full size applications as well, if your users are patient enough to download it from the web.

Simply put, applet is a Java program running in a browser.

ASP - Active Server Pages

Web pages with scripting inside, able to call Microsoft ActiveX components, written usually in Visual Basic. Microsoft fast and reliable technology alternative to CGI, because ActiveX controls may be accessed much faster than programs.

Certificate Authority

Company specialized on issuing digital certificates for secure network connections, including secure web protocol https://… You need a certificate from certificate authority to use it on your web site. Most popular (and the only preinstalled in leading browsers) certificate authorities are Verisign (http://www.verisign.com) and Thawte (http://www.thawte.com/). On December 20, 1999 Thawte was acquired by Verisign (talk about Microsoft monopoly… :-) ).

CGI - Common Gateway Interface

CGI is a way to get dynamic content, produced by a program, instead of a static file.

Simply put, CGI is a way to call a program on a server and show it's output in your browser.

Code Table

Inside computer there is no letters, all letters and other signs, like periods and commas, are just numbers, usually somewhere between 0 and 255 (127 for Latin-based alphabets). If two computers talk to each other (like computer with your broswer and computer with web-server) they must agree, which number means which letter. Such a map (or table) showing numeric values for letters and other signs (like percent, star, comma and so on) called code table. Most common code tables are ASCII and EBCDIC. There are also code tables for national languages and alphabets like KOI-8R and Windows 1251 for Russian.

CORBA - Common Object Request Broker Architecture

CORBA is based on IDL, IIOP, and open specifications of OMG. CORBA-based systems allow to find necessary component through ORB, so that network address of a server is not hardcoded. Originated from DCE and followed by EJB.

Simply put, just see distributed technology.

DCE - Distributed Computing Environment

DCE is based on IDL and has a limited support across platforms. This proprietary technology was followed by CORBA. It has some name resolution, using DCE end-points map, with entries like:

<object> 019ee420-672d-11c9-a6e7-08502b3dfa1a
<interface id> 48b345318120.0e.0a.31.d3.6c.00.00.00,0.0
<string binding> ncadg_ip_udp:111.22.33.55[1234]
<annotation> Very important Interface

Simply put, just see distributed technology.

EBCDIC - Extended Binary-Coded Decimal Interchange Code

Code table invented and used by IBM on their mainframe and midrange (like AS/400) computers. If you can, stay out of it.

eBusiness

IBM defines it as:

e-busi·ness (e' biz' nis) The transformation of key business processes through the use of Internet technologies.

Simply put, eBusiness is

1. business,
2. business, and
3. business,

plus whatever Internet technology can do to make it even more profitable.

EJB - Enterprise Java Beans

Java-based CORBA compatible distributed technology.

Simply put, it's:

1. Java,
2. Java beans,
3. CORBA.

FTP - File Transfer Protocol

Protocol to exchange files with a remote system. Very popular for archives. This is also a usual way to upload content to web-site.

Simply put, it's just what your ftp program does or your browser, when URL started from ftp://…

HTTP - HyperText Transfer Protocol

Stateless TCP/IP protocol to get a file from a remote server used primary for Web-browsing.

Simply put, it's just how your browser got this page.

IDL - Interface Definition Language

The language to define interfaces in CORBA and DCE. It's a bit different for these two technologies, but differences are very small. This description is used to generate the code in real languages like C or Java to provide remote program calls (RPCs).

Simply put, this is just the part of C language, which fits into the header files.

IIOP - Internet Inter-ORB Protocol

Protocol to pass input and output parameters for remote calls (RPCs) over network in CORBA.

Simply put… it's just a network protocol to pass parameters.

Java beans

A way to create components in Java, so that they can be used in visual design tools like visual composition in Inprise JBuilder or IBM Visual Age for Java.

Simply put, just think about Java beans as ActiveX components for Java.

OMG - Object Management Group

OMG is an authority in Object-Oriented world. They are the holders of CORBA technology specs and UML language, developed by Rational Software.

Simply put, OMG is a big boss in object-oriented world.

ORB - Object Request Broker

ORB is the central part of CORBA architecture. ORB knows where-the-heck-this-damn-component-you-want-to-call is located. So instead of addressing to particular IP address and port, you just send component UUID to ORB, and it will find it for you.

Simply put, this is just a name resolution service for CORBA.

RMI - Remote Method Invocation

A way to call method of a Java class, located on another computer. RMI uses it's own Java-specific architecture and probably will be replaced sometime with EJB.

RPC - Remote Procedure Call

A way to call a function located on another computer. This abbreviation is used in DCE and CORBA. The same as Java RMI.

Servlets

Java-based CGI with substantial performance improvements, or platform-independent Java-based ASP.

Simply put, Java components on a server side.

SOAP - Simple Object Access Protocol

There is an article on this site describing advantages of marrying together XML and HTTP to make RPCs. SOAP is the protocol which employs this concept and allows you to make and receive RPC calls through XML and HTTP. Some mistakenly think that it compete with CORBA. Not exactly. You can easily implement CORBA on the top of SOAP layer, though it will not be compatible with existing implementations of CORBA (like they are compatile between themselves, fat chance!) However SOAP is certainly conflicts with remote object models with a more detailed transport layer, like DCE or RMI or EJB.

SSL - Secure Socket Layer

A way to make communications with a web-site (or any TCP/IP server) secure. It's used for secure http protocol (https://…) used for all secure order forms on the web. It's also used in some other cases. You need a certificate from certificate authority to use https://… on your web site.

UML - Unified Modeling Language

UML was created in Rational Software company by creators of Booch (Grady Booch), OOSE/Jacobson (Ivar Jacobson), and OMT (James Rumbaugh) modeling methods and originally implemented in RationalRose.

Simply put, UML is a visual way ("graphical language") to model information flow in business processes and underlying IT structures.

XML - eXtensible Markup Language

There was a lot of people saying "HTML is not enough for our layout and typesetting needs" So XML was born. It does not have predefined tags and you can easily introduce your own tags with DTDs. However, unfortunately for originators,  the concept happened to be much more powerful than expected, and XML is now applied to data transfer, data formats, file format, remote calls, ... And what about precise formatting? Yeah, you can do that too. Just stay out the production system!

XPath

XML document is another way to represent a tree. Every element is a node, everything inside the elemnt goes down the tree from the node. Simple? Not quite. Now how to address separate nodes and subtrees? Especiall if you want to do that relative to another node? Just use XPath expression. XPath is the language of expressions to specify nodes in XML tree. Which is still not quite simple, but now possible.

XSL - eXtensible Stylesheet Language

Did we mentioned that use of XML for documents on Worlde Wide Web seems to be not very popular? At least in the form creators of XML thought it to be? Alas! Browsers can support it. Try Netscape 4.* with XML file, and most probable that it will call Internet Explorer to do the job. But you still can keep data in XML format on your web site. Just convert it to HTML before sending to the client side. You can do that with a number of technologies: Microsoft ASP and MSXML, Apache server and Cocoon, IBM Websphere, servlets and some Java package for XML,... But whatever you use, you will use XSL. XSL allows you to convert XML into a different XML (including XHTML) without a single line of code.

Don't see the term? Ask us!