Term | Context or Acronym Expansion | Definition |
---|---|---|
A2A | application to application | Integration between two applications without human intervention. |
A2H | application to human | One-way interaction, application to human, as in flight monitors or "push" technology. |
abduction | logic | To create hypotheses about probable causes from patterns observed. This is the primary source of new knowledge. Data mining is essentially an abductive process. See also induction and deduction. |
abstract | class or ontology design | More generalized representation (e.g., animal is more abstract than bear). |
accidental | problem/solution | The complexity of a solution that is introduced by the tools and methods of solving the problem. See essential. |
accretive | changes, especially to a system | Changes that add on gradually, without disruption, similar to the way a river changes its contour by silting up at the bends. Antonym: evulsive. |
acronym | lexical | Word formed from the initial letters of a compound word or phrase. |
acyclic | hierarchy, graph, network | Does not loop recursively. If you were one of your own ancestors, you would have a cyclic family tree. |
adapters | software | Small software components that bind an interface to an existing application. |
agent | software | Autonomous software program acting on a user's behalf. |
aggregate | model | Type of relationship that implies ownership. |
agile methods | methodology | Approach to software development that relies on the design and the requirements emerging from the process of building and interacting with the sponsors of the project. See XP. |
algorithm | software | Procedural, step-by-step method to solve a given problem. |
aliases | vocabulary | Synonym. |
ambiguity | vocabulary | Definition or identification that leaves uncertainty as to the specific assignment of referent to thing. |
anonymizing | software | Property of hiding identity from one software module to reduce its specific dependency on one implementation. |
antonymy | vocabulary | Opposite (e.g., "good" is an antonym of "bad"). |
API | Application Processing Interface | A published interface to an application or module that allows the programs to call or invoke services. |
applets | software | Small units of an application. |
application | software | Group of software functionalities implemented together to solve a business problem. |
application server | infrastructure | Middle tier in a three-tier architecture, where business logic is performed. |
architecture | software | Overall arrangement of the components out of which applications are built and delivered. More than just the selection of tools. |
artificial intelligence (AI) | software | Software that performs some function that we had previously ascribed to humans only, such as natural language processing. |
ASCII | American Standard Code for Information Interchange | Character set used by most PCs. As opposed to EBCDIC (the mainframe character set) and Unicode (the internationalized character set). |
assert | logic programming | Establish a fact (e.g., assert that Robert Jones is employee 1234). |
association | modeling | Type of relationship that does not imply ownership. |
associative database | modeling | Style of database design that uses sentences to describe associations. |
asynchronous | software | Style of message or RPC invocation where the sender does not wait for a response from the receiver. |
atomic | database | Smallest whole unit of work. An atomic transaction is one that must complete or fail in its entirety. |
attribute | modeling | A property of an entity, other than a relationship. Usually single valued. |
auditability | process | Capability of a process to be reviewed by a third party after the fact. Generally requires nonalterable log, identification of users, etc. |
authentication | software | Verifying that persons or agents are who they claim to be. |
available | software | Property of a system that is operable and can be accessed by the users or agents who need it. Often measured in the percent of potential time it is actually available (as in 99.999% availability). |
axiom | logic | Description of self-evident truth. |
B2B | business to business | Integration between businesses (as opposed to business to consumer) characterized by the potential for more investment in the interaction and potentially higher volume of transactions. |
B2C | business to consumer | Merchandizing directly to consumers, typically through a Web site. |
behavior | object-oriented software | Methods that execute code. |
bill of material | model | Hierarchic structure of parts; can be "to be" (the ordered parts list to build a car) or "as is" (the specific parts that went into this car). |
binary | relationship | Two-way relationship. A relationship with an inverse. |
bind | software | Attaching a request to an implementation. Implementations are in specific technologies, and to invoke them one has to attach an often abstract description of a request to the specific module that will invoke it. Adaptors bind to applications. |
bit | software | Single binary unit of data (a 1 or a 0). |
Biztalk | product | Microsoft's message orchestration product. |
blocking | software | To wait for a reply after a request has been made. A blocking request makes the interaction synchronous for the requestor. |
BNF | Bakus-Naur form | Language for expressing the grammar of a programming language. |
bootstrapping | software | Process of bringing up a software environment. Software has the problem of having to exist in some context. Often the context in which software was created is not available on another machine. By convention, there is a small number of instructions that all environments understand; the bootstrap process defines more and more elaborate contexts, in sequence, to create the context in which the complete systems will run. Note similarity to the ontology problem. |
bots | software robots | Agents. |
bozo | people | Person whose opinions you distrust. From Bozo the Clown. Bozo filters are put on email clients or discussions to screen out known bozos. |
BPEL4WS | business process execution language for Web Services | Standards for the definition of multiple-step Web service–mediated process flow. |
BPSS | business process specification schema | The ebXML work flow specification. |
broker | software | A go-between. A message broker is a piece of software that you send your message to instead of its final destination. This frees the sender from having to know about the final recipient. |
bursty | communication | Communication or message that does not come at a uniform rate; it comes in "bursts." |
byte | software | Single character, 8 bits. Base unit of storage size. |
cache | software | A storage of data either nearer to the end use or in a form that is easier to use. Intended to reduce latency at time of use. |
canonical | message/model | An accepted standard. In message modeling, it is the process of declaring a standard for message content rather than allowing each project to define its own. |
capital | software economics | A one-time investment in a process that is expected to reduce operating costs over time. |
cardinality | modeling | Constraint on the number of successors on a relationship. The cardinality for the relationship "biologic mother" is 1; for "biologic child" it is 0 or greater. |
categorize | modeling | To ascribe an instance to a knowledge-level group, for the purpose of inferring additional information about the instance. |
causation | modeling | Relationship with teleologic attribute. For example, travel causes displacement/motion. |
CDATA | XML/HTML | Character data that is meant to be ignored by the parser (e.g., images). See also PCDATA. |
ChemXL | XML | Standard XML vocabulary for the chemical industry. |
choreography | messaging | Prespecifying the sequence of operations in a standard work flow. Same as orchestration. |
class | object-oriented development | Definition of attributes and behaviors for a type of instance. Basic modules for object-oriented development (OO). In OO, class and type are nearly synonyms, but the slight difference causes considerable problems. |
client | software | Requestor. Also the user interface tier in a three-tier architecture. |
coarse grain | service | Service that does a large unit of work. Collecting an overdue receivable would be a coarse-grain service. |
CODASYL | Conference on Data Systems Languages; database | Prerelational database standard that used a network model in which database navigation followed predefined pointers. |
cohesion | software design | Property of a module in which all the parts belong together. In a cohesive module all the parts are closely related; there are no extraneous parts. |
column | database | Attribute for relational databases. |
COM | component object model | Microsoft standard for binding local components. |
combinatorial | system | Complexity increases more than proportionally with number of interacting parts. |
commitment to ontology | Semantic Web | Declaration that a domain or document makes in terms of using and agreeing with the meaning of terms from a particular ontology. Key to different documents being able to intercommunicate. |
compiled | software | Source code converted to machine-specific instructions (which bind the source code to the machine instruction set). |
composite | software | Combination of more than one "back-end" |
application | system into one unit of work. Often combined into one user interface. | |
compound | words | Group of individual words whose meaning can only be known in combination (e.g., World Series). |
conceptual model | modeling | Model independent of implementation. |
conceptualization | ontology | Abstract, simplified view of the world that we wish to represent for some purpose. |
configurable | architecture | Style of development in which independent components can be configured into new combinations. Promotes flexibility. Distinct from customization, which, in changing a particular configuration, makes it rigid. |
configurable | application package | Data-driven parameters that can be set at implementation time to achieve different behaviors from the system. |
conjunction | logic | And. |
ConnectBy | database | Oracle-specific SQL extension for bill of material processing in relational database. |
consortium | vocabulary | Group of companies. |
constraints | database | Predicates that must be true or else transactions will not be committed. |
content | data | Intellectual property. Often documents or messages. |
contracts | software design | Style of design that sets up contracts between calling and called routines. Can be evaluated at run time. |
contracts | legal | Intentionally obscured agreements between parties for the purpose of requiring more human interpretation. |
copybooks | software | Early form of "include" statements that would copy standard code or data definitions from a library. |
CORBA | common object request broker architecture | Middleware developed under OMG. Platform-neutral way for programs to call other programs. |
cosmology | philosophy | Subdiscipline of metaphysics concerned with the nature of being. |
coupling | design | Linking two software components such that they are dependent on each other. |
cowpaths | architecture | Initial way something is done, which, if mindlessly repeated, will become doctrine. |
customization | software | Changing a software package source code to more closely match a particular set of requirements. Increases maintenance effort, makes upgrades difficult, and often invalidates warranties. |
CWMI | common warehouse metadata interchange | Standard for expressing metadata between data warehouse products. |
cXML | Commerce XML | Standards for eProcurement. |
cyclomatic | design | Measure of the complexity of control structure of a procedural program. |
DAG | directed acylic graph | Graph (network) in which all the nodes are connected and prevented from looping. |
DAML | DARPA agent markup language | Extensions to RDF to create ontologies for the Semantic Web. |
DAML+OIL | ontology | DAML and OIL are used together often enough that the combination is referred to as DAML+OIL. |
DARPA | Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency | Funding source for early Internet and currently the Semantic Web. |
database | computer systems | Place to persistently store data |
DCOM | distributed component object model | Microsoft's standard for binding to distributed components. |
DDL | data definition language | The language used to describe the data definitions (metadata) in relational systems. |
declarative | software | Type of language in which code writer does not control the flow of control at execution time. |
decomposition, functional | design | Style of breaking a problem down into its constituent parts along functional lines. |
decoupling | design | Process of separating software modules that had previously been coupled, for the purpose of improving the flexibility and ability to change the parts independently. |
deduction | logic | To infer knowledge of an instance from its membership in a category or type. The process of using knowledge but not of creating it. |
default | user interface | Property values that are true often enough that they are provided as a time-saving aid to a data entry operator. |
default | database | Property values for a category or class that are generally held to be true for all members, but can be distinguished from those that have been declared to be true for the instance. |
definition | vocabulary | Description of what something means; often sufficient for humans, rarely sufficient for software agents. |
delegation | software design | Act of turning over to another module the specific implementation of some feature. The delegator need not know how the delegatee implements the function. |
delimiters | messages | Separators in a message that allow a parser to know where one element starts and ends. |
dependency | software design | Recognition that one software component will be adversely affected if another one changes. Most software has dependencies on its operating system, but will also have dependencies of an often deep stack of other software components. |
deployment | software implementation | Act of getting software functionality into the field. |
design by contract | message architecture | Style of message design or service architecture in which "contracts" are established between applications and services regarding allowed calling conventions and service to be provided. |
design by contract | object-oriented design | Style of development in which "contracts" are established between classes in an object-oriented design. Contracts are instantiated as preconditions and postconditions or assertions. |
design time | software | Refers to things that must be changed when the software is being designed (or modified). For example, a scheduling algorithm is normally a design-time choice. However, it is possible to design an architecture in which the algorithm is a run-time option that could be selected by a user or another software component |
developers | people | People who create software. |
dialect | language | Subset of a language agreed to by a group of people. Similar to an ontology, with the members of the group who share the dialect being committed to the ontology. |
dictionary | database | Place where metadata for the definition of tables, columns, and so on are stored. |
dictionary | language | Collection of word definitions, with the purpose of distinguishing closely related words. Most dictionaries contain considerable encyclopedia functionality, which obscures their distinction function. |
dimension | general | Aspect or element from which you can regard something. |
dimension | data warehousing | One of the axes in a data warehouse that can be used to query or summarize the facts in the warehouse. |
directed | model | In a network model the property that says whether the arcs have "arrows." A project plan is "directed" in that the precedent relationships go in a particular direction. A thesaurus is undirected in that the definitions are only related, without having a direction to them. |
directed graph | model | Graph in which the arcs are directed. |
disambiguate | vocabulary | Process of selecting between alternative, ambiguous, interpretations. Conversationally, people do this by asking, "Do you mean x or y?" |
dispatch | message architecture | To send a request to its final destination. A broker dispatches messages. |
distinction | vocabulary | To set up rules for disambiguating closely related concepts. |
DML | data manipulation language | Language that allows agents to access or change data in a database. SQL is by far the most common DML. |
DMOZ | directory Mozilla | Group of volunteers who categorize Web sites. |
DNS | Domain Name Server | Designated node that assigns or tracks names and their relation to devices (e.g., jones.com is at IP 198.243.127.19). |
document | data | The content in a message or other intellectual property. May be encoded in XML, but needn't be. |
document | paper | Physical object in the real world. Lawyers refer to the "wet ink" as being the physical document that has the original signature. |
DOM | document object model | API that allows programmers to access nodes in an XML document. Operates in memory, so not appropriate for extremely large documents. See SAX. |
domain | general | Area under consideration (e.g., the domain of eCommerce or manufacturing). |
domain | relational | Set of all possible values for an attribute. See also range (relational). |
domain | ontology | A constraint on the classes on which a property can be used. |
DSD | document structure description | Early XML schema language. |
DTD | document-type definition | Schema language for SGML and XML. |
Dublin Core | ontology | Standard ontology for documents. |
dynamic | design | Characterized as being able to change at run time. |
EAI | enterprise application integration | Industry and products involved in making the interfacing of applications more economical. |
EBCDIC | extended binary coded decimal interchange code | Mainframe character set. See ASCII. |
ebXML | electronic business XML | United Nations–sponsored standards for eCommerce. |
eCommerce | electronic commerce | Doing business through computers (without human intermediaries). |
EDI | electronic data interchange | Standards for high-volume B2B transactional exchange. |
EER | extended entity relationship | Entity relationship design with inheritance. |
effectivity | versioning | Versioning scheme in which portions of a structure become available or unavailable as of certain dates. A manufacturer may make a model change "date effective," meaning that after a certain date it will manufacture the model in a different way. |
element | XML | Atomic unit of meaning in XML. |
elicit | process | To draw out; especially to draw out the meaning of something from a group of users. |
eMarketplace | eCommerce | Place where people or agents go to meet others involved in trade. |
empiricists | philosophy | Group of eighteenth-century philosophers who believed that most of what we know comes from our senses. |
encrypting | software | Process of obscuring data such that unauthorized users cannot understand it. |
encyclopedia | vocabulary | A description of what is known about a concept. This is distinct from distinguishing one concept from another, closely related, concept. |
entailment | logic | Semantic implication within a context; for example, buying entails paying. |
enterprise | organization | General term for businesses, government organizations, and nonprofit organizations. |
entity | database | Basic element used to construct relational designs. |
epistemology | philosophy | Branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge. |
eProcurement | software | Act of buying over the Internet. |
equivalent | logic | Two representations of the same thing. |
ER | entity relationship | Style of design focused on entities and their relationships to each other. |
ERP | enterprise resource planning | Originally manufacturing resource planning, but generalized for nonmanufacturing companies. Has become synonymous with large-scale integrated applications. |
essential | problem/solution | That which is necessary. Fred Brooks, in The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering (Addison-Wesley, 1975), distinguished between "essence" and "accident" as the two sources of complexity in software systems. The essential part was that which had to do with the problem and could not be gotten rid of. The accidental part was that which we introduced to the problem in attempting to solve it. |
ETL | extract, transform, and load | A data warehouse architecture that separates the population of a data warehouse into three stages: extracting data from the source; transforming it into a form suitable for update; and loading it, which is an efficient posting process. |
evulsive | changes, especially to a system | Rapid, discontinuous change (e.g., a change to a data structure that breaks dependent modules). |
exabyte | data storage | One billion gigabytes (1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes). |
exception | process flow | A non-normal control flow; often an error generated by an environmental issue (e.g., disk full). |
explicit | semantic | Formal expression of knowledge. |
extensible | database or model | Capable of being added to accretively. An extensible data structure is one to which additive changes can easily be made. Relational databases are extensible at the table level, in that columns can be added to tables without requiring programs to be rewritten. |
extensional | model | A set defined by a specific list. The states of the United States is an extensional set. See intensional. |
extract | data warehousing | Select and copy data from a source to be used for subsequent processing. |
fan in/out | modeling | Cardinality of relationship. If an object refers to many other objects, we say it has a high degree of fan out. If it is referred to by many other objects, we say it has a high degree of fan in. |
fat client | architecture | Architecture in which user interface and business logic are on the desktop tier. Drawback is that every change to the system potentially involves complex deployment and rollout to make the changes to all the affected desktops. |
field | data | Legacy system equivalent of a column. |
fine grain | service | Service that does a small unit of work. An example of an extremely fine-grain service would be one that added two numbers together. |
finite autonoma | software | State machine with a finite number of states and transitions. |
firewall | architecture | Component, usually hardware and software, intended to enforce policies of access control to an intranet. |
FOAF | friend of a friend | Ontology about people and their properties. |
folk genera | linguistics | Nonscientific creation of categories for dealing with nature. Deals with the way people make and use categories. |
GAAP | generally accepted accounting practices | Rules about what the categories in financial statements mean; rules about other accounting treatments. |
generalize | ontology | To create a more abstract definition or category. |
geospatial | ontology | Pertaining to locations and regions on the earth. Can be located and reasoned about in terms of area. |
gigabyte | data storage | One billion bytes. |
glossary | vocabulary | Dictionary. |
grain | service | See coarse grain and fine grain. |
grammar | language | Set of rules for ordering vocabulary items. In computer science may be expressed formally (e.g., in a BNF). |
granularity | service | Size of the service; see coarse grain and fine grain. |
graph | model | A model of entities (nodes) connected to relationships (arcs). |
grounding | semantics | Connection of implication to empirical data. How we connect pure thought to the real world. |
GUI | graphic user interface | Presentation of an interface for use by a human, on a graphic screen with a pointing device. |
H2A | human to application | Interface in which a human supplies information to an application. Data entry. |
H2A2H | human to application to human | Traditional application that combines aspects of the application supplying data to the person and vice versa. |
H2H | human to human | A computer application in which the application makes no semantic distinctions and simply passes along uninterpreted information. Email is H2H, except for the header data. |
hiding, data | software design | Design principle in which more maintainable code is promoted by hiding much of the detail of the implementation from the invoker. This allows the called routine to change some details without considering how it will affect other programs. Greatly reduces dependency. |
hierarchy | ontology | Tree-style arrangement of terms or classes in which each child has only one parent (single inheritance). |
histogram | data | Statistics on the frequency of occurrence of keywords by an optimizing routine to make searches faster. |
homonym | linguistics | Two different meanings sharing the same word and the same spelling (e.g., mogul the emperor versus mogul the ski bump). |
HTML | hypertext markup language | Tag language on which the World Wide Web is based. Markup is for presentation only. |
HTTP | hypertext transfer protocol | Standard request to Web servers. Protocol on which much of the World Wide Web is based. |
hype | marketing | Attempt to gain market share by promoting a product as revolutionary or a breakthrough. To substantiate such claims, vendors often craft claims that obfuscate the real capability of products. This can lead to Gartner's "trough of disillusionment."[*] |
hyperbolic | visualization | Style of presenting hierarchic data that recenters the view on a selected item, which allows a user to navigate a complex space more easily. |
hyperlink | document | A one-way reference from one document to another. Originally promoted by Ted Nelson, hyperlinks became implemented in the World Wide Web as the navigational links followed from one Web page to another. |
hypernymy | ontology | Word of a more specific meaning; for example, "Arabian" is a kind of "horse." |
hyponymy | lexical | Inverse of hypernymy; for example, "mammal" is a more general type than "horse." |
idealism | philosophy | Belief that the categories we deduce from observation are imperfect forms of a generalized ideal. |
identify | semantics | To associate the description of an entity with its real-world counterpart. |
identity | semantics | That which we perceive to be permanent about a perceived real-world entity; the identity of a person or an organization |
idiolect | language | Dialect spoken by an individual. |
implementation | software | Instantiation of and conversion to a software application. |
induction | logic | Process of creating categories from instances. Probabilistic reasoning. |
inference | semantics | Reasoning from known propositions. |
infrastructure | software | The environment that must be present for an application to operate. |
inheritance | software | The accretion of properties and behaviors from a hyponym. |
input | software | Act of supplying information to an application. |
instances | software or data | Specific individual groups of data, usually created from some sort of template. In object-oriented systems, calling "new()" on a class creates an object that is of the type of the class. In a database system, inserting a row in a table creates an instance of that entity. |
instantiate | software | The act of creating an instance. |
integrator | person, organization | Humans who build interfaces between applications. |
intellectual property | semantics | Property created by humans; not necessarily tangible. Includes documents, ideas, patents, songs, movies, brands, trade secrets, software, content, databases, and knowledge. |
intensional | model | A set defined by rules. Each time the rules are executed you may get a different set. The set of customers with overdue balances is an intentional set. Opposite of extensional. |
interface | software | Subset of a component's functionality that is presented for other programs to access. Could be a data interface or a behavioral interface. See data hiding. |
interface, user | H2A or A2H | See GUI. |
interfacing | integration | A style of integration that relies on programmed point-to-point interfaces. |
intermediary | eCommerce | One (usually a person or company) who acts as a go-between in eCommerce; attempts to disintermediate (take out) as many intermediaries as possible. |
intermediate | integration | A common representation that allows many interfaces to be written to the common interface instead of to each other. Reduces combinatorial explosion. |
Internet | network | Set of computers that address each other through DNS and URLs, use HTTP for the primary access protocol, and display information in HTML. Global in scope, traveling over public networks, as opposed to intranets. |
interpret | language | Process of making sense out of the world or spoken language. |
interpret | software | To compile source instructions one at a time as needed. This delays binding to machine instructions until run time. |
intranet | network | Use of Internet technologies and tools in a private network. |
inverse of | model | For bidirectional relationships, the one that "goes the other way" ("child" is the inverse of "parent"). |
invoked | software | Called, or executed. |
isa | model | Shorthand for the specialization/ generalization relationship. Basis for inheritance in object-oriented design. See also subsumption. |
iterative | method | Method that approaches a problem by successive reapplications of the same process. Distinct from waterfall style, which attempts to do the design and build processes once. |
J2EE | Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition | Java-based framework for middleware, particularly at the application server level. |
jargon | language | Words in a dialect intended to keep the nonmembers from knowing what's going on. |
join | relational database | In relational databases, process whereby two tables are combined into one based on their sharing of key values. |
junction | database design | Entity whose role it is to resolve many-to-many cardinality relationships. For example, for there to be a relationship between students and classes in a relational design, there must be a junction record. |
key | database design | An attribute or attributes that are designated to identify a particular entity. Social Security number is often used as a key for a "person" entity. |
keyword | content | To find content, we extract some of the less common words from a document and index them back to their location in the document. |
KIF | knowledge interchange format | Standard format for exchanging rules between AI systems. |
knowledge | model | An agent has knowledge of a scenario or context to the extent that it has a model that provides some degree of predictability. |
knowledge level | AI, modeling | Part of a model in which you reason about the behavior of the system rather than its implementation. |
languages | human | The spoken and written utterances that humans use to communicate (e.g., English and Chinese). Each has its own vocabulary, grammar, and ontology. |
languages | computer | Utterances intended to be readable by humans that can be translated into an equivalent set of instructions that can be processed by a computer. Each has its own vocabulary, grammar, and ontology. |
latency | network | The time delay between a request and a reply. Latency is affected by network congestion, the number and type of intermediaries, and the processing done at the receiving site. |
layers | architectures | Separation of an architecture into components, each of which deals with information at different levels of abstraction. The ISO seven-layer protocol for communication is a classic example. Also often referred to as "stack." |
LDBT | long-duration business transaction | Basis for most business processes. LDBTs are events that usually originate from a stimulus outside the company, and take human-scale time to complete. For example, procuring a part could take hours to months, especially to completely close it out by receiving it and paying for it. |
legacy | system | An older application. May frustrate sponsors because it is difficult to change, no one knows exactly what it does, or components on which it is dependent are becoming obsolete. |
lexical | language | Pertaining to words, as in a lexical analysis of text. |
lexicographer | language | Person who writes dictionaries. |
lexicon | vocabulary | Computer-readable dictionary of attributes. |
linguistic | language | Pertaining to language. |
literal | data | Constant variable (sounds like an oxymoron). |
loose coupling | architecture | Arrangement whereby components are attached in a way that makes them easier to detach and reattach at run time, promoting easier change. |
lumpers | categorizers | A category of categorizers who tend to group things into fewer, larger categories. |
made item | semantic | Physically discrete item, with persistent identity, that was manufactured. |
magnitude | semantic | Measurement on one of these dimensions: distance, mass, or time. |
mainframe | architecture | Older-style centralized computer architecture, still supporting a huge number of legacy applications. |
maintainability | software | Property of an application that makes it easier to change; includes desirable features such as high cohesion, loose coupling, literate programming, low cyclomatic complexity, and good documentation. |
mandatory | model | In a relationship, a constraint that a particular relationship must have at least one successor. |
Markov | algorithm | Statistical algorithm for finding patterns and predicting similarity in unstructured documents. |
markup | language | Annotating documents by inserting matching tags to offset certain sections. |
marshal | communication | To serialize a set of data for transmission. |
mereology | semantics | Study of part/whole relationships. |
meronomy | semantics | Terms related through a part/whole relationship (sometimes called metonymy). |
message | architecture | A request or reply expressed in data; often expressed as an XML document. |
message | object-oriented design | Object-oriented design refers to a method call as a message, even though it is a function call. |
message broker | software | A software intermediary that dispatches messages to their correct site. |
message-oriented middleware | architecture | Style of architecture that features intercomponent communication through messages and message routing through a message broker. |
meta | general | To transcend or go above. For most of computer science it means "about," as in "metadata is data about data." |
metadata | data | Data about data. Includes data that describes how data is stored, where it is stored, how it is validated, and what it means. |
metametadata | data | Data about metadata (usually at a high level of abstraction). |
metapattern | architecture | An architecture that takes context as one of its central premises. |
metaphysics | philosophy | Branch of philosophy that deals with understanding the fundamental nature of everything, particularly the relationship of mind to matter. |
method | object-oriented design | Function bound to a class. |
middleware | software | Non-application-specific software that performs infrastructure tasks. |
model-theoretic semantics | semantics | An account of meaning in which sentences are interpreted in terms of a model of, or an abstract formal structure representing, an actual or possible state of the world. |
MOM | message-oriented middleware | See message-oriented middleware. |
MRP | manufacturing resource planning | Application that manages most of the functions of a manufacturing company. |
multiple inheritance | software/ontologies | Framework that allows classes to inherit from more than one parent. |
MVC | model view controller | Design paradigm for GUI applications that separates the underlying model (what is being manipulated) from the view (the presentation of the model) and from the controller (the set of events that are allowed to be performed by the user). By overlaying the controller functions on the view, it creates the illusion of direct manipulation. |
mycophagist | food | Someone who eats mushrooms. |
N3 | Notation3 | Shorthand way of writing RDF. |
NAICS | North American Industrial Classification System | Revised taxonomy of business classification; replaces Standard Industrial Code (SIC). |
n-airty | relation | See valence. |
namespace | semantics | Domain within which a name is guaranteed to be unique and findable. |
navigational | data model, UI | Refers to following a series of links or pointers to accomplish a task. A navigational user interface has users go from screen to screen to accomplish a task (as opposed to a composite application). A navigational data model relies on a programmer traversing pointers to get to additional data. |
net (.net) | software | Microsoft's XML-based framework. |
network | computer system | Topologic arrangement of hardware and connections to allow access to shared components. |
network | model | Graph where nodes can have more than one entrance arc, as distinct from a hierarchy that allows only one inbound link. |
NIAM | Nijssen's information analysis method | Predecessor to ORM. |
NLP | natural language processing | Branch of artificial intelligence that deals with interpreting and generating humanlike speech. |
NLP | neurolinguistic programming | Discipline within therapy that deals with how language reveals impoverished mental models that prevent people from accomplishing their goals. |
nomenclature | vocabulary | Set of names for terms in a given domain. |
nominalization | linguistics | To convert a verb to a noun. Used in software programs to create a handle for a method. |
normalization | database | Arrangement of attributes to tables in a relational design so as to avoid update anomalies. Ensuring that each property is dependent only on the primary keys of its table. |
Notation3 | semantics | Shorthand way of writing RDF. |
OCR | optical character recognition | Applications that can read typed or handwritten characters and convert to ASCII text. |
ODBC | open database connectivity | Standard to allow programmers to write to an abstract relational database layer and delay binding until run time. |
OIL | ontology inference layer | Standard for defining ontologies. |
OMG | object management group | Nonprofit organization that promotes open systems standards. |
ontology | semantics | Specification of a conceptualization. |
OO | object oriented | A style of software development organized around classes of objects, in which the code encapsulates the data. Promotes data hiding and cohesion. Class inheritance implements typing, as well as code reuse. |
open systems | computer systems | Computer systems where at least the interfaces and very often the implementation is publically available and not controlled by a single entity. |
orchestration | work flow | Preset direction of flow of activity. Synonymous with choreography. |
ORM | object role modeling | Conceptual design notation focused on role modeling. Enables good modeling, especially for relationships of higher valence. |
orthogonal | categorization | Literally "at right angles." Refers to finding aspects of categorization that are as independent of each other as possible. |
OWL | Web ontology language | Successor to DAML + OIL; a proposed W3C standard. Note: Dyslexic acronym is attributed to the owl in Winnie the Pooh who spelled his name WOL. |
package | application | Predeveloped generic application; an application software package. |
package | software development | Unit of deployment for software, usually consisting of many OO classes. |
parse | software | To separate an incoming stream of data into its constituent parts based on a grammar and various delimiters. |
PCDATA | XML/HTML | "Parse-able" character data; refers to text that can be parsed. See also CDATA. |
PDA | personal digital assistant | Handheld computer typically for contact lists, calendar, and to-do lists. |
perception | mind | Process whereby humans discern order in a complex world. |
phenomenology | philosophy | Philosophy that reality consists of objects and events as perceived by human consciousness. Similar to the philosophy of the sophists. |
platform | computers | Standard environment in which an application operates. Typically a family of compatible hardware and operating systems defines a platform; database management systems may also define a platform, as may the Internet protocols. |
polymorphism | object-oriented design | Literally "to take many forms." In object-oriented design, subclasses of a class implement the public interface to the parent class in such a way that a message sent to a collection of parents and children would be responded to by each appropriately, without the caller knowing. |
polysemous | linguistics | Word with multiple related meanings (e.g., mouth, the anatomic opening, and mouth, the opening of a cave). |
portal | UI | Composite application presented through a Web front end. Often an attempt to bring all the interfaces available to a particular group of users to one point. |
pragmatism | philosophy | Philosophy that holds that both the meaning and the truth of any idea is a function of its practical outome. |
precision, semantic | semantics | The degree of refinement or specificity applied to a particular semantic categorization. For example, car repair manual is a more semantically precise term than document, even though both may be equally accurate. |
precompiler | software | A processor that runs before the primary compiler; may expand copybooks, "includes," and so on. |
preconditions | software design | Assertions in design by contract that are enforced to be true prior to method executing. |
predicate | logic | A statement you can make about something that can be evaluated later as true or false. |
primary key | relational design | The unique identifier for instances of an entity. For example, in a customer table, we might declare that CustomerID is to be the primary key and therefore the unique identifier. |
primitive | semantics | Types that are atomic and have no supertypes. Some maintain that there are a few semantic primitives from which all business-related applications can be built. |
procedural | programming | Coding style in which flow of control is explicitly expressed by the programmer. |
procedure | software | A coherent grouping of code. |
procedure | work flow | Instructions for human users of computer systems that augment the built-in work flow. |
processes | work flow | Higher-level abstractions of end-to-end business processes. |
production | implementation | Area where the versions of applications that are approved for use by end users are kept. |
program | software (verb) | To reduce an algorithm to code, usually procedural code. |
program | software (noun) | A compilable unit of code. |
projection | database | The set of return values desired from a query. |
property | semantic | That which is subject to ownership. Can be tangible or intellectual. |
property | model | In object-oriented design, either an attribute or a relationship. |
proprietary | software | Infrastructure in which the public interface is controlled by a single company or a small number of companies. Sometimes refers to single-company implementations of an open interface. |
protocol | communications | Rules governing transmitting and receiving data. |
prototypes | linguistics | A way of defining categories around exemplar representatives (e.g., a robin may be a prototype for the category "bird"). |
prototypes | software | Artifact in iterative development in which a disposable version of a user interface is presented to users and sponsors to allow them to clarify their requirements. |
publish | message | At the occurrence of a predefined event, message is sent to all components that have indicated an interest by previously subscribing. |
publish/subscribe | architecture | Style of interaction in which the consumers of information indicate that they are interested in certain types of changes from certain sources. When the change occurs they are notified via a message. This is instead of either continual polling, asking for the information when you need it (but it may not be available), or batching interfaces. |
QOS | quality of service | Measure of the goodness of a communication channel (dropped packets, etc.). |
query | database (noun) | A declarative statement describing the data set that a user or program wants to obtain from a database. |
query | application (verb) | To request information from a data store. |
queue | infrastructure | Temporary storage for unprocessed messages; allows called process to operate more efficiently and ensures that all messages are processed. |
range | relational | A restricted set of the domain of values to which an attribute can belong. |
range | ontology | Restriction on the values of which a property must be a member. |
RDF | resource description framework | Basic model for expressing knowledge in the Semantic Web. |
RDFS | RDF schema | Adds schema properties to RDF, such as "subclass" and "inverse." |
reachable | network | The set of all nodes in a graph that can be arrived at by traversing arcs. |
recursive | programming | Flow of control in which a module calls a new instance of itself an indefinite number of times. |
reference | model | To establish a one-way relationship to an object (point to). |
referential integrity | database | Property of database management system that allows it to manage the relationship of instances in different tables such that a change or deletion in one table does not invalidate information in another. Referential integrity would prevent the deletion of a customer if there were still orders outstanding for that customer. |
reify | semantics | To treat an abstraction as if it were real. Marriage is the reification of a relationship, as are most entities in most databases. |
relational | database | Database characterized by implementation of relationships by matching key values in different tables. |
relationship | model | Named link between two objects that defines the kind of relationship instances might have. In business rules, a relationship is a fact. |
relationship | instance | Set of pointers to other objects that a particular object is associated with via a named relationship. |
repartitioning | architecture | Intentional effort to redefine the boundaries of a set of applications to achieve better cohesion at the application level, as well as potentially looser coupling. |
repeaters | data structures | Parts of a data structure that occur more than once. May be a fixed number of repeaters. The number may be defined in a header record, or it may be undefined until a particular delimiter is encountered. Common in EDI and older data structures. |
repository | metadata | Place to persistently store metadata. A database for metadata. |
request | message | Type of message intended to solicit information; reply is called a response. |
resource | RDF | In RDF terms, a URI or a literal. |
response | message | Reply to request containing information. |
rich client | architecture | Generalized client that is able to mimic much of the behavior of a fat client interface, allowing the user interface to be more responsive without having application specific client side code. |
rights | semantic | Ownership primitives that indicate what an owner can do with owned property. |
rigidity | architecture | Property of a system that makes it hard to change, generally due to overimplementation of dependencies. |
RMI | remote method invocation | J2EE method of invoking behavior on remote components. |
robust | architecture | Designed in a way that is resilient to adverse events in the environment. |
routing | middleware | Dynamic determination of destination of a message. |
RozettaNet | eCommerce | Standards for supply chain eCommerce. |
RPC | remote procedure call | Mechanism for invoking a component on another platform. Usually requires binding to the specific RPC technology. |
RuleML | XML | XML standard for expressing rules. |
run time | software | Refers to things that can change when the program is running as opposed to those things that must be changed when the program is being designed (or compiled). Shifting things (e.g., hardware, software, data) from design time to run time can make the system much more flexible. |
RUP | rational unified process | Methodology promoted by Rational Corporation; uses UML and promotes iterative development. |
SAML | security assertions markup language | Standard way to indicate authorizations. |
SAX | simple API for XML | Programmable interface for an XML document that doesn't require it all be in memory. |
scale | architecture | Ability to process larger volumes of work. Often requires an architecture that allows replication of processing units without a bottleneck. |
schema | XML | Allowable tags and their sequencing, usually expressed in DTD or XSD. |
schema | database | Data definition for tables. |
SCM | supply chain management | Application, or integration effort, to allow a company to have more oversight of the parts vendors, all the way through the chain of suppliers to the extractive vendors. |
scope | application | Size or boundary. Scope may be described in terms of functions to be automated, or it may be defined in terms of degree of semantic precision required. |
SDM | semantic data modeling | Conceptual database modeling based on semantics. |
semantic | philosophy | Concerned with the study of meaning (often the meaning of words). In business systems we are concerned with making the meaning of data explicit (structuring unstructured data), as well as making it explicit enough that an agent could reason about it. |
Semantic Web | network | Next-generation Internet in which all the content is tagged with semantic tags and committed to ontologies. An interlinking of ontologies will allow agents to reason about information only tangentially connected (and not previously connected by their creators). |
semiotics | philosophy | Branch of linguistic study primarily concerned with human use of signs, symbols, syntax, and semantics. |
sentient | mind | Capable of reasoning. Alternative definition includes being capable of feeling, but that has no applicability for business systems. |
service | software (noun) | A software component that is accessed via a message. Typically the component executes on its own platform in its own environment, and only the result is sent back to the caller. Most non–service-based architectures involve the component executing in the caller's environment. |
SGML | standard generalized markup language | Early tagged document markup language. Was popular for complex document creation, but complexity of language led to it being largely superceded by HTML and XML. |
SHOE | simple HTML ontology extension | An early project to extend HTML with semantic tags. |
shredding | XML | Parsing an XML document into its constituent parts to be stored atomically in a relational database. |
similarity | semantics | Lexical relations of words with related meaning. For example, "gluttonous" is similar to "greedy." |
SKU | stock-keeping unit | Level of semantic precision used by inventory control systems. If red and blue widgets are interchangeable at the point of use, they will be identified by the same SKU number. |
SOA | service-oriented architecture | Application architecture organized around the use of services, including Web Services. |
SOAP | simple object access protocol | Wrapper for Web Service requests that allows them to be invoked across the Internet, including through firewalls. |
SODA | service-oriented development architecture | See SOA. |
software | computer systems | Intellectual property that imposes semantic meaning on input from humans or devices to which it is attached. |
SOI | service-oriented integration | Performing EAI using service-based technologies. |
sophists | philosophy | Group of philosophers who believed that the world existed only to the extent it was perceived. "Man is the measure of all things" was a saying of the sophists. |
source | messaging | Point of origination of a request. May be important for auditability and security. |
source code | software | Human-readable procedural or declarative statements that can be compiled into equivalent machine-executable code. |
specialization | ontology | Increasing semantic precision by subtyping. Almost an exact antonym to generalization, but there are a few obscure conditions where generalization and specialization are not inverses. |
specs (specifications) | software | Reduction of requirements or design into a document to be used to direct further development. |
splitters | ontology | People who are inclined to create new categories whenever new distinctions come up. |
SQL | Structured Query Language | Declarative language for expressing queries and updates to relational databases. |
state | object-oriented development | The values of all the properties of an object at a specific time. |
state | software | A special type of category that allows the item being referenced to dynamically change properties as it changes state. Historically implemented in code or in a finite-state machine. |
stateless | service | Property of a service that allows it to scale. The service does not maintain state (object-oriented style state) between invocations, so the next time a request is made it need not go back to the previous service. |
static | object-oriented development | Methods that operate at the class level and do not need an instance to function. |
static | software | Fixed binding or linkage. Not dynamic. Static linking cannot change at run time, as opposed to dynamic linking, which can. |
status | category | Same as state (category), usually referring to the state of physical items or long-duration business transactions (e.g., "What is the status of this order?"). |
store | database | To record data in a nonvolatile medium (the data will be retained even if the power is turned off or a program crashes). |
STP | straight-through processing | Early acronym for what is now called Real Time Enterprise (RTE). |
stub | software | Small bit of software. Sometimes refers to the start of a program generated by a case tool. May also refer to the bit of code that binds a request to a platform and API. |
style sheet | declarative | Set of structured hints to be applied to a family of documents to create a particular type of display. |
subroutines | software | Software modules usually compiled at the same time, and linked in with the calling program, but still obeying the rules of data hiding by only referring to shared data through the defined calling interface. |
subscribe | message | Indicate to potential publisher of messages that a component is interested in receiving notification in the event of a change. |
substance | philosophy | Physical material (e.g., "lumber" consists of the substance "wood"). |
subsumption | ontology | To classify, include, or incorporate in a more comprehensive category or under a general principle. The "isa" relationship. |
subtypes | ontology | A proper subtype "is" one of its parent types, more specifically a specialization of that type. |
Swetsville Zoo | place | Private park in Fort Collins where you can visit creatures made from surplus parts. |
syllogism | philosophy | Style of inductive logic that starts with a generalization (all men are mortal), includes a categorization (Socrates is a man), and concludes with a semantic entailment or the instance taking on an attribute of the category (Socrates is mortal). |
symbolic | AI or formal semantics | Semantic reasoning with variables substituted for semantically known objects. Conclusions drawn at this level are universally true. |
synchronous | messaging | Message style in which the requestor blocks and waits for a reply. |
synonymy | ontology | Two terms that mean the same thing. As pointed out by John Saeed, there are few true synonyms.[*] |
syntactic | semiotics | Concerning the grammar order or special characters in a document or message. |
table | relational | Storage place for entities in a relational database. All entities are stored in tables, with each column representing an attribute. |
tacit | semantics | That which has not been expressed in formal terms. Tacit knowledge may be knowledge we have without knowing that we have it. |
tag | markup | Delimiters that also contain information. Most common type are matched tags such as 〈t〉42〈/t〉, which is the number 42 tagged by the tag "t." |
taxonomy | semantics | A vocabulary ordered into a hierarchy, generally to find terms easily, and also to subtype the terms. |
TBL | Tim Berners-Lee | WWW inventor; often goes by his initials. |
technology | semantics | Application of knowledge to a problem area to improve performance or reduce use of resources. Clothing is a technology for conserving body heat. Vendors of software products would have you believe that their product is a technology for conserving something or performing something better. |
templates | software | Preexisting outline that allows for the generation of new data conforming to the patten of the template. In object-oriented development a class is the template for the creation of a new object, but much more complex templates are possible. |
temporal | semantic | Pertaining to time. Events and plans are temporal entities. |
terabyte | storage | One thousand gigabytes. Data warehouses with a terabyte of information are now common. |
term | business rule | Semantic object. Vocabulary item. The basic building block of facts and rules. |
term | ontology | A label on a concept. |
text | semantics | A portion of a document expressed in characters (as opposed to sound or graphics). |
thing | semantics | Often the top of a generalization tree. This is the top object in the Cyc ontology. Some ontologies restrict "thing" to tangible real-world items with persistence. |
tier | architecture | Original computer architectures were monolithic in that all processing occurred on a single machine. Over time, separation of concerns led to more flexible architectures by separating processing into different tiers. Two-tier systems typically had a fat client processing user interface and business logic on one tier (the desktop) and persistence on another tier (the database server). Three-tier architectures added a third layer in the middle (the application server) where most of the business logic migrated to. Current architectures are n tiered, where n is some positive integer. |
time now | temporal | Concept of "now" implemented in systems. Should be expressed in Universal time (Greenwich Mean Time) to prevent issues with servers in different time zones recording the same fact differently. Many temporal functions should be expressed in terms of time now (e.g., a task planned to start at some time before "time now" is probably late if there is no actual start time). |
tipping point | fashion and epidemiology | A characteristic of complex systems that a particular phenomenon can exist for a long time until conditions are right for it to reach epidemic proportions. The inflexion point has been referred to by Malcolm Gladwell as the tipping point. |
token | parsing | The unit to which a parser divides text for subsequent processing. For a tagged markup such as an XML document, this is the data between the tags (recursively). |
topology | network | The spatial layout and interconnectedness of any type of network. We may speak of the topology of the hardware network, but we could also speak of the topology of an ontology (e.g., how much fan in/fan out exists). |
traffic | network | Number of packets traversing a network. |
transaction | database | An atomic unit of work that either succeeds or fails. |
tree | model | A directed graph in which nodes are not referred to by more than one node (children do not have more than one parent). |
trigger | database | Routine attached to a database table that is guaranteed to fire (execute) in the event of a prespecified occurrence (e.g., the updating of a particular attribute). The trigger will typically send a message, or side effect, that may update other tables in the database. Similar in structure to a publish/subscribe in which the publishers and subscribers are tables instead of programs and the database management system is managing the subscriptions. |
triple | RDF | Knowledge expressed in a three-part grammar, which has been called "subject, predicate, object," as well as "resource, property, values." |
truth conditions | semantics | The conditions under which a sentence or a proposition expressed by it is true; for example, the statement "I have red hair" is true under the condition that the speaker has, in fact, red hair. It is not true in the abstract, but only when grounded. |
Turing test | AI | Litmus test of artificial intelligence: Can a program fool enough people into believing that it is human that we should ascribe "intelligence" to it? |
UDDI | universal description, discovery, and integration | Standard for a registry or yellow pages for finding services. |
UML | unified modeling language | Modeling language for object-oriented development popularized by Rational Corporation. |
UMLS | unified medical language system | Ontology of medical terms used for searching medical literature. |
unambiguous | semantic | Refers to specific item or category in requisite level of semantic precision. |
unary | relation | One-way relation; pointer. Most relations are binary, which means they are automatically maintained both ways and can be traversed both ways. |
Unicode | character set | Character set rich enough to represent non–Latin-based languages, such as Chinese and Burmese. |
unique | constraint | There cannot be more than one equivalent item of this type within the scope indicated. We may say that customer numbers must be unique (within our organization or database) or we may say that there can only be one successor on a relationship, meaning there can't be more than one of that type in that set. |
unstructured data | documents | Data (textual, video, sound, graphics) that has not been interpreted, tagged, or structured. |
URI | uniform resource identifier | Unambiguous location of a resource in RDF. |
URL | uniform resource locator | A resolvable location on the reachable Internet. |
user | software | The role of a person relative to a particular application. For agents it is the person on whom the agent is working. Note that in both cases the user's identity is what confers security and authority. |
valence | relation | Number of type of successors to a relationship. Also called the "n-arity." Most relationships have a valence of 2 (binary relationships), but relationships with a valence of 3 or 4 are not uncommon. |
validation | XML/HTML | Determination that a document obeys all the rules set out in its schema. |
veracity | semantics | Degree to which we believe something to be true. High veracity = high degree in belief in the truth of the assertion. |
version | software, semantics | Modification of a basic instance that shares the same identifier. We can have different versions of a document that all contain the same basic document identifier. We can have different versions of an ontology, perhaps with date effectivity. |
view | relational | A subset of a database as defined by a query. |
vocabulary | semantics | List of terms in a particular dialect, often with definitions. |
VRML | virtual reality markup language | Description of a three-dimensional space, in a tagged document. |
W3C | World Wide Web Consortium | Nonprofit organization responsible for maintaining the standards on which the World Wide Web is based. |
warehouse | database | A copy of the operational data of a firm, stored to optimize analytic retrieval instead of updates. Also organized to be robust in regard to changes in the structure of the operational databases or the hierarchic roll-ups of the dimensions. |
Water | XML | A scripting language for building XML-based Web sites. |
waterfall | methodology | A style of development that progresses sequentially through a series of tasks to develop a software product. As opposed to iterative or agile methods. |
Web Services | architecture | RPC in which the request is in XML. Allows caller and receiver to be in different technologies as long as each can queue the message and process the XML request or response. |
well formedness | XML/HTML | Property that a given tagged document adheres to the rules of documents of that type (e.g., all the tags match). Does not require a schema. See validation. Note that most HTML tools and browsers have become slack on well formedness, to the point where one cannot rely on HTML tags matching. |
WordNet | ontology | Open-source English language repository of meaning of one-half million concepts. Many of the concepts have hypernymy, polysymy, and mereologic links. |
work flow | process | A prespecified sequence of human and computer activities that should complete a business activity. |
WSCI | Web Services choreography interface | Describes the flow of messages exchanged by Web Services in choreographed exchange. Pronounced "whiskey." |
WSDL | Web Services description language | A description of the XML needed to invoke a specific Web Service. Pronounced "whizdull." |
WSFL | Web Services flow language | Predecessor to BPEL4WS. |
WWW | World Wide Web | The layer on top of the Internet that most people now think of as the Internet. Includes Web servers that are reachable by URLs and DNS, that accept HTTP requests on port 80, and that serve up user interfaces in HTML. |
XCBL | XML common business library | Language promoted by CommerceOne for use in B2B eMarketplaces. |
XDR | XML data reduced | Earlier version of XSD. |
XLANG | work flow | Earlier version of BPEL4WS, expressly for Biztalk orchestration. |
XMI | XML metadata interchange | Standard for interchanging metadata. |
XML | extensible markup language | Tagged markup language, to which the tag set can be added. Note: It is considered poor form to capitalize the X in extensible. |
XP | extreme programming | First of the agile methods, focused on pair programming, test as you go, and refactoring. |
XP | operating system | Recent version of Microsoft Windows. |
XPath | XML | Declarative way to define a subset of an XML document that you are interested in. Robust to many structural changes to the document. |
XQuery | XML | Query language for retrieving data from an XML document or XML database. |
XSD | XML schema | Schema language for XML, expressed in XML (as opposed to DTD, which was not in XML). |
XSL | XML style sheet language | Declarative language creating a style sheet for XML documents. |
XSLT | extensible style sheet language transformation | Extension to XSL that includes more structural changes to an XML document. |
Y2K | year 2000 "Armageddon" | Remediation spending on legacy systems that were not, or were not believed to be, capable of processing in the new millennium due to ambiguity about century years in dates. |
ZLE | zero-latency enterprise | Result of integrating a firm's processes in such a way that all the latency (especially the human-caused and batch-caused latency) has been removed and end-to-end processing happened immediately. |
[*]Ted Nelson, Literary Machines. San Antonio: Project Xanadu, 1987.
[*]John Saeed, Semantics. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1997. |