Glossary

Common terms that you may encounter on this site.

c
CCK
CCK

Content Construction Kit - a Drupal module that allows you to create new content types

COTS

Commercial Off The Shelf - a readily available, and usually costly, application system.

CSS
CSS

Cascading Style Sheet - a hierarchical means of specifying how to format HTML elements on the page

d
Database

A collection of data related to an application.

See also: MySQL
Dreamweaver
Dreamweaver

An application set that is designed to produce web sites and edit code. For some uses, it constitutes an IDE, in others it is inadequate for that.

See also: IDE
Drupal
Drupal

Drupal<

An open-source content management system that is used on this site and is taking over the world.

See also: Module
e
Eclipse

An Open Source application that provides the framework for an IDE.

See also: IDE
f
FAQ

Frequently Asked Question - most web sites get questions; the owner may collect the frequent ones to be easily asnwered.

h
HTML

HyperText Markup Language - the coding standard for a web page.

See also: link, PHP
i
IDE

Interactive Deveopment Environment - a collection of tools or applications that allow a developer to produce, test, and document code.

See also: Dreamweaver, Eclipse
l
link

The technique which points to another page, anywhere on the Internet, from the current page.

See also: HTML
Linux

A Unix variant that has become very popular. It has itself spawned numerous variants, although not all of those enjoy open-source status.

See also: Unix
m
Module
Module

An add-on, or extension, to Drupal to provide additional functionality; written in PHP.

See also: Drupal, PHP
MySQL
MySQL

An implementation of a relational database using the standardized SQL.

See also: Database, relational database, SQL
n
Nancy Wichmann
Nancy Wichmann

The beautiful, intelligent woman who runs this site.

p
PHP
PHP

Recursive acronym for "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.

See also: HTML, Module
PMP

Project Management Professional is a certification issued by the Project Management Institute< and is sort of like a CPA for project managers. The certification requires a certain amount of base and continuing education, experience, and passing a monstrous test. Some employers require it for project managers.

r
relational database

A type of database that more closely resembles a flat file, yet is accessible by a full-featured query specification.

See also: MySQL, SQL
s
site

A logically grouped set of content - also web site.

Site Documentation
Site Documentation

A Drupal contributed module by Nancy Wichmann for gathering information about the installation.

Site Notes
Site Notes

A Drupal contributed module by Nancy Wichmann for hidden design or how-to notes.

Spam

Unsolicited email or web site postings that are undesirable, usually containing links to other sites.

SQL

Structured Query Language - a language for accessing a database.

See also: MySQL, relational database
t
Theme

For web sites, this refers to the "look and feel" of the site. It is also used to describe the code to produce that look.

u
Unix

An alternative computer operating system originally intended to be smaller than mainstream OS's. It is the basis for other OS's such as Linux and even provided some inspiration for Windows.

See also: Linux