Programming Glossary

Also: Application Programming Interface · REST API · endpoint

An API (application programming interface) is a defined contract through which one piece of software provides functionality or data to another, specifying available operations, expected inputs, and returned outputs.

Also: continuous integration · continuous delivery · build pipeline

CI/CD (continuous integration and continuous delivery) is the practice of automatically building, testing, and deploying code changes, so that every commit is verified and releases become routine rather than exceptional events.

Also: pull request review · peer review · PR review

Code review is the practice of having changes examined by other engineers before they are merged, catching defects, spreading knowledge, and maintaining consistency across a codebase.

Also: compilation · JIT · transpiler

A compiler translates source code written in one language into another form — typically machine code or bytecode — performing analysis and optimisation along the way.

Also: fuzz testing · coverage-guided fuzzing · AFL

Fuzzing is an automated testing technique that feeds a program large volumes of malformed, unexpected, or random input to discover crashes, hangs, and memory-safety violations.

Also: idempotent operation · idempotency key

An operation is idempotent if performing it multiple times produces the same result as performing it once, which allows a client to safely retry a request without risking duplicate side effects.

Also: telemetry · tracing · OpenTelemetry

Observability is the degree to which a system's internal state can be understood from its external outputs — logs, metrics, and traces — particularly for diagnosing problems nobody anticipated.

Also: throttling · token bucket · backpressure

Rate limiting restricts how many requests a client may make within a time window, protecting a service from overload, abuse, and runaway costs while ensuring capacity remains available to other users.

Also: RESTful · GraphQL · gRPC

REST (Representational State Transfer) is an architectural style for networked applications in which resources are identified by URLs and manipulated through standard HTTP methods, with each request carrying all context needed to process it.

Also: Rust language · borrow checker · ownership model

Rust is a systems programming language that guarantees memory safety without garbage collection, using a compile-time ownership and borrowing model to eliminate entire classes of bugs including use-after-free and data races.

Also: SAST · linting · static application security testing

Static analysis examines source code without executing it, detecting bugs, security vulnerabilities, and style violations by reasoning about possible program behaviours.

Also: tech debt · code debt

Technical debt is the accumulated future cost of choosing an expedient implementation over a better one, analogous to financial debt in that it carries ongoing interest in the form of slower development and higher defect rates.

Also: static typing · type checking · TypeScript

A type system is a set of rules that assigns types to program constructs and verifies their consistent use, catching a class of errors before the program runs in statically-typed languages, or during execution in dynamically-typed ones.

Also: HTTP callback · event notification

A webhook is an HTTP request sent automatically from one system to another when an event occurs, allowing the receiver to react immediately rather than repeatedly polling for changes.