D

Domain-Driven Design(DDD)

An approach to software development that centers the design on a complex domain and its logic, using a shared model between technical and business experts.

dev

Domain Name System(DNS)

The hierarchical and decentralized naming system for computers, services, or other resources connected to the Internet.

cloud

Doping (Semiconductor)

The intentional introduction of impurities into an intrinsic semiconductor to modulate its electrical properties.

hardware

DORA Metrics(DORA)

A set of four key metrics identified by the DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA) group to measure the performance of software delivery teams.

dev

Dot1q(802.1Q)

The industry-standard protocol for VLAN tagging on Ethernet networks.

network

Double Data Rate(DDR)

A class of memory integrated circuits that transfer data on both the rising and falling edges of the clock signal.

hardware

Double Spending

The risk that a digital currency can be spent more than once, which blockchain prevents through consensus.

web

DREAD Model(DREAD)

A risk assessment model used to rate and prioritize security threats based on five key criteria.

security

Dropout

A regularization technique where randomly selected neurons are ignored during training, preventing them from co-adapting too much.

ai

DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself)(DRY)

A principle of software development aimed at reducing repetition of software patterns, replacing it with abstractions or using data normalization.

dev

DVI(DVI)

Digital Visual Interface; a video display interface used to connect a video source to a display device.

hardware

Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)(DAST)

A security testing methodology that evaluates a running application from the outside to find vulnerabilities that an attacker could exploit.

security

Dynamic RAM(DRAM)

A type of random-access memory that stores each bit of data in a separate capacitor within an integrated circuit.

hardware

Dynamic Routing

A process where routers automatically discover and maintain routes using routing protocols to adapt to network changes.

network

Dynamic Service Discovery

The process of automatically detecting devices and services on a computer network.

dev

Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling(DVFS)

A power management technique where the voltage and clock frequency of a processor are adjusted on the fly based on workload.

hardware

E

Early Stopping

A regularization technique that involves stopping the training process as soon as the model's performance on a validation set begins to decline.

ai

Eclipse Attack

An attack where a malicious actor isolates a specific node from the rest of the network by controlling its connections.

web

ECMAScript(ES6+)

The standardized specification for JavaScript, ensuring consistency across different web browsers and environments.

web

Edge AI

The deployment of AI algorithms directly on local devices (like smartphones, IoT sensors, or cameras) rather than on centralized cloud servers.

ai

Edge Computing

A distributed computing paradigm that brings computation and data storage closer to the sources of data, such as IoT devices or edge nodes.

cloud

Edge Networking

A distributed computing topology where information processing is located close to the edge—where things and people produce or consume that information.

network

Egress

Network traffic that leaves a network or a Kubernetes cluster to an external destination.

cloud

EIGRP(EIGRP)

An advanced distance-vector routing protocol developed by Cisco that incorporates features of link-state protocols.

network

Elasticity

The ability of a system to dynamically scale its resources up or down in response to changing demand.

dev

Elastic Load Balancing(ELB)

A managed service that automatically distributes incoming application traffic across multiple targets, such as virtual machines, containers, and IP addresses.

cloud

ELK Stack

A popular collection of three open-source projects—Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana—used for searching, analyzing, and visualizing log data.

cloud

ELT(ELT)

A data integration process where data is extracted and loaded into the target system, and then transformed within the target system.

ai

Embedding

A numerical representation of data in a high-dimensional space where similar items are located closer together.

ai

Embedding Space

The high-dimensional mathematical space where data points (like words or images) are mapped as vectors based on their semantic meaning.

ai

Encoder-Decoder Architecture

A neural network design consisting of two main parts: an encoder that processes the input into a context vector, and a decoder that generates the output from that vector.

ai

Encrypted Media Extensions(EME)

A browser API that provides a standardized interface for playing back DRM-protected (Digital Rights Management) video and audio content.

web

Encryption at Rest

The protection of data that is stored on a physical medium using encryption.

security

Encryption in Transit

The protection of data as it moves from one location to another using encryption.

security

Endpoint Detection and Response(EDR)

A security solution that continuously monitors end-user devices to detect and respond to cyber threats like ransomware and malware.

security

Endpoint Security

The practice of securing endpoints or entry points of end-user devices such as desktops, laptops, and mobile devices from being exploited by malicious actors.

security

End-to-End Encryption(E2EE)

A system of communication where only the communicating users can read the messages, preventing third parties from accessing the content.

security

Envoy

An open-source edge and service proxy designed for cloud-native applications.

cloud

Epoch

One complete pass of the entire training dataset through the machine learning algorithm.

ai

ERC-1155

A multi-token standard on Ethereum that supports both fungible and non-fungible tokens.

web

ERC-20

A technical standard for fungible tokens on the Ethereum blockchain.

web

ERC-721

A technical standard for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Ethereum.

web

Error Budget

A Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) concept that defines the maximum amount of time a technical system can fail without contractual consequences.

dev

Error Budget Policy

A formal agreement that defines the actions to be taken when a service's error budget is exhausted.

dev

Error Detection

The process of identifying that data has been corrupted during transmission over a network.

network

ETag

An HTTP response header that provides a unique identifier for a specific version of a resource, used for cache validation.

web

Etching (Semiconductor)

The process of removing layers from the surface of a wafer during manufacturing to create circuit patterns.

hardware

EtherChannel

A technology that allows multiple physical Ethernet links to be combined into a single logical link for increased bandwidth and redundancy.

network

Ethereum(ETH)

An open-source, blockchain-based platform that enables developers to build and deploy decentralized applications (dApps) using smart contracts.

web

Ethereum Improvement Proposal(EIP)

A design document describing a new feature or process for the Ethereum network.

web

Ethernet

The most widely used technology for wired local area networks (LANs), defining wiring and signaling standards.

network

ETL(ETL)

A type of data integration that refers to the three steps (extract, transform, load) used to blend data from multiple sources.

ai

Event Bus

A serverless event router that makes it easy to connect applications using data from your own apps, integrated SaaS apps, and cloud services.

cloud

Event-Driven Architecture(EDA)

A software architecture paradigm concerning the production, detection, consumption of, and reaction to events.

dev

Event Sourcing

An architectural pattern where changes to the state of an application are stored as a sequence of events.

dev

EVM(EVM)

Ethereum Virtual Machine; the decentralized runtime environment that executes smart contract code.

web

eWASM

Ethereum WebAssembly; a proposed replacement for the EVM that uses WebAssembly to improve performance.

web

Exclusive Cache

A cache hierarchy design where a piece of data can only exist in one level of the cache at a time.

hardware

Execution Unit(EU)

A part of the CPU that performs the actual operations and calculations as instructed by the computer program.

hardware

Exit Scam

A fraudulent practice where project founders disappear with investors' money.

web

Expert System

An early form of AI designed to emulate the decision-making ability of a human expert in a specific domain using a set of 'if-then' rules.

ai

Explainable AI(XAI)

A set of methods that allow human users to comprehend and trust the results created by machine learning algorithms.

ai

Exponential Smoothing

A rule of thumb technique for smoothing time series data using the exponential window function.

ai

Express.js

A minimal and flexible Node.js web application framework that provides a robust set of features for web and mobile applications.

web

ExternalDNS

A Kubernetes addon that synchronizes exposed Kubernetes Services and Ingresses with external DNS providers.

cloud

Extranet

A private network that uses internet protocols and public telecommunication systems to securely share part of an organization's information or operations with external partners.

network

Extreme Programming(XP)

An Agile software development framework that aims to produce higher-quality software and higher quality of life for the development team through technical excellence.

dev

F

F1 Score

The harmonic mean of precision and recall, providing a single score that balances both metrics.

ai

Facial Recognition

A biometric technology capable of identifying or verifying a person from a digital image or a video frame by comparing facial features.

ai

Factory Pattern

A creational design pattern that provides an interface for creating objects in a superclass, but allows subclasses to alter the type of objects that will be created.

dev

Fact Table

The central table in a star schema of a data warehouse that stores quantitative information for analysis.

ai

Faking

A test double that has a working implementation but takes a shortcut that makes it unsuitable for production.

dev

Farcaster

A decentralized social network protocol designed to be sufficiently decentralized, allowing users to control their identity and data.

web

Fastify

A highly efficient and low-overhead web framework for Node.js, focused on providing the best developer experience with the least overhead.

web

Faucet

A service that dispenses small amounts of free cryptocurrency, typically for use on a testnet.

web

Fault Tolerance

The property that enables a system to continue operating properly in the event of the failure of one or more of its components.

dev

Feature Engineering

The process of using domain knowledge to extract or create new features from raw data that help machine learning algorithms perform better.

ai

Feature Extraction

The process of transforming raw data into a set of features that can be processed while still accurately and completely describing the original data set.

ai

Feature Flags

A software development technique that allows developers to turn features on or off at runtime without deploying new code.

dev

Feature Scaling

A method used to normalize the range of independent variables or features of data.

ai

Feature Selection

The process of selecting a subset of relevant features (variables, predictors) for use in model construction.

ai

Feature Store

A centralized repository that stores and manages processed features for machine learning, ensuring consistency between training and inference.

ai

Federated Learning

A machine learning technique that trains an algorithm across multiple decentralized devices or servers holding local data samples, without exchanging them.

ai

Fediverse

An ensemble of federated servers that are used for web publishing and file hosting, but which can communicate with each other as a single social network.

web

Fetch API

A modern interface for fetching resources (including across the network) in a more powerful and flexible way than XMLHttpRequest.

web

Few-shot Learning(FSL)

A machine learning task where the model is trained to recognize new classes using only a very small number of examples (typically 2-5).

ai

Fiber Optics

A technology that uses glass or plastic threads (fibers) to transmit data as pulses of light.

network

FIDO2(FIDO2)

An open standard for unphishable authentication, developed by the FIDO Alliance.

security

Field-Programmable Gate Array(FPGA)

An integrated circuit designed to be configured by a customer or a designer after manufacturing.

hardware

Filecoin(FIL)

A decentralized storage network that turns cloud storage into an algorithmic market, allowing users to rent out their spare storage space.

web

Fine-tuning

The process of taking a pre-trained model and further training it on a smaller, specific dataset to adapt it for a particular task or domain.

ai

FinFET

A type of non-planar, 3D transistor used in modern integrated circuits to reduce leakage and improve performance.

hardware

FinOps

A cloud financial management discipline that enables organizations to get maximum business value from cloud spending.

cloud

Firewall

A network security system that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing network traffic.

security

FireWire

A high-speed serial bus interface for personal computers and digital audio/video, also known as IEEE 1394.

hardware

Firmware Security

The practice of protecting the low-level software that controls a device's hardware from unauthorized access and modification.

security

First Contentful Paint(FCP)

A metric that measures the time from when the page starts loading to when any part of the page's content is rendered on the screen.

web

First Input Delay(FID)

A Core Web Vital that measures the time from when a user first interacts with a page to the time when the browser is actually able to begin processing event handlers in response to that interaction.

web

First Meaningful Paint(FMP)

A performance metric that measures when the primary content of a page is visible to the user.

web

Flannel

A simple and easy-to-configure L3 network fabric designed for Kubernetes.

cloud

Flash Loan

A type of uncollateralized loan in DeFi that must be borrowed and repaid within the same transaction.

web

Flexbox

A one-dimensional layout method for arranging items in rows or columns, providing high flexibility for distributing space and aligning items.

web

Flow Control

A technique that allows a receiver to control the rate at which a sender transmits data, preventing the receiver from being overwhelmed.

network

FluxCD

A set of continuous and progressive delivery solutions for Kubernetes that are open and extensible.

cloud

Fog Computing

A decentralized computing infrastructure in which data, compute, storage, and applications are distributed in the most logical, efficient place between the data source and the cloud.

network

FOMO(FOMO)

The anxiety that an investor feels when they worry they will miss a profitable opportunity.

web

Forecasting

The process of making predictions of the future based on past and present data and most commonly by analysis of trends.

ai

Form Factor

The physical size, shape, and layout of a hardware component, such as a motherboard or power supply.

hardware

Foundation

A family of responsive frontend frameworks that make it easy to design beautiful responsive websites, apps, and emails.

web

Foundation Model

A large-scale AI model trained on a vast amount of data that can be adapted to a wide range of downstream tasks.

ai

FPU(FPU)

Floating Point Unit; a specialized part of a processor designed to perform calculations on non-integer numbers (floating-point numbers).

hardware

Fragmentation (Networking)

The process of breaking an IP packet into smaller pieces so that they can pass through a link with a smaller MTU.

network

Front-running

The practice of placing a transaction in the queue before a known pending transaction to profit from it.

web

FUD(FUD)

A strategy used to influence perception by spreading negative or misleading information.

web

Full Node

A computer that stores a complete copy of the blockchain and independently verifies every transaction and block according to the network's rules.

web

Functional Programming(FP)

A programming paradigm where programs are constructed by applying and composing functions, avoiding shared state and mutable data.

dev

Fuzzy Logic

A form of many-valued logic in which the truth values of variables may be any real number between 0 and 1, rather than just true or false.

ai

G

GAAFET(GAAFET)

Gate-All-Around Field-Effect Transistor; an advanced transistor architecture where the gate contacts the channel on all sides.

hardware

Game Day

A scheduled event where a team intentionally triggers a failure in a staging or production environment to practice their incident response and test system resilience.

dev

GameFi

A fusion of gaming and finance, referring to the gamification of financial systems where players can earn economic rewards through gameplay.

web

Gamepad API

A browser API that allows web applications to respond to input from game controllers and other similar devices.

web

Game Theory in Web3

The application of mathematical models of strategic interaction to design incentives in decentralized networks.

web

Gas Limit

The maximum amount of computational work that a user is willing to pay for a specific transaction on the Ethereum network.

web

Gas Price

The amount of cryptocurrency a user is willing to pay per unit of gas for a transaction.

web

Gas War

A situation where users compete for block space by bidding increasingly higher gas prices.

web

Gated Recurrent Unit(GRU)

A variation of the LSTM that simplifies the architecture by combining the forget and input gates into a single 'update gate.'

ai

Gatsby

A free and open-source framework based on React that helps developers build blazing-fast websites and apps using GraphQL.

web

GDDR6(GDDR6)

Graphics Double Data Rate 6; a type of high-performance synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SGRAM) designed for GPUs.

hardware

GDPR(GDPR)

A comprehensive data privacy and security law in the European Union that imposes strict requirements on how organizations handle personal data.

security

Generative Adversarial Network(GAN)

A class of machine learning frameworks where two neural networks compete to create realistic data.

ai

Genesis Block

The very first block of a blockchain network, often hardcoded into the software.

web

Genetic Algorithm(GA)

An optimization and search technique inspired by the process of natural selection and biological evolution.

ai

Geolocation API

A browser API that allows web applications to access the geographical location of the user's device.

web

Geospatial Visualization

The use of maps and other spatial representations to visualize data that has a geographic component.

ai

Gestalt Principles

Psychological principles that describe how humans naturally perceive and organize visual elements into groups or unified wholes.

ai

ggplot2

A system for declaratively creating graphics, based on The Grammar of Graphics, for the R programming language.

ai

Gitflow

A Git branching model that involves the use of feature branches and multiple primary branches.

dev

Git Hooks

Scripts that Git executes before or after events such as commit, push, and receive.

dev

GitHub Actions

A CI/CD and automation platform integrated directly into GitHub, allowing developers to automate workflows triggered by GitHub events.

cloud

GitLab CI

A built-in continuous integration and delivery service provided by GitLab.

cloud

GitOps

An operational framework that takes DevOps best practices used for application development and applies them to infrastructure automation.

cloud

GLBP(GLBP)

A Cisco proprietary protocol that provides both gateway redundancy and load balancing across multiple routers.

network

Global Accelerator

A networking service that improves the availability and performance of applications with local or global users by using a cloud provider's global network infrastructure.

cloud

Global Server Load Balancing(GSLB)

A technology that distributes network traffic across multiple data centers located in different geographical regions.

network

Goodput

The amount of useful application-level data delivered over a network, excluding all protocol overhead and retransmitted packets.

network

Governance

The system of rules, practices, and processes by which a decentralized protocol or organization is directed and controlled.

web

Governance Token

A token that grants holders the right to vote on proposals and influence the direction of a decentralized protocol or DAO.

web

GPT-3(GPT-3)

Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3; a massive decoder-only language model that demonstrated remarkable few-shot learning capabilities.

ai

Gradient Boosting

An ensemble technique that builds a strong predictive model by sequentially adding weak models (typically decision trees) that correct the errors of previous models.

ai

Gradient Clipping

A technique used to prevent 'exploding gradients' by capping the maximum value of gradients during backpropagation.

ai

Gradient Vanishing Problem

A difficulty in training deep neural networks where gradients become extremely small during backpropagation, preventing weights from updating effectively.

ai

Grafana

An open-source platform for monitoring and observational dashboards that integrates with a wide variety of data sources.

cloud

Graphics Processing Unit(GPU)

A specialized processor designed to rapidly process data in parallel, originally for graphics but now widely used for AI and scientific computing.

ai

GraphQL

A query language for APIs and a runtime for fulfilling those queries with your existing data.

web

Grid Search

A traditional method for hyperparameter optimization that exhaustively searches through a manually specified subset of the hyperparameter space.

ai

gRPC

A high-performance, open-source universal RPC framework developed by Google.

web

Gustafson's Law

A law in computer science that suggests that as systems become more powerful, the size of the problems they solve also increases, leading to better-than-expected speedups.

hardware

Gwei

A denomination of Ether used to measure gas prices.

web

Gzip

A popular file format and software application used for file compression and decompression, widely used to compress web assets during transit.

web

H

Hallucination

A phenomenon where an AI model generates information that is factually incorrect, nonsensical, or disconnected from the provided input.

ai

Hapi

A rich framework for building applications and services, known for its focus on configuration over code and its robust security features.

web

Harbor

An open-source trusted cloud-native registry project that stores, signs, and scans content.

cloud

Hard Disk Drive(HDD)

An electro-mechanical data storage device that uses magnetic storage to store and retrieve digital data using rapidly rotating platters.

hardware

Hard Fork

A radical change to a blockchain's protocol that makes previously invalid blocks/transactions valid, or vice versa, requiring all users to upgrade to the new version.

web

Hardware Security Module(HSM)

A physical computing device that safeguards and manages digital keys, performs encryption and decryption functions, and provides strong authentication.

security

Hardware Wallet

A physical device designed to securely store cryptocurrency private keys offline.

web

Harvard Architecture

A computer architecture with physically separate storage and signal pathways for instructions and data.

hardware

HDFS(HDFS)

A distributed file system designed to run on commodity hardware.

ai

HDMI(HDMI)

High-Definition Multimedia Interface; a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data.

hardware

Headless CMS

A content management system that stores and manages content without a built-in frontend, making it accessible via an API for any device.

dev

Heatmap

A data visualization technique that shows magnitude of a phenomenon as color in two dimensions.

ai

Heat Sink

A passive heat exchanger that transfers heat generated by an electronic device to a fluid medium, often air or a liquid coolant.

hardware

Helm

A package manager for Kubernetes that simplifies the deployment and management of applications.

cloud

Hidden Markov Model(HMM)

A statistical model in which the system being modeled is assumed to be a Markov process with unobserved (hidden) states.

ai

Hierarchical Clustering

A method of cluster analysis which seeks to build a hierarchy of clusters.

ai

High Availability(HA)

A characteristic of a system which aims to ensure an agreed level of operational performance.

cloud

High Bandwidth Memory(HBM)

A high-performance RAM interface for 3D-stacked DRAM, used in high-end graphics cards and AI accelerators.

hardware

Highcharts

A mature, commercial JavaScript charting library used by many large organizations.

ai

HIPAA(HIPAA)

A US federal law that requires the creation of national standards to protect sensitive patient health information from being disclosed without the patient's consent or knowledge.

security

Histogram

A graphical representation that organizes a group of data points into user-specified ranges (bins).

ai

HODL

A term meaning to hold onto a cryptocurrency for the long term, regardless of market volatility.

web

Holdout Method

The simplest data splitting technique where the original dataset is divided into two or three parts: training, validation, and testing.

ai

Honeypot

A security mechanism set a up as a decoy to lure cyberattackers and detect, deflect, or study their methods.

security

Hop Count

The number of intermediate devices (routers) through which data must pass between source and destination.

network

Horizontal Pod Autoscaler(HPA)

A Kubernetes feature that automatically scales the number of Pods in a deployment based on observed CPU or memory usage.

cloud

HotStuff

A leader-based Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus protocol that provides high throughput and low latency.

web

Hot Wallet

A cryptocurrency wallet that is connected to the internet, allowing for quick and easy access to funds.

web

HSRP(HSRP)

A Cisco proprietary redundancy protocol that allows multiple routers to appear as a single virtual gateway for hosts on a LAN.

network

HSTS(HSTS)

A security header that forces browsers to communicate with a website only over secure HTTPS connections.

security

HTML5

The fifth and current major version of the HTML standard used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web.

web

HTML Templates

A mechanism for holding client-side content that is not to be rendered when a page is loaded but may subsequently be instantiated during runtime using JavaScript.

web

Hub

A basic networking device that connects multiple Ethernet devices together, making them act as a single network segment.

network

Hybrid Cloud

A computing environment that combines a private cloud with a public cloud.

cloud

Hydration

The process of attaching event listeners and state to static HTML that was rendered on the server.

web

Hyperparameter

A configuration setting for a machine learning algorithm that is set before the training process begins and cannot be learned from the data.

ai

Hyperparameter Tuning

The process of finding the optimal set of hyperparameters (settings that are not learned from the data) for a machine learning model.

ai

Hyper-threading

A technology used by Intel to improve parallelization of computations by allowing a single CPU core to act like two logical cores.

hardware

Hypervisor

Software that creates and runs virtual machines by isolating the operating system and resources from the physical hardware.

cloud

Hypothesis Testing

A statistical method used to decide whether the data at hand sufficiently support a particular hypothesis.

ai