A brief A-Z of web development acronyms

A glossary-style primer explaining common abbreviations used in everyday web development work.

Why a glossary is worth having

Web development runs on abbreviations, and most of them are learned by absorption rather than explanation. That works fine until a client, a designer or a new starter is in the room, at which point a shared vocabulary saves a great deal of circling.

The ones that come up first

API is an agreed way for two pieces of software to talk to each other. CMS is the system an editor uses to publish content. CDN is a network of servers that keeps copies of your files closer to visitors. DNS is the directory that turns a domain name into an address a machine can reach.

SSL and its successor TLS are what put the padlock in the address bar. FTP and SFTP are ways of moving files to a server, and only one of them is encrypted.

The ones people mix up

SEO is making a site legible to search engines; SEM usually means the paid side. UI is what the interface looks like and how it behaves; UX is the whole experience of using it, which includes the parts that are not on screen at all.

SaaS, PaaS and IaaS describe how much of the stack somebody else runs for you, in that order.

Using them well

The point of a glossary is not to encourage more jargon. It is to make it possible to drop the abbreviation and say the thing plainly when the person you are talking to would be better served by that.