Chapter 20
Glossary of Terms
We present here an alphabetical listing of some of the vocabulary words and
acronyms used throughout this book.
AJAX: Asynchronous JavaScript And XML. It is a method for updating
a small part of a webpage instead of replacing the whole thing. See section
17.7.4 (page 183).
bandwidth: The amount of network traffic being used. High-resolution
photographs use more bandwidth than low-resolution photographs. HDTV
uses more than standard TV.
browser: a computer application that displays your webpage to the user.
cache: something kept locally so that it does not need to be retransmitted
each time it is used. Static elements can be cached. Normally this includes
images, but sometimes it includes whole web pages.
case-insensitive: A situation where the difference between capital letters
and lowercase letters does not make any difference. Many aspects of HTML
are case-insensitive.
case-sensitive: A situation where the difference between capital letters and
lowercase letters makes a big difference.
CGI: Common Gateway Interface. It is a method for creating a webpage
dynamically, so that it might be different every time and for every user. See
section 17.7.2 (page 182).
cursive: One of the five generic font families. Its main feature is that
adjacent letters try to connect with each other, resulting in a flowing style