(How)
C^# You Are - 7 October 2007

Our industry is replete with TLAs and FLAs (three letter acronyms and four letter acronyms). So much so that if you don't understand what they mean you can easily get lost in conversation that you otherwise would understand.  This week I'm going to throw out a bunch of acronyms that are commonly used in the industry.  See how many you know.

1. .NET: CCW, CLR, CLS, CTS, GC, JIT, PIA, RCW?  Answer

   CCW - COM callable wrapper (for calling .NET code from COM)
   CLR - Common Language Runtime
   CLS - Common Language Specification
   CTS - Common Type System
   GC - Garbage collector
   JIT - Just-In-Time (compilation)
   PIA - Primary Interop Assembly (for COM components)
   RCW - Runtime callable wrapper (for calling unmanaged code from .NET)

2. Databases: ADO, DDL, DML, LINQ, MDX, SQL, SMO, SSAS, SSIS, SSMS, SSRS?  Answer

   ADO - Active Data Object
   DDL - Data definition language (such as CREATE TABLE or ALTER PROCEDURE)
   DML - Data manipulation language (such as INSERT or DELETE)
   LINQ - Language integrated queries (available in .NET v3.5)
   MDX - Multidimensional expressions (SQL Analysis Services queries)
   SQL - Standardized query language (also commonly used for Microsoft SQL Server and instead of T-SQL for writing database code)
   SMO - SQL Management Objects (used to manage SQL instances)
   SSAS - SQL Server Analysis Services
   SSIS - SQL Server Integration Services
   SSMS - SQL Server Management Studio
   SSRS - SQL Server Reporting Services

3. Threading: MP, MT, NUMA, SMP, TS?  Answer

   MP - Multi-processor
   MT - Multithreaded
   NUMA - Non-uniform memory access
   SMP - Symmetric multiprocessor/multiprocessing (if you have a multiprocessor machine then you probably have one of these)
   TS - Thread safe (or safety)

4. Windows: CSRSS, IIS, LSA, SCM?  Answer

   CSRSS - Client/Server Runtime Subsystem (basically the Win32 subsystem from most programmers point of view)
   IIS - Internet Information Services (Microsoft's web server)
   LSA - Local System Authority (manages local users and groups on a machine)
   SCM - Service Control Manager (manages Windows services)

5. Programming: AOP, DT, EOL, EOS, GUID, POD, TZ?  Answer

   AOP - Aspect-oriented programming
   DT - Date/Time
   EOL - End of line
   EOS - End of stream (or sometimes string)
   GUID - Globally unique identifier
   POD - Plain old data type (such as integers and booleans)
   TZ - Timezone

6. Communication: COM, FTP, INET, IPC, OLE, QOS, RPC?  Answer

   COM - Component Object Model (.NET predecessor used for interprocess communication in an object-oriented manner)
   FTP - File transfer protocol
   INET - Internet
   IPC - Interprocess communication (such as through pipes or mailslots)
   OLE - Object Linking and Embeddding
   QOS - Quality of service
   RPC - Remote procedure calls

7. Data: CSS, HTML, XAML, XML?  Answer

   CSS - Cascading stylesheets (used to control layouts and formatting of web sites)
   HTML - Hypertext Markup Language
   XAML - Extensible application markup language
   XML - Extensible markup language

8. Security: AD, DACL, LDS, SACL, SID, SSL?  Answer

   AD - Active Directory
   DACL - Discretionary access control list (permissions, in Windows)
   LDS - Lightweight directory services (such as ADAM)
   SACL - System access control list (auditing, in Windows)
   SID - Security identifier (uniquely identifies things in the security subsystem)
   SSL - Secure socket layer

9. Web: AJAX, ASP, HTTP, JSON, SOAP?  Answer

   AJAX - Asychronous Javascript and XML
   ASP - Active Server Page
   HTTP - Hypertext transfer protocol
   JSON - Javascript object notation (used by Microsoft's implementation of AJAX)
   SOAP - Simple object access protocol (at least initially)

10. Tools: CM, IDE, PSDK, SDK, VS, VSS, WSDK?  Answer

    CM - Change management or configuration management (source control)
    IDE - Integrated development environment
    PSDK - Platform SDK (older version of SDK for Windows)
    SDK - Software development kit (shipped with most extensible products to provide header files and documentation to use in programming the product)
    VS - Visual Studio (surely you got this one)
    VSS - Visual Sourcesafe (CM tool from Microsoft)
    WSDK - Windows SDK (the current incarnation of the SDK for Windows)