Software Development Vocabulary

Restructure existing code without changing its external behavior

“We need to refactor this legacy codebase to improve maintainability.”

Marked as obsolete and scheduled for removal

“This API endpoint is deprecated and will be removed in the next version.”

Able to handle increased load or growth efficiently

“The architecture must be scalable to support millions of users.”

Producing the same result regardless of how many times it's executed

“All our API endpoints should be idempotent to handle retries safely.”

Hiding complex implementation details behind a simpler interface

“Good abstraction allows developers to work without understanding every detail.”

Standardized code that must be included with little modification

“The framework reduces boilerplate so you can focus on business logic.”

Implied cost of future rework caused by choosing quick solutions

“We've accumulated significant technical debt that's slowing down development.”

A bug that causes a feature that worked before to stop working

“The new release introduced a regression in the payment flow.”

The delay before a transfer of data begins

“We reduced latency by deploying servers closer to our users.”

The amount of data processed in a given time period

“The new database configuration doubled our throughput.”

Not occurring at the same time; non-blocking operations

“Asynchronous processing prevents the UI from freezing during long operations.”

Software that acts as a bridge between different applications

“The authentication middleware validates tokens before requests reach the API.”

A single-tiered software application with all components unified

“We're breaking down the monolithic application into microservices.”

Unable to be changed after creation

“Using immutable data structures prevents accidental state mutations.”

The ability of objects to take many forms

“Polymorphism allows us to write flexible, reusable code.”

Bundling data with methods that operate on that data

“Encapsulation protects internal state from external interference.”

A design pattern restricting instantiation to one object

“The database connection pool is implemented as a singleton.”

Supplying dependencies to an object rather than creating them internally

“Dependency injection makes our code more testable and modular.”

Frequently merging code changes into a shared repository

“Continuous integration catches bugs early in the development cycle.”

The process of releasing software to a production environment

“The deployment pipeline automates testing and release processes.”

The ability of different parts or units of a program to be executed out-of-order

“Concurrency improves performance on multi-core processors.”

A set of practices that combines software development and IT operations

“DevOps practices have shortened our development cycle.”