CSCE Skills List

Arjun Dasgupta and Jeffery Williams

(Under the guidance of Dr.Craig W. Thompson)

DRAFT – 11/2/06

Over the four years of their undergraduate studies, Computer Science and Computer Engineering

Department students will learn a variety of technical skills including several of the ones listed on the following pages. This will help them in their courses and, later, on the job.

We extensively used Wikipedia and Google search to come up with the definitions and helpful

links.

Please send corrections and suggested additions to Craig Thompson <cwt@uark.edu>.

*The fields marked with an asterisk were considered by an employee of Acxiom Corporation to be less important than other skills with respect to Acxiom Corporations’s needs.

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1. Categories of Skills

Programming Languages / Markup Languages

ABAP

ActionScript

Assembly Language

Basic

C++

C Programming

Common Lisp

Cascading Style Sheets

C#

Delphi

DHTML

HTML

Java

JavaScript

LISP

Pascal

PERL

PHP

QBasic

Ruby

RPG

REXX

Scheme

SQL

Visual Basic

VHDL

XML

COBOL

LaTeX

SVG

XSLT

Interactive Development Environment (IDEs)

BlueJ

Eclipse

JBuilder

Microsoft Visual Studio

Software Tools

Adobe Photoshop

DAEMON Tools

GoLive

Lotus 123

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Word

Macromedia Flash

Macromedia Dreamweaver

Open Office

Microsoft PowerPoint

Adobe Premier

Quartus II

Microsoft Visio

ANT

3

Hardware Design Tools

Mentor Graphics

ASIC

IC Design

FPGA/CPLD

Logic Design

MAX+PLUS II Baseline

VHDL

Manufacturers

3Com switches Clockspeed

Architecture Tools

Computer Architecture Client Server

Operating Systems

UNIX

Microsoft Windows

Linux

Mackintosh OS

Solaris

Microsoft Windows Server 2003

MS DOS

Open BSHardware

Connectors

CAT5 Cabling Network Cards

Computer Science concepts

Algorithms

Data Structures

Electronics Engineering

Database

Software Engineering Tools

ANT

Apache

CVS

DAO

DAEMON tools

djbdns

Debugging

DJGPP

EDI

log4j

make

Oracle 8

ODBC

Progress

SSI

4

Frameworks

Java technology

ASP.NET

.net

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2. Instructors, Courses and Suggestions

This section still needs work. This is intended to be an inventory of what skills are learned or assumed in each course.

Instructors Course Specific Skills Learned in this course

Amy Apon CSCE 1113

Programming Foundations I

C

UNIX.

Russell Deaton CSCE 1123

Programming Foundations II

Java

Vi

Emacs

Xwindows

openSSL

Pat Parkerson CENG 2113

Digital Techniques I

Jia Di CENG 2213

Computer Organizations

digital logic (AND, OR and NOT gates)

Helen Shen CENG 2213

Computer Organizations

digital logic (AND, OR and NOT gates)

John Lusth CSCE 2143

Data Structures

Java

Gordon Beavers CSCE 3313

Algorithms

Wingning Li CSCE 3613 Operating Systems C

UNIX

Linux

Windows

Jia Di CENG 3953

VHDL

Quartus II

Synopsys

Jia Di CENG 4113

Embedded Systems

MPLAB

assembly language to program micro-

controllers

Pat Parkerson CENG 4213

Computer Architecture

Mentor Graphics including Design Manager,

Design Architect, and QuickSim II

Jia Di CENG 4233

Low-Power Digital Systems

Synopsys

Amy Apon CSCE 4253

Concurrent Computing

John Lusth CSCE 4313

Programming Languages

Scheme

LaTeX

HTML

ANT

gdb (debugger used by C programmers)

djgbb (GNU compiler)

vi

emacs

6

cygwin

Wingning Li CSCE 4323 Formal Languages

Pat Parkerson CENG 4353

FPGA/CPLD System Design

VHDL

Quartus II from Altera

Bob Crisp CENG 4423

Computer Systems Analysis

Dale Thompson CENG 4423

Computer Systems Analysis

Bob Crisp CSCE 4513

Software Engineering

Ron Skeith CSCE 4513

Software Engineering

Brajendra Panda CSCE 4523

Database Management Systems

SQL, Oracle

Craig Thompson CSCE 4523

Database Management Systems

SQL

Choice of RDBMS: Access, MySQL, Oracle

9i or 10g, DB2, NCR Teradata

ODBC, JDBC

TBD CSCE 4533

Software Design Patterns

TBD CSCE 4543

Software Architecture

Bob Crisp,

Craig Thompson

CSCE 4561 and CSCE 4963

Capstone I/II

CENG 4571 and CENG 4973

Senior Design I/II

HTML

OpenSSH

Craig Thompson CSCE 4613

Artificial Intelligence

Lisp (exposure)

Prolog (exposure)

Protégé ontology editor

Predicate calculus

TBD CSCE 4623

Intelligent Robot Control

Dale Thompson CENG 4753

Computer Networks

Allen Baker CENG 4813

Computer Graphics

Brajendra Panda CSCE 490

Computer Forensics

Encase

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3. Skills Listed Alphabetically

A

1. Algorithms – An algorithm is a procedure for accomplishing some task which, given an

initial state, will terminate in a defined end-state. The computational complexity and

efficient implementation of the algorithm are important in computing, and this depends on

suitable data structures. Here are a few useful links : National Institute of Standards and

Technology, Soft Panorama

2. ASIC - is an application specific integrated circuit (IC) customized for a particular use,

rather than intended for general-purpose use. For example, a chip designed solely to run a

cell phone is an ASIC. In contrast, the 7400 series and 4000 series integrated circuits are

logic building blocks that can be wired together to perform many different applications.

Intermediate between ASICs and standard products are application specific standard products. Useful links: University of Hawaii, ASIC-world.com

3. Assembler - is a kind of computer program for translating assembly language —

essentially, a mnemonic representation of machine language — into object code. A cross

assembler (see cross compiler) produces code for one type of processor, but runs on

another. The computational step where an assembler is run is known as assembly time.

Useful links: Programmers Heaven, Soft Panorama

4. *ActionScript - is an ECMAScript-based programming language used for scripting

Macromedia Flash movies and applications. Since both ActionScript and JavaScript are

based on the same ECMAScript syntax, fluency in one theoretically translates easily to the

other. However, while JavaScript's DOM is browser window-, document- and form-centric,

the ActionScript DOM is movie-centric, which may include animations, audio, text and

event handling. Useful links: Macromedia Flash (Adobe) tutorial, Introduction to

Programming with Macromedia Flash MX and ActionScript (PDF)

5. Adobe Photoshop - is a graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Systems. It is

the market leader for commercial bitmap image manipulation, and probably the most well-

known piece of software produced by Adobe Systems. It is considered the industry

standard in most, if not all, jobs related to the use of visual elements. It is usually referred

to simply as "Photoshop". Photoshop is currently available for Mac OS and Microsoft

Windows; versions up to Photoshop 9.0 can also be used with other operating systems such

as Linux using software such as CrossOver Office. Useful links: Adobe Photoshop 7, Good-Tutorials, PhotoshopCafe, Mike’s Sketchpad,Google “photoshop tutorial”

6. ANT - is a software tool for automating software build processes. It is similar to make but

is written in the Java language and is primarily intended for use with Java. Useful links: Apache Ant website, Introduction to Ant (Exubero)

7. Apache - is a free software/open source HTTP web server for Unix-like systems (BSD,

Linux, and UNIX systems), Microsoft Windows, Novell NetWare and other platforms. Useful links: Wikipedia, Apache tutorial

8. *ASP.NET-ASP.NET is a set of web development technologies marketed by Microsoft.

Programmers can use it to build dynamic web sites, web applications and XML web

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services. It is part of Microsoft's .NET platform and is the successor to Microsoft's Active

Server Pages (ASP) technology. Even though ASP.NET takes its name from Microsoft's

old web development technology, ASP, the two differ significantly. Microsoft has

completely rebuilt ASP.NET, based on the Common Language Runtime (CLR) shared by

all Microsoft .NET applications. Programmers can write ASP.NET code using any of the

different programming languages supported by the .NET Framework, usually C#, Visual

Basic.NET, or JScript .NET, but also including open-source languages such as Perl and

Python. ASP.NET has performance benefits over other script-based technologies because

the server-side code is compiled to one or a few DLL files on a web server. Useful links : Godotnet QuickStart tutorial, FunctionX tutorial

9. Assembly Language- Assembly language, commonly called assembly, asm or symbolic

machine code, is a human-readable notation for the machine language that a specific

computer architecture uses. Machine language, a pattern of bits encoding machine

operations, is made readable by replacing the raw values with symbols called mnemonics.

Assembly is derived from a similar representation called short code, whose programming

'language' was of the same name. Unlike in high-level languages, there is usually a 1-to-1

correspondence between simple assembly statements and machine language instructions. Useful links : OSdata.com, accu.org

10. Antivirus - consists of computer programs that attempt to identify, thwart and eliminate

computer viruses and other malicious software. Useful links : Microsoft’s list of antivirus software

11. *ABAP - ABAP (Advanced Business Application Programming) is a high level

programming language created by the German software company SAP. It is currently

positioned as the language for programming SAP's Web Application Server, part of its

NetWeaver platform for building business applications. Its syntax is somewhat similar to COBOL. Useful links : Introduction to ABAP objects, SAP Development Network

B

12. BASIC- In computer programming, BASIC (an acronym for Beginner's All-purpose

Symbolic Instruction Code [1]) refers to a family of high-level programming languages. It

was originally designed in 1963, by John George Kemeny and Thomas Eugene Kurtz at

Dartmouth College, to allow students not in science fields to use computers. At the time all

computer use required writing custom software, which was something only scientists and

mathematicians tended to do. It became widespread on home microcomputers in the 1980s,

and remains popular to this day in a handful of heavily evolved dialects. Useful links : Google Directory

13. *BlueJ - is an interactive Java development environment, developed mainly for educational

purposes, but also suitable for small-scale development. BlueJ was developed to support

the learning and teaching of object-oriented programming, and its design differs from other

development environments as a result. The main screen graphically shows the class

structure of an application under development (in a UML-like diagram), and objects can be

interactively created and tested. Useful links : BlueJ website, Sun Developer Network, BlueJ tutorial

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C

14. C++ - is a general purpose programming language with a bias towards systems

programming that is a better C, supports data abstraction, supports object-oriented programming, and supports generic programming. Useful links : cplusplus.com tutorial

15. C programming - is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative computer programming

language developed in the early 1970s by Dennis Ritchie for use on the UNIX operating

system. It has since spread to many other operating systems, and is now one of the most

widely used programming languages. C is distinguished for the efficiency of the code it

produces, and is the most commonly used programming language for writing system

software, though it is also widely used for writing applications. Useful links : About.com, University of Strathclyde Computer Centre

16. Computer Architecture - is the conceptual design and fundamental operational structure of

a computer system. It is a blueprint and functional description of requirements (especially

speeds and interconnections) and design implementations for the various parts of a

computer —focusing largely on the way by which the CPU performs internally and accesses addresses in memory. Useful links : Iowa State University tutorial,

17. 3Com switches - is a manufacturer best known for its computer network infrastructure

products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe and is headquartered

in Marlborough, Massachusetts. The name 3Com comes from the company's focus on "Computers, Communication and Compatibility". Useful links: 3com website

18. CAT5 Cabling - is an unshielded twisted pair cable type designed for high signal integrity.

With the 2001 introduction of the TIA/EIA-568-B standard, the category 5 cabling

specification was made obsolete and superseded by the category 5e specification. Useful link: Cable your own house

19. *CL - Common Lisp is a dialect of the Lisp programming language, standardized by ANSI

X3.226-1994. Developed to standardize the divergent variants of Lisp which predated it, it

is not an implementation but rather a language specification. Several implementations of

the Common Lisp standard are available, including commercial products and open source software. Useful links : Common Lisp link, tutorial

20. CSS - Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a stylesheet language used to describe the

presentation of a document written in a markup language. Its most common application is

to style web pages written in HTML and XHTML, but the language can be applied to any kind of XML document, including SVG and XUL. Useful links: w3c link, tutorial

21. *CVS - also known as the Concurrent Versions System, implements a version control

system: it keeps track of all work and all changes in a set of files, typically the

implementation of a software project, and allows several (potentially widely separated) developers to collaborate. Useful link: main webpage, tutorial

22. Client Server - Client-server is a network architecture which separates the client (often a

graphical user interface) from the server. Each instance of the client software can send

requests to a server or application server. A client-server architecture is intended to provide

a scalable architecture, whereby each computer or process on the network is either a client

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or a server. Server software generally, but not always, runs on powerful computers

dedicated for exclusive use to running the business application. Client software on the other

hand generally runs on common PCs or workstations. Clients get all or most of their

information and rely on the application server for things such as configuration files, stock

quotes, business application programs, or to offload computer-intensive application tasks

back to the server in order to keep the client computers (and client computer user) free to perform other tasks. Useful link : tutorial to build a simple client server

23. C# - It is an component-oriented programming language developed by Microsoft as part of

their .NET initiative, and later approved as a standard by ECMA and ISO. C# has a

procedural, object oriented syntax based on C++ that includes aspects of several other

programming languages (most notably Delphi, Visual Basic, and Java) with a particular

emphasis on simplification (fewer symbolic requirements than C++, fewer decorative

requirements than Java). Useful link: softsteel tutorial, functionx tutorial

24. *COBOL - COBOL is a third-generation programming language. Its name is an acronym,

for COmmon Business Oriented Language, defining its primary domain in business,

finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments. The COBOL 2002

standard includes support for object-oriented programming and other modern language features. Useful links : Tutorial 1, Tutorial 2

D

25. Data Structure - is a way of storing data in a computer so that it can be used efficiently.

Often a carefully chosen data structure will allow a more efficient algorithm to be used. Useful link: National Institute of Standards and Technology

26. DAO – Data Access Objects were an object oriented interface created by Microsoft which

allowed early versions of Microsoft Access and Visual Basic to use the Jet database engine.

Later (in version 3.5) it was able to bypass the Jet engine altogether and directly access

ODBC data sources, including Microsoft SQL Server and other enterprise database

systems. DAO 3.6 was the final version developed by Microsoft. Microsoft says that DAO

will not be available in its future 64-bit operating systems. Useful link: sun, codefutures link

27. Database - is an organized collection of data. The term originated within the computer

industry, but its meaning has been broadened by popular use, to the extent that the

European Database Directive (which creates intellectual property rights for databases)

includes non-electronic databases within its definition. This article is confined to a more

technical use of the term; though even amongst computing professionals, some attach a much wider meaning to the word than others. Useful link: database tutorial, another tutorial

28. DAEMON Tools- is a proprietary disk image emulator for Microsoft Windows that mounts

images of DVD and CD media on virtual drives. The program is able to defeat most copy

protection schemes, like SafeDisc and SecuROM.

29. *Djbdns - is a simple and secure DNS implementation created by Daniel J. Bernstein due to his frustrations with repeated BIND security holes.The package contains:

six servers:

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dnscache -- the local dns resolver and cache.

tinydns -- a database-driven dns server.

walldns -- a "reverse DNS wall", providing IP to domain name lookup only.

rbldns -- a server designed for dns blacklisting service.

pickdns -- a database-driven server that chooses from matching records depending on the

requester's location. (This feature is now a standard part of tinydns.)

axfrdns -- a zone-transfer server.

Useful links : life with djbdns, a look at djbdns

30. Delegate - Delegates in C# are objects which points towards a function which matches its

signature. Delegates are reference type used to encapsulate a method with a specific

signature. In C++ you accomplish this task by having pointer to a function. Unlike pointers

delegates are type-safe. A delegate in C# allows you to pass a method of class to objects of

other classes. You can pass a method Print in class A class B by wrapping it in a delegate

and class B is able to access the method of class A.Useful link : Softsteel solutions, csharptutorial.com

31. Database Management- A database management system (DBMS) is a computer program

(or more typically, a suite of them) designed to manage a database (a large set of structured

data), and run operations on the data requested by numerous clients. Typical examples of

DBMS use include accounting, human resources and customer support systems. Originally

found only in large organizations with the computer hardware needed to support large data

sets, DBMSs have more recently emerged as a fairly standard part of any company back

office. DBMSs are found at the heart of most database applications. Sometimes DBMSs are

built around a private multitasking kernel with built-in networking support although

nowadays these functions are left to the operating system. Useful links : tutorial 1, tutorial 2

32. Debugging- Debugging is a methodical process of finding and reducing the number of

bugs, or defects, in a computer program or a piece of electronic hardware thus making it

behave as expected. Debugging tends to be harder when various subsystems are tightly

coupled, as changes in one may cause bugs to emerge in another. Generally, high-level

programming languages, such as Java, make debugging easier, because they have features

such as exception handling that make real sources of erratic behaviors easier to spot. In

lower-level programming languages such as C or assembly, bugs may cause silent

problems such as memory corruption, and it is often difficult to see where the initial

problem happened; in those cases, sophisticated debugging tools may be needed. Useful links : University of California at Davis link, codeproject.com tutorial

33. *Delphi- The Delphi programming language was created by Borland and debuted with the

first version of Borland Delphi. Borland sells integrated development environments (IDEs)

that compile the Delphi programming language to Microsoft Windows, the Microsoft .NET

Framework and Linux. The open source Free Pascal project allows the language to be

compiled for Mac OS X, Win64 and Windows CE. The main distinguishing features of

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Delphi and Kylix from other IDEs are the Delphi language, the VCL/CLX (Visual

Component Library), strong emphasis on database connectivity, and a large number of

third party components.

delegation of interface implementation to a field or property of the class

implementation of message handlers by tagging a method of a class with the integer

constant of the message to handle

COM independent interfaces with reference counted class implementations

can be compiled into native x86 code or managed .NET code.

Useful links : tutorial1, tutorial 2

34. *DJGPP- DJGPP is a 32-bit C/C++ development system for 386 and above PCs that runs

under DOS (it will also work in a DOS window from within an operating system that

supports DOS windows, such as Windows). It was developed by DJ Delorie who started

the project in 1989. It is a software port of the popular gcc compiler, as well as many other

GNU utilities such as cp, ls, mv, and ld, to DOS DPMI (DOS Protected Mode Interface). It

uses a flat memory model, where code and data segments are coincident. Additional

segments can be accessed indirectly. Useful links : DJGPP user’s guide, DJGPP documentation

35. DHTML- Dynamic HTML or DHTML is a method of creating interactive web sites by

using a combination of static markup language HTML, a client-side scripting language

(such as JavaScript), the presentation definition language (e.g. Cascading Style Sheets), and

the Document Object Model. Some disadvantages of DHTML are that it is difficult to

develop and debug due to varying degrees of support among web browsers of the

aforementioned technologies and that the variety of screen sizes means the end look can

only be fine-tuned on a limited number of browser and screen-size combinations.

Development for recent browsers, such as Internet Explorer 5.0+, Netscape 6.0+, and

Opera 7.0+, is aided by a shared Document Object Model. Useful links : tutorial 1, tutorial

2, tutorial 3

E

36. Electronics Engineering - is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the

emission, behavior, and effects of electrons (as in electron tubes and transistors) and with

electronic devices, systems or equipment. The term also now covers a large part of

electrical engineering degree courses as studied at most European universities. Its

practitioners are called electronics engineers in Europe. In the Americas and some other

parts of the world, the term electrical engineer is used to describe a person doing the same

work. Useful links : guide

37. EDI - Electronic Data Interchange is the computer-to-computer exchange of structured

information, by agreed message standards, from one computer application to another by

electronic means and with a minimum of human intervention. In common usage, EDI is

understood to mean specific interchange methods agreed upon by national or international

standards bodies for the transfer of business transaction data, with one typical application

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being the automated purchase of goods and services. Useful links : EDI introduction, EDI guide for beginners

38. Eclipse - Eclipse is an open source community whose projects are focused on providing a

vendor-neutral open development platform and application frameworks for building

software. The Eclipse Foundation is a not-for-profit corporation formed to advance the

creation, evolution, promotion, and support of the Eclipse Platform and to cultivate both an

open source community and an ecosystem of complementary products, capabilities, and services. Useful links : tutorial 1, tutorial 2

F

39. FPGA/CPLD - is a semiconductor device containing programmable logic components and

programmable interconnects. The programmable logic components can be programmed to

duplicate the functionality of basic logic gates such as AND, OR, XOR, NOT or more

complex combinatorial functions such as decoders or simple math functions. In most

FPGAs, these programmable logic components (or logic blocks, in FPGA parlance) also

include memory elements, which may be simple flip-flops or more complete blocks of memories. Useful links : Altera website, CPLD user guide, FPGA user guide

40. Firewall - is a piece of hardware and/or software which functions in a networked

environment to prevent some communications forbidden by the security policy, analogous

to the function of firewalls in building construction. A firewall is also called a Border

Protection Device (BPD), especially in NATO contexts, or packet filter in BSD contexts.Useful links : firewall FAQs, Microsoft firewall reference guide

G

41. GoLive 5.0- Adobe GoLive is an HTML editor from Adobe Systems. It replaced Adobe

PageMill as Adobe's primary HTML editor. The latest version has been given the "CS2"

moniker, indicating its integration with the rest of the Adobe Creative Suite. Useful links : tutorial 1, tips and tricks

H

42. HTML - HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a markup language designed for the

creation of web pages with hypertext and other information to be displayed in a web

browser. HTML is used to structure information — denoting certain text as headings,

paragraphs, lists and so on — and can be used to describe, to some degree, the appearance

and semantics of a document. HTML's grammar structure is the HTML DTD that was

created using SGML syntax. XHTML, which applies the stricter rules of XML to HTML to

make it easier to process and maintain, is the W3C's successor to HTML. As such, many

consider XHTML to be the "current version" of HTML, but it is a separate, parallel

standard; the W3C continues to recommend the use of XHTML 1.1, XHTML 1.0, or HTML 4.01 for web publishing. Useful links : tutorial 1, tutorial 2

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43. Hard Drives - is a non-volatile data storage device that stores data on a magnetic surface layered onto hard disk platters. Useful links : hard drives guide

I

44. IC Design - Integrated circuit design, or IC design, is a subset of electrical engineering,

encompassing the particular logic and circuit design techniques required to design

integrated circuits, or ICs. ICs consist of miniaturized electronic components built into an

electrical network on a monolithic semiconductor substrate by photolithography. Useful

links : IC design reference guide, IC design in Mentor Graphics

J

45. Java technology - is a portfolio of products that are based on the power of networks and

the idea that the same software should run. Useful links : Java reference guide, Sun website

46. JSP - Jackson Structured Programming is a method for structured programming based on

correspondences between data stream structure and program structure. The method is

closely related in concept to creating a parser for a regular expression that describes the

data stream structure, but tries to build a program structure that matches more than one data

stream and provides guidance and techniques to compensate the limited lookahead and the

clashes between the structures of the different data streams. Useful links : tutorial1, tutorial

2

47. Java - Java is an object-oriented programming language developed by James Gosling and

colleagues at Sun Microsystems in the early 1990s. Unlike conventional languages which

are generally designed to be compiled to native code, Java is compiled to a byte code which

is then run (generally using JIT compilation) by a machine. The language itself borrows

much syntax from C and C++ but has a much simpler object model and does away with

low-level tools like programmer-manipulated pointers. Java is only distantly related to

JavaScript, though they have similar names and share a C-like syntax. Useful links : Sun’s tutorial, tutorial 2

48. JavaScript- JavaScript is the name of Netscape Communications Corporation's

implementation of ECMAScript, a scripting programming language based on the concept

of prototypes. The language is best known for its use in websites, but is also used to enable

scripting access to objects embedded in other applications. Despite the name, JavaScript is

only distantly related to the Java programming language, the main similarity being their

common debt to the C programming language. JavaScript has far more in common with the Self programming language. Useful links : guide, manual

49. JavaCC - is an open source parser generator for the Java programming language. JavaCC is

similar to Yacc in that it generates a parser for a grammar provided in EBNF notation,

except the output is Java source code. Unlike Yacc, however, JavaCC generates top-down

parsers, which limits it to the LL(k) class of grammars (in particular, left recursion cannot be used). Useful links : homepage, FAQs

15

50. JUnit - is a unit testing framework for the Java programming language. Created by Kent

Beck and Erich Gamma, JUnit is one, and arguably the most successful, of the xUnit

family of frameworks that originated with Kent Beck's SUnit. JUnit has spawned its own ecosystem of JUnit extensions. Useful links :

51. *JBuilder - is a Java IDE from Borland. It has won several consecutive awards as the most powerful IDE for professional Java Programming. Useful links : Borland site, FAQs, guide

K

L

52. Logic Design - is a process by which an abstract form of desired circuit behavior is turned into a design implementation in terms of logic gates. Useful links : guide

53. *LISP - is a family of computer programming languages with a long history and distinctive

fully-parenthesized syntax. Originally specified in 1958, Lisp is the second-oldest high-

level programming language in widespread use today; only FORTRAN is older. Like

FORTRAN, Lisp has changed a great deal since its early days, and a number of dialects

have existed over its history. Today, the most widely-known general-purpose Lisp dialects are Common Lisp and Scheme. Useful links : LISP tutorial,

54. *Lotus 123 - is a spreadsheet program from Lotus Software (now part of IBM). It was the

IBM PC's first killer application; its huge popularity in the mid-1980s contributed

significantly to the success of IBM PC in the corporate environment. Useful links : guide, guide 2

55. Log4j - is a Java-based logging utility, and is one of many projects from the Apache

Software Foundation. It is used primarily as a debugging tool. Useful links : Apache site,

manual

56. *LaTeX - , written as LaTeX in plain text, is a document preparation system for

the TeX typesetting program. It is used mainly by mathematicians, scientists, and engineers

in academia. It is also widely used by people outside of these fields as a primary or

intermediate format (e.g. translating DocBook and other XML-based formats to PDF) due

to the quality of typesetting achieved by TeX. Useful links : Official website, Tutorial 1, Tutorial 2, LaTeX Primer

57. Linux - Linux is a free Unix-type operating system originally created by Linus Torvalds

with the assistance of developers around the world. Developed under the GNU General

Public License , the source code for Linux is freely available to everyone. Useful links : Linux official webpage link, The Linux Documentation Project

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M

58. Microsoft Excel - is a spreadsheet program written and distributed by Microsoft for

computers using the Microsoft Windows operating system and for Apple Macintosh computers. Useful links : tutorial 1, tutorial 2

59. MSA - a computer program or software agent which receives electronic mail messages

from a mail user agent (MUA) and contacts an mail transfer agent (MTA) for delivery of

the mail. Useful links :

60. Microsoft Exchange Server - is a messaging and collaborative software product developed

by Microsoft. It is a part of their Windows Server System line of server products. The use

of Microsoft Exchange is very widespread in large corporations using Microsoft

infrastructure solutions. Among other things, Microsoft Exchange manages electronic mail,

shared calendars and tasks, provides full support for mobile and web-based access to

information, and can support very large amounts of data storage. Useful links : Microsoft

page

61. Microsoft Word - is a word processing application from Microsoft. It was originally written

by Richard Brodie for IBM PCs running DOS in 1983. Later versions were created for the

Apple Macintosh (1984), SCO UNIX, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows (1989). Useful links : tutorial 1, tutorial 2

62. Mentor Graphics - is a US-based multinational corporation dealing in electronic design

automation (EDA) for electrical engineering and electronics, as of 2004, ranked third in the EDA industry it help create. Useful links : tutorial 1, tutorial 2

63. MPI - is a computer communications protocol. It is a de facto standard for communication

among the nodes running a parallel program on a distributed memory system. MPI

implementations consist of a library of routines that can be called from Fortran, C, C++ and

Ada programs. The advantage of MPI over older message passing libraries is that it is both

portable (because MPI has been implemented for almost every distributed memory

architecture) and fast (because each implementation is optimized for the hardware on which it runs). Useful links : tutorial 1, tutorial 2

64. Macromedia Flash - refers to both the Macromedia Flash Player and to a multimedia

authoring program used to create content for this platform (such as games and movies). The

Flash Player, developed and distributed by Adobe Systems (which bought Macromedia), is

a client application available in most dominant web browsers. It features support for vector

and raster graphics, a scripting language called ActionScript and bidirectional streaming of

audio and video. Useful links : tutorial 1, tutorial 2

65. Macromedia Dreamweaver - is a web development tool, created by Macromedia (now

Adobe Systems), which is currently in version 8. Initial versions of the application served

as simple WYSIWYG HTML editors but more recent versions have incorporated notable

support for many other web technologies such as CSS, JavaScript, and various server-side scripting frameworks. Useful links : tutorial 1, tutorial 2

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66. MS-DOS - is an operating system commercialized by Microsoft. It was the most widely

used member of the DOS family of operating systems and was the dominant operating

system for the PC compatible platform during the 1980s. Useful links : tutorial 1, tutorial 2

67. Make - is a utility that automates the process of converting files from one form to another.

It does so by dependency tracking and invocation of external programs to do additional

work as needed. Its dependency tracking is very simple and centers on using the

modification time of the input files. Useful links : GNU tutorial, guide

68. mySQL- MySQL is a multithreaded, multi-user, SQL Database Management System

(DBMS) with more than six million installations. MySQL AB makes MySQL available as

free software under the GNU General Public License (GPL), but they also dual-license it

under traditional proprietary licensing arrangements for cases where the intended use is incompatible with the GPL. Useful links : tutorial 1, tutorial 2

69. Mail Server- A mail transfer agent or MTA (also called a mail transport agent, mail server,

or a mail exchange server in the context of the Domain Name System) is a computer

program or software agent that transfers electronic mail messages from one computer to

another. It receives messages from another MTA (relaying), a mail submission agent

(MSA) that itself got the mail from a mail user agent (MUA), or directly from an MUA,

thus acting as an MSA itself. The MTA works behind the scenes, while the user usually

interacts with the MUA. The delivery of e-mail to a user's mailbox typically takes place via

a mail delivery agent (MDA); many MTAs have basic MDA functionality built in, but a

dedicated MDA like procmail can provide more sophistication.

70. Mail Server- A mail transfer agent or MTA (also called a mail transport agent, mail server,

or a mail exchange server in the context of the Domain Name System) is a computer

program or software agent that transfers electronic mail messages from one computer to

another. It receives messages from another MTA (relaying), a mail submission agent

(MSA) that itself got the mail from a mail user agent (MUA), or directly from an MUA,

thus acting as an MSA itself. The MTA works behind the scenes, while the user usually

interacts with the MUA. The delivery of e-mail to a user's mailbox typically takes place via

a mail delivery agent (MDA); many MTAs have basic MDA functionality built in, but a dedicated MDA like procmail can provide more sophistication, Useful Links: 1, 2

71. MAX+PLUS II Baseline- Designs for CPLD/FPGA are created on the PC using Altera's

powerful MAX+PLUS II Baseline design software. Useful Links: 1

72. Microsoft Visual Studio - Microsoft Visual Studio is an advanced integrated development

environment by Microsoft. It lets programmers create programs, web sites, web

applications, and web services that run on Microsoft Windows, PocketPC, Smartphones,

and the World Wide Web.

73. Microsoft Visual Studio Express - Microsoft Visual Studio Express is a set of free IDEs

developed by Microsoft that are lightweight versions of the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005

(codenamed Whidbey) product line. The idea of express editions, according to Microsoft, is

to provide a streamlined, easy-to-use and easy-to-learn IDEs for less serious users, such as

hobbyists and students. They were released on November 7, 2005, and were supposed to be

free just for one year. However, Microsoft announced on April 19, 2006 that these editions

will always remain free.

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N

74. Network Cards - is a piece of computer hardware designed to allow computers to

communicate over a computer network. It is an OSI model layer 2 item because it has a MAC address. Useful Links: 1, 2

75. NetBSD - is a freely redistributable, open source version of the Unix-like BSD computer

operating system. It was the second open source BSD variant to be formally released, after

386BSD, and continues to be actively developed. Useful Links: 1, 2

76. Net - Microsoft .Net is an umbrella term that applies to a collection of products and

technologies from Microsoft. All have in a common a dependence on the Microsoft .NET

Framework, a component of the Windows operating system. Microsoft products and

components that fall into the .Net category include:

The Microsoft .NET Framework, an operating system component required by all .Net products.

ASP.NET

C#, a programming language

Visual Basic .NET, a programming language

Visual Studio, a programmer's development environment.

ADO.NET, a data access library included with the .Net framework. Useful Links: 1

O

77. *Oracle 8 - consists of a collection of data managed by an Oracle database management

system or DBMS. The term "Oracle database" sometimes refers — imprecisely — to the

DBMS software itself. The title of this article — and parts of the article content — perpetuate this confusion. Useful Links: 1, 2

78. OpenBSD - is a freely available Unix-like computer operating system descended from

Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), a Unix derivative created at the University of

California, Berkeley. Useful Links: 1, 2

79. OSI model - The Open Systems Interconnection Reference Model (OSI Model or OSI

Reference Model for short) is a layered abstract description for communications and

computer network protocol design, developed as part of the Open Systems Interconnection

initiative. It is also called the OSI seven layer model. Useful Links: 1, 2

80. Open Office - is a free and open source office suite, including word processor, spreadsheet,

presentation, vector drawing and database components. It is available for many different

platforms, including Microsoft Windows, Unix-like systems with the X Window System

including GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris and Mac OS X. It is intended to be compatible with,

and compete with, Microsoft Office. It supports the OpenDocument standard for data interchange, and can be used at no cost. Useful Links: 1, 2

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81. ODBC - Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) provides a standard software API method

for using database management systems (DBMS). The designers of ODBC aimed to make

it independent of programming language, database system and operating system. Useful Links: 1, 2

P

82. *Pascal- Pascal is based on the ALGOL programming language and named in honor of

mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal. Wirth subsequently developed Modula-2 and

Oberon, languages similar to Pascal. Initially, Pascal was a language intended to teach

students structured programming, and generations of students have "cut their teeth" on

Pascal as an introductory language in undergraduate courses. Parts of the original

Macintosh operating system were written in Pascal and Motorola 68000 assembly language

(though later versions incorporated substantial amounts of C++ as well), and the most

frequent high-level language used for development in the early Mac community was

Pascal. In addition, the popular typesetting system TeX was written by Donald E. Knuth in WEB, a variant of Pascal designed for literate programming. Useful Links: 1, 2

83. Microsoft PowerPoint- It is a ubiquitous presentation program developed for the Microsoft

Windows and Mac OS computer operating systems. Being widely used by businesspeople,

educators, and trainers, it is among the most prevalent forms of persuasion technology.

Useful Links: 1, 2

84. PERL - Practical Extraction and Report Language is a dynamic procedural programming

language designed by Larry Wall and first released in 1987. Perl borrows features from C,

shell scripting (sh), awk, sed, Lisp, and, to a lesser extent, many other programming

languages. Useful Links 1, 2

85. PHP - is an open-source, reflective programming language used mainly for producing

dynamic web content and server-side applications. PHP allows interaction with a large

number of relational database management systems, such as MySQL, Oracle, IBM DB2,

Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Firebird and SQLite. PHP runs on most major

operating systems including Unix, Linux, Netware, Windows, and Mac OS X, and can interact with many major web servers. Useful Links: 1, 2

86. Print Servers - is a host computer or device to which one or more printers are connected

and that can accept print jobs from external client computers connected to the print server

over a network. The printer server then sends the data to the appropriate printer that it manages. Useful Links: 1

87. Power Supplies - is a device or system that supplies electrical or other types of energy to an

output load or group of loads. The term is most commonly applied to electrical energy supplies. Useful Links: 1, 2

88. Publicfile - is a small web and ftp server, designed for maximum security. It is written and

maintained by Daniel J. Bernstein, famous as the author of qmail and djbdns. Useful Links:

1, 2

89. Project Management-Project Management is composed of several different types of activities such as:

20

Planning the work

Assessing and mitigating risk

Estimating resources

Organizing the work

Acquiring human and material resources

Assigning tasks

Directing activities

Controlling project execution

Reporting progress

Analyzing the results based on the facts achieved/ Useful Links: 1, 2

90. *Progress- Progress is comprised of four operating units: Progress OpenEdge Division,

Sonic Software, DataDirect Technologies, and Progress Real Time Division. Its best

known product is the Progress 4GL language, which was developed in the early 1980s. Useful Links: 1, 2

91. Progress 4GL- Progress 4GL is a 4GL programming language developed by Progress

Software Corporation. It uses an imperative style to do database access. Instead of using

embedded SQL expressions, Progress 4GL uses "FOR EACH" expressions to query a

database or single "FIND" expressions. Next to database access expressions there is a

variety of expressions to define and control forms. The language contains

IF...THEN...ELSE statements and DO...WHILE statements for flow control. Useful Links: 1

92. Premier 6.0- “Adobe Premiere 6.0 is a powerful and surprisingly easy-to-use professional

video-editing tool. This latest version comfortably closes the gap between DV and Web,

and has new support for DV on the Windows platform and cross-platform support for all of

the leading Web video formats. Premiere 6.0 provides direct support for IEEE 1394

(FireWire/i.Link) on both Windows and Mac OS. By using only the DV port on your hard

drive, an IEEE 1394 connection, and your DV camcorder, you get perfect digital video in

Premiere 6.0 every time. Premiere 6.0 offers built-in support for all types of DV devices,

ranging from consumer to professional. By simply connecting a DV device to the IEEE

1394 port on a Windows or Macintosh computer, you can capture DV clips and begin

editing right away. On a computer with an IEEE 1394 port, there's no need to install

additional hardware, such as a video-capture card. Just select the appropriate DV-device

manufacturer and model in the Device Control dialog box, and Premiere 6.0 assigns the

video-input settings that are appropriate to that device--making the video-capture process

more precise. Premiere 6.0's Movie Capture window now includes a Settings tab and a

Logging tab. By using the Settings tab, you can view and edit video-capture settings,

change the capture location, and set device-control preferences. By using the Logging tab,

you can log video clips quickly, set In and Out points, name clips and reels, batch-capture

multiple logged video clips effortlessly, and add comments about each clip. Useful Links:

1, 2

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93. Portlet - are pluggable user interface components that are managed and displayed in a web

portal. Portlets produce fragments of markup code that are aggregated into a portal page.

Typically, following the desktop metaphor, a portal page is displayed as a collection of

non-overlapping portlet windows, where each portlet window displays a portlet. Useful Links: 1, 2

Q

94. *QBasic - is a variant of the BASIC programming language. The source code is compiled

to an intermediate form within the integrated development environment (IDE), and this intermediate form is immediately interpreted on demand within the IDE. Useful Links: 1, 2

95. QWS3270 - is an update to id Software's Quake, that enhances the game's multiplayer

features (namely TCP/IP support) to allow people with dial-up modems to achieve greatly

improved responsiveness when playing on Internet game servers. Modern broadband

connections such as cable and DSL also benefit greatly from the improved network handling and game physics. Useful Links: 1, 2

96. Qmail - is a mail transfer agent that runs on Unix. It was written by Daniel J. Bernstein as a

more secure replacement for the popular Sendmail program. The author offered a $500

prize for the first person to publish a verifiable security hole in the latest version of the software. Useful Links: 1, 2

97. *Quartus II- Quartus II software version 6.0 enables the highest levels of productivity and

the fastest path to design completion for high-density FPGA design. Dramatically improve

your productivity compared to traditional high-density FPGA design flows.

R

98. *Ruby - is a reflective, object-oriented programming language. It combines syntax inspired

by Ada and Perl with Smalltalk-like object-oriented features, and also shares some features

with Python, Lisp, Dylan and CLU. Ruby is a single-pass interpreted language. Useful

Links: 1, 2

99. *RPG - is a native programming language for IBM's iSeries servers - the latest generation

of midrange servers which included System/38, System/36, AS/400, iSeries and System i5

systems. Its latest incarnation is RPG IV which includes prototyped functions and

procedures, static and dynamic binding, access to C routine libraries, dynamic link libraries, and fully recursive and re-entrant code. Useful Links: 1, 2

100. *REXX - is an interpreted programming language which was developed at IBM. It is a

structured high-level programming language which was designed to be both easy to learn

and easy to read. Both commercial and open source interpreters for REXX are available on

a wide range of computing platforms, and compilers are available for IBM mainframes. Useful Links: 1, 2

101. RFID Technology - Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is an automatic identification

method, relying on storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID tags or

transponders. An RFID tag is a small object that can be attached to or incorporated into a

22

product, animal, or person. RFID tags contain silicon chips and antennas to enable them to

receive and respond to radio-frequency queries from an RFID transceiver. Useful Links: 1,

2

S

102. *Scheme - is a functional programming language and a dialect of Lisp. It was developed by

Guy L. Steele and Gerald Jay Sussman in the 1970s, initially as an attempt to understand

the Actor model. Scheme was introduced to the academic world via a series of papers now

referred to as Sussman and Steele's Lambda Papers. Implementations tend to differ in

minor details, so sometimes Scheme is referred to as a family of closely related programming languages. Useful Links: 1, 2

103. SQL - is the most popular computer language used to create, modify, retrieve and

manipulate data from relational database management systems. The language has evolved

beyond its original purpose to support object-relational database management systems. It is an ANSI/ISO standard. Useful Links: 1, 2

104. SBS 2000 - SBS means Scandinavian Broadcasting System.

105. Solaris - is a computer operating system developed by Sun Microsystems. It is certified as a

version of UNIX; although Solaris proper is still proprietary software, many core

components have made their way into an open source CDDL version, OpenSolaris. Useful Links: 1, 2

106. Software Programmer - A programmer or software developer is someone who programs

computers, i.e., one who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can

refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes

code for many kinds of software. One who practices or professes a formal approach to

programming may also be known as a programmer analyst, software engineer, computer

scientist, or software analyst. A programmer's primary computer language (Java, C++, etc)

is often prefixed to the above titles, and those that work in a web environment often prefix their titles with "web". Useful Links: 1, 2

107. *SSI - is a form of distributed computing in which by using a common interface multiple

networks, distributed databases or servers appear to the user as one system. In other words, the operating system environment is shared by all nodes in the system. Useful Links: 1

108. SAP - Standard Accounting Program is a business accounting program that handles

inventory and billing. Similar in scope and usage to "Enterprise resource planning". Useful

Links: 1, 2

109. Socket - is the CPU socket used for AMD processors ranging from the Athlon Thunderbird

to the Athlon XP/MP 3200+, and AMD budget processors including the Duron and

Sempron. The socket is a zero insertion force pin grid array type with 453 pins (nine pins

are blocked in the socket to prevent accidental insertion of Socket 370 CPUs, hence the number 462). Useful Links: 1, 2

110. Shell - is a piece of software that essentially provides a kind of interface for end-users.

Typically, the term refers to an operating system shell which provides access to the services

of a kernel. However, the term is also applied very loosely to applications and may include

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any software that is "built around" a particular component, such as web browsers and email clients that are "shells" for HTML rendering engines. Useful Links: 1, 2

111. SSH - Secure Shell is a set of standards and an associated network protocol that allows

establishing a secure channel between a local and a remote computer. Useful Links 1, 2

112. *SVG - Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is an XML markup language for describing two-

dimensional vector graphics, both static and animated (either declarative or scripted). It is

an open standard created by the World Wide Web Consortium, which is also responsible

for standards like HTML and XHTML. Useful links: 1, 2

113. Subnetting - The word subnetwork (usually shortened to subnet) has two related meanings.

In the older and more general meaning, it meant one physical network of an internetwork.

In the Internet Protocol (IP), a subnetwork is a division of a classful network. The rest of

this article is about the second meaning. Useful Links: 1, 2

T

114. Teradata-Queryman - is a relational database management system initially created by the

firm with the same name, founded in 1979. Teradata is part of the NCR Corporation which

acquired the Teradata company on February 28, 1991. It is a massively parallel processing

system running a shared nothing architecture. Useful Links: 1, 2

115. Turbo Pascal - is a compiler and a powerful Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

for the Pascal programming language running mainly on MS-DOS, developed by Borland.

The name Borland Pascal was generally reserved for the high end packages (with more

libraries and standard library source code) whilst the original cheap and widely known

version was sold as Turbo Pascal. Useful Links: 1, 2

116. Tomcat - is a web container developed at the Apache Software Foundation. Tomcat

implements the servlet and the JavaServer Pages (JSP) specifications from Sun

Microsystems, providing an environment for Java code to run in cooperation with a web

server. Useful Links: 1, 2

117. TCP/IP - is the set of communications protocols that implement the protocol stack on

which the Internet and most commercial networks run. It is sometimes called the TCP/IP

protocol suite, after the two most important protocols in it: the Transmission Control

Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP), which were also the first two defined. Useful Links: 1, 2

U

118. UNIX - a computer operating system originally developed in the 1960s and 1970s by a

group of AT&T Bell Labs employees including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and

Douglas McIlroy. Today's Unix systems are split into various branches, developed over

time by AT&T, several other commercial vendors, as well as several non-profit organizations. Useful Links: 1, 2

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V

119. Visual Basic - is an event driven programming language and associated development

environment prototyped by Alan Cooper as Project Ruby, then bought and vastly improved

upon by Microsoft. It is derived heavily from BASIC and enables rapid application

development (RAD) of graphical user interface (GUI) applications, access to databases

using DAO, RDO, or ADO, and creation of ActiveX controls and objects. Useful Links: 1, 2

120. *VHDL - VHSIC Hardware Description Language, is commonly used as a design-entry

language for field-programmable gate arrays and application-specific integrated circuits in

electronic design automation of digital circuits. Useful Links: 1, 2

121. Visio - Microsoft Visio is diagramming software for Microsoft Windows that is part of the Microsoft Office series of applications. Useful Links: 1, 2

W

122. Windows Server 2003 - is the name of Microsoft's line of server operating systems. It was

introduced in April 2003 as the successor to Windows 2000 Server, and is considered by

Microsoft to be the cornerstone of their Windows Server System line of business server

products. Useful Links: 1, 2

123. Windows XP/NT - is the name of a line of operating systems developed by Microsoft for

use on general-purpose computer systems, including home and business desktops,

notebook computers, and media centers. The letters "XP" are short for the word

experience.[1] Codenamed Whistler during its development, Windows XP is the successor

to both Windows 2000 and Windows Me, and is the first consumer-oriented operating

system produced by Microsoft to be built on the Windows NT kernel and architecture.

Useful Links: 1, 2

124. Weblogic 8.1 - is a J2EE application server and also an HTTP web server by BEA Systems

of San Jose, California, for Unix, Linux, Microsoft Windows, and other platforms.

WebLogic supports Oracle, DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, and other JDBC-compliant

databases. WebLogic Server supports WS-Security and is compliant with J2EE 1.3. Useful Links: 1, 2

125. Web Developer - is a broad term that incorporates all areas of developing a web site for the

World Wide Web. This can include graphical web design, actual coding of pages, backend

programming, and web server configuration. However, among web professionals, web

development usually refers only to the non-design aspects of building web sites, e.g. writing markup and coding. Useful Links: 1, 2

126. Win32 API - The Windows API is the name given by Microsoft to the core set of

application programming interfaces available in the Microsoft Windows operating systems.

It is designed for usage by C/C++ programs and is the most direct way to interact with a

Windows system for software applications. Lower level access to a Windows system,

mostly required for device drivers, is provided by the Windows Driver Model in current versions of Windows. Useful Links: 1, 2

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127. Web Services - is a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine

interaction over a network. It has an interface that is described in a machine-processible

format such as WSDL. Other systems interact with the Web service in a manner prescribed

by its interface using messages, which may be enclosed in a SOAP envelope, or follow a

RESTful approach. These messages are typically conveyed using HTTP, and normally

comprise XML in conjunction with other Web-related standards. Useful Links: 1, 2

X

128. XML - Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a W3C-recommended general-purpose

markup language for creating special-purpose markup languages, capable of describing

many different kinds of data. In other words: XML is a way of describing data and an XML

file can contain the data too, as in a database. It is a simplified subset of Standard

Generalized Markup Language (SGML). Its primary purpose is to facilitate the sharing of

data across different systems, particularly systems connected via the Internet. Useful Links:

1, 2

129. XSLT - Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations, is an XML-based language used

for the transformation of XML documents. The original document is not changed; rather, a

new document is created based on the content of an existing one. The new document may

be serialized (output) by the processor in standard XML syntax or in another format, such

as HTML or plain text. XSLT is most often used to convert data between different XML schemas or to convert XML data into web pages or PDF documents. Useful Links: 1, 2

Y

Z