Appendix B. Common Acronyms

Table B-1 provides a listing of common acronyms or terms that you will come across in .NET-related reading materials and conversations. Some of these acronyms or terms have little relevance to .NET, but appear occasionally in this book, so we've provided them in this table for your convenience.

Table B-1. List of common acronyms

Acronym	Description
.ASMX	File extension for web services source-code files.
.ASPX	File extension for ASP.NET source-code files.
.config	File extension of .NET application configuration files.
ADO	ActiveX Data Objects.
ADO.NET	With goals similar to ADO, ADO.NET is the way to access data sources in .NET.
API	Application Programming Interface.
AppDomain	Short term to mean an application domain.
ASP	Active Server Pages.
ASP.NET	With goals similar to ASP, ASP.NET is the technology that supports the rapid development of Web Forms.
ATL	Active Template Library.
BLOB	Binary Large Object.
CAB Files	Cabinet files.
CCW	COM Callable Wrapper.
CLI	Common Language Infrastructure. This is the specification of the infrastructure and base-class libraries that Microsoft has submitted to ECMA so that a third-party vendor can build a .NET runtime on another platform. The CLR is Microsoft's implementation of the CLI.
CLR	Common Language Runtime.
CLS	Common Language Specification.
CLSID	Class identifier used in COM.
COFF	Common Object File Format.
COM	Component Object Model.
COM Interop	Short for COM interoperation.
COM+ 2.0	This term is no longer used as of Beta 1 of the .NET SDK. The new, accepted term is .NET Framework.
COM+ Runtime	This term is no longer used as of Beta 1 of the .NET SDK. The new, accepted term is Common Language Runtime.
CTS	Common Type System.
DB	Database.
DCOM	Distributed Component Object Model.
DHTML	Dynamic HyperText Markup Language.
DISCO	Discovery of web services. A Web Service has one or more .DISCO files that contain information on how to access its WSDL.
DISPID	Dispatch identifier. Used in COM to identify a method or a property for dynamic invocation.
DLL	Dynamically Linked Library.
DNA	Distributed interNet Applications Architecture.
DOM	Document Object Model.
DTD	Data Type Document. This has been superceded by XSD.
EXE	Executable.
GC	Garbage Collector.
GDI	Graphical Device Interface.
GDI+	A .NET library that supports advanced graphics management.
Global.asax	The global configuration file for an ASP.NET application.
GUID	Globally Unique Identifier.
HTML	HyperText Markup Language.
HTTP	HyperText Transfer Protocol.
IDE	Integrated Development Environment.
IDL	Interface Definition Language.
IE	Internet Explorer.
IID	Interface Identifier.
IIS	Internet Information Server.
IJW	It Just Works.
IL	Intermediate Language.
ILDASM	Intermediate Language Disassembler.
Inproc	In-Process.
ISAPI	Information Server Application Programming Interface.
Machine.config	Configuration file for administrative policy for an entire machine.
MBR	Marshal-By-Reference.
MBV	Marshal-By-Value.
MFC	Microsoft Foundation Classes.
MSI	Microsoft Windows Installer Package.
MSIL	Microsoft Intermediate Language.
MSVCRT	Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime.
MSXML	Microsoft eXtensible Markup Language.
MTS	Microsoft Transaction Server.
NGWS	Stands for Next Generation Windows Services, the original name for .NET before it was previewed at PDC 2000 in Orlando, Florida. This term is no longer used.
NTFS	NT File System.
N-Tier	Multi-tier.
NTLM	NT Lan Manager.
OBJREF	Object Reference.
Out of proc	Out-of-process.
P/Invoke	Platform Invoke.
PE	Portable Executable.
perm	Permissions.
RAD	Rapid Application Development.
RCW	Runtime Callable Wrapper.
REGASM	Register Assembly tool.
RPC	Remote Procedure Call.
SCL	SOAP Contract Language.
SDK	Software Development Kit.
SEH	Structured Exception Handling.
SMTP	Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.
SOAP	Simple Object Access Protocol.
SQL	Structured Query Language.
STL	Standard Template Library.
TCP	Transport Control Protocol.
TLB	Type Library.
TLBEXP	Type Library Exporter Tool.
TLBIMP	Type Library Importer Tool.
UDDI	Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration Service. UDDI is a platform-independent framework for describing and discovering web services.
UDF	Uniform Data Format.
UI	User Interface.
URI	Uniform Resource Identifier.
URL	Uniform Resource Locator.
URT	Universal Runtime. This term is no longer used as of Beta 1 of the .NET SDK. The new, accepted term is the .NET Framework.
VB	Visual Basic.
VBRUN	Visual Basic Runtime.
VES	Virtual Execution System. The VES is a subset of the CLR. The VES doesn't include features such as debugging, profile, and COM interoperation.
VOS	Virtual Object System. This is now called the CTS.
VS.NET	Visual Studio .NET.
WAP	Wireless Application Protocol.
web.config	Configuration file for ASP.NET. You define HTTP modules, handlers, session state management, and other ASP.NET configurable parameters in this file.
WebForms	This term is no longer used as of Beta 1 of the .NET SDK. The new and accepted term is Web Forms (with a space).
WebServices	This term is no longer used as of Beta 1 of the .NET SDK. The new, accepted term is web services (with a space).
Win32	Windows 32-bit.
WinForms	This term is no longer used as of Beta 1 of the .NET SDK.
WML	Wireless Markup Language.
WSDL	Web Service Description Language. Think of this as IDL for web services. Unlike IDL, WSDL is expressed using only XML schemas. SDL is used in Beta1 of the .NET SDK, but WSDL replaced SDL in Beta 2 and later installments.
XML	Extensible Markup Language.
XPath	XML Path.
XSD	XML Schema Definition.
XSL	Extensible Stylesheet Language.
XSLT	Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations.