Glossary of Terms and Jargon
----------------------------

.. glossary::

    API
        Application Programming Interface (like a GUI for computers).

    ARIA
        Accessible Rich Internet Applications.

    CSS
        Cascading Style Sheets, the collection of technologies used to change how elements on a web page look.

    CG
        Community Group (at the :term:`W3C`).

    CLA
        Contributors License Agreement

    DOM
        Document Object Model.

    Ecma
        The name of the standards body that makes ECMAScript, the standard for the JavaScript programming language.

    Git
        Git is a free and open source distributed version control system;
        project homepage: https://git-scm.com/

    GitHub
        a website that provides hosting for software development version
        control using :term:`Git`; homepage: https://github.com

    HTML
        Hypertext Markup Language, the collection of technologies for structuring and linking between documents on the web.

    HTTP
        Hypertext Transfer Protocol

    HTTP Archive
        A database of the :term:`HTML`, :term:`CSS` and :term:`JS` response bodies and other data of the top several million1,000,000 pages, collected twice per month.
        Useful for figuring out how web developers use the web, and what changes will be compatible.

    Interoperable
        Different implementations behave exactly the same for a given case.

    IPR
        Intellectual Property Rights

    IRC
        Internet Relay Chat - how people chat with each other about web standards (instead of slack).

    JS
        JavaScript - the programming language used to manipulate the behavior of web pages, and to write programs that can run on web pages and in :term:`Node.js`.

    Living Standard
        A versionless continuously maintained standard (at the WHATWG).

    Node.js
        An open-source, cross-platform, JavaScript :term:`runtime` environment that executes JavaScript code outside of a web browser.

    Node Global
        the collection of built-in :term:`APIs <API>` in :term:`Node.js`.

    Normative
        content in a specification that contains requirements or is referenced by something that is normative.

    Non-normative
        content in a specification that is not normative, such as examples or statements of fact.

    Prose
        written words.

    PR
        pull request (in :term:`GitHub`).

    Runtime
        A jargon term for the environment in which code runs, like a browser, or :term:`Node.js`, etc.
        The term is derived from the **runtime phase** of a computer's execution of a program.
        Browsers and Node.js both run third party code, so we often refer to them casually as "runtimes".
        This term is also used to refer to the details and :term:`API` surface of the environment that the program is running in.
        For example JavaScript code in an HTML document has access to the `window` object in it's runtime, whereas the same code running in Node.js would have acces to the :term:`Node Global`.

    Spec
        short for specification.

    SVG
        Scalable Vector Graphics.

    TC
        Technical Committee (at :term:`Ecma`).

    TSC
        Technical Steering Committee

    UA
        User Agent - a piece of software that acts on behalf of the user.
        For example, a web browser.

    W3C
        World Wide Web Consortium.

    Web compatible
        In the context of implementations, behavior that matches user expectation for existing web content.
        In the context of web standards, required behavior for user agents that matches user expectations when using existing web content, and lack of required behavior that breaks those expectations.

    WG
        Working Group (at the :term:`W3C`).

    WHATWG
        Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group.

    WPT
        web-platform-tests; a cross-browser test suite for the Web-platform
        stack; project homepage: https://web-platform-tests.org

    Window
        the main global object in a web page.