Programming terms starting with B

56 terms

B2B Business-to-business.
backing bean A JavaBeans component that corresponds to a JSP page that includes JavaServer Faces components.
backreference A substring captured by a subpattern within unadorned parentheses in a "regex". Backslashed decimal numbers (, , etc.
backtracking The practice of saying, "If I had to do it all over, I'd do it differently," and then actually going back and doing it all over differently.
backward compatibility Means you can still run your old program because we didn't break any of the features or bugs it was relying on.
bareword A word sufficiently ambiguous to be deemed illegal under use strict 'subs'. In the absence of that stricture, a bareword is treated as if quotes were…
base case A non-recursive route through a recursive method.
base class A generic "object" type; that is, a "class" from which other, more specific classes are derived genetically by "inheritance".
base type The type of items which may be stored in an array - the array's defined type. For instance, in int[] numbers; the base type of numbers is int.
Basic authentication Authentication protocol supported by most Web servers and browsers. Transmits the user name and password in clear text.
bean A reusable software component that conforms to certain design and naming conventions.
bean-managed persistence The mechanism whereby data transfer between an entity bean's variables and a resource manager is managed by the entity bean.
bean-managed transaction A transaction whose boundaries are defined by an enterprise bean.
Behavior Reaction of an animal to its environment.
big-endian A common difference between machines is the order in which they store the individual bytes of multi-byte numerical data.
binary Mathematical base 2, or numbers composed of a series of zeros and ones. Since zero's and one's can be easily represented by two voltage levels on an…
binary entity See unparsed entity.
binary operator An operator taking two operands. Java has many binary operators, such as the arithmetic operators +, -, *, / and %, and the boolean operators &&, || and…
binary search A search of sorted data, in which the middle position is examined first. Search continues with either the left or the right portion of the data, thus…
bind To assign a specific "network address" to a "socket".
binding (JavaServer Faces technology) Wiring UI components to back-end data sources such as backing bean properties.
binding (XML) Generating the code needed to process a well-defined portion of XML data.
Bit A bit ( B inary dig IT ) is the smallest unit of computer data. A bit consists of either 0 or 1. There are eight bits in a byte.
bit manipulation operator Operators, such as &, | and ^, that are used to examine an manipulate individual bits within the bytes of a data item.
bit shift The movement of bits left or right in a computer word, which has the effect of multiplying or dividing by a power of 2.
bit string A sequence of bits that is actually being thought of as a sequence of bits, for once.
bitwise operator An operator that manipulates the bits of one or more of its operands individually and in parallel.
blank final variable A final variable that is not initialized as part of its declaration. Such a variable must be initialized in either an instance initialization block or all…
bless In corporate life, to grant official approval to a thing, as in, "The VP of Engineering has blessed our WebCruncher project.
block A repetition/replication of the Early, Mid and Late Seral Treatment plots and a Control plot. See Repetition/replication.
block buffering A method of making input and output efficient by passing one "block" at a time. By default, Perl does block buffering to disk files.
bookmark A link to a Web site or page previously visited.
Boolean Boolean logic (named for the British-born Irish mathematician George Boole) is way to express relationships in logic arguments using the following three…
Boolean context A special kind of "scalar context" used in conditionals to decide whether the "scalar value" returned by an expression is "true" or "false".
Boolean expression A type of expression that reduces to a true or false (logical) condition. A Boolean expression contains logical expressions (e.g.
Boot To start up or reset a computer.
bootstrap classes Classes that make up the Java Platform Core Application Programming Interface (API), such as those found in the java.lang, java.io and java.io packages.
boundary error Errors that arise from programming mistakes made at the edges of a problem - indexing off the edge of an array, dealing with no items of data, loop…
bounded repetition Repetition where the statements within a loop's body are performed a fixed number of times and the number of times is established when the loop is started.
bounds The limits of an array or collection. In Java, the lower limit is always zero. In the case of an array, the upper bound is one less than then length of…
branch instruction Stores a new instruction address into the program counter. The effect of this is the next instruction to be fetched will not usually be the one…
break Distinct variation in otherwise constant stretches of cover, structure, or bottom type. Basically anything that "breaks up" the underwater terrain.
break statement A statement used to break out of a loop, switch statement or labeled block. In all cases, control continues with the statement immediately following the…
Breakpoint A breakpoint is the level at which your account balance in a mutual fund company or the size of a new investment in the company's funds qualifies you to…
bridging method A method that provides a bridge between the methods of a class's public interface and its private implementation.
broadcast To send a "datagram" to multiple destinations simultaneously.
BSD Battlefield Situation Display.
bucket A part of an excavator which digs, lifts, and carries dirt.
buffer A zone of a specified distance around coverage features. Both constant- and variable-width buffers can be generated for a set of coverage features based…
build file The XML file that contains one or more asant targets. A target is a set of tasks you want to be executed.
built-in A "function" that is predefined in the language. Even when hidden by "overriding", you can always get at a built-in function by qualifying its name with…
bundle A group of related modules on "CPAN". (Also, sometimes refers to a group of command-line switches grouped into one "switch cluster".)
business logic The code that implements the functionality of an application. In the Enterprise JavaBeans architecture, this logic is implemented by the methods of an…
business method A method of an enterprise bean that implements the business logic or rules of an application.
byte Eight bits. A byte is a collection of bits used by computers to represent a character (i.e., "a", "1", or "&").
bytecode Java source files are translated by a compiler into bytecodes - the instruction set of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Bytecodes are stored in .