Vocab Flashcards
What is a Bit?
A binary digit.
What is a Byte?
Made up of 8 bits.
What is an Overflow Error?
An error from attempting to represent a number that is too large.
What is a Round-Off Error?
An error from attempting to represent a number that is too precise. The value is rounded.
What is Analog Data?
Data with values that change continuously, or smoothly, over time.
Examples include music, colors of a painting, or position of a sprinter during a race.
What is Digital Data?
Data that changes discreetly through a finite set of possible values.
What is Sampling?
A process for creating a digital representation of analog data by measuring the analog data at regular intervals called samples.
What is Lossless Compression?
A process for reducing the number of bits needed to represent something without losing any information. This process is reversible.
What is Lossy Compression?
A process for reducing the number of bits needed to represent something in which some information is lost or thrown away. This process is not reversible.
What is a Computing Device?
A machine that can run a program, including computers, tablets, servers, routers, and smart sensors.
What is a Computing System?
A group of computing devices and programs working together for a common purpose.
What is a Computing Network?
A group of interconnected computing devices capable of sending or receiving data.
What is a Path in networking?
The series of connections between computing devices on a network starting with a sender and ending with a receiver.
What is Bandwidth?
The maximum amount of data that can be sent in a fixed amount of time, usually measured in bits per second.
What is a Protocol?
An agreed upon set of rules that specify the behavior of some system.
What is an IP Address?
The unique number assigned to each device on the internet.
What is Internet Protocol (IP)?
A protocol for sending data across the internet that assigns unique numbers (IP addresses) to each connected device.
What is a Router?
A type of computer that forwards data across a network.
What is Redundancy?
The inclusion of extra components so that a system can continue to work even if individual components fail.
For example, having more than one path between any two connected devices in a network.
What is Fault Tolerant?
Can continue to function even in the event of individual component failures.
What is User Datagram Protocol (UDP)?
A protocol for sending packets quickly with minimal error-checking and no resending of dropped packets.
Useful when split seconds matter more than correcting errors, like video-conferencing, live streaming, or online gaming.
What is Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)?
A protocol for sending packets that does error-checking to ensure all packets are received and properly ordered.
Useful when accuracy matters more than saving a split second, like sending emails, photos, or just browsing websites.
What is a Datastream?
Information passed through the internet in packets.
What is a Packet?
A chunk of data sent over a network.
What is Packet Metadata?
Data added to packets to help route them through the network and reassemble the original message.
What is a User Interface?
The inputs and outputs that allow a user to interact with a piece of software.
What is Input?
Data that is sent to a computer for processing by a program.
What is Output?
Any data that is sent from a program to a device.
What is a Program Statement?
A command or instruction.
What is a Program?
A collection of program statements.
What is Sequential Programming?
Program statements run in order, from top to bottom.
What is Event Driven Programming?
Some program statements run when triggered by an event, like a mouse click or a key press.
What is Documentation?
A written description of how a command or piece of code works or was developed.
What is a Comment in programming?
A form of program documentation written into the program to be read by people.
What is Pair Programming?
A collaborative programming style in which two programmers switch between writing code and tracking or planning high level progress.
What is an Expression?
A combination of operators and values that evaluates to a single value.
What is a Variable?
Holds one value at a time.
What is an Assignment Operator?
Allows a program to change the value represented by a variable.
What is Iteration?
A repetitive portion of an algorithm which repeats a specified number of times or until a given condition is met.
What is an Infinite Loop?
Occurs when the ending condition will never evaluate to true.
What is a Filter?
Create a subset of elements from the original list.
What is Reduce?
Reduce the list down to a single element, for example: the smallest number in the list.
What is a For Loop?
Used to traverse a list.
What is Traversal?
The process of accessing each item in a list one at a time.
What is Efficiency?
A measure of how many steps are needed to complete an algorithm.
What is a Linear Search?
A search algorithm which checks each element of a list, in order, until the desired value is found.
What is a Binary Search?
A search algorithm that starts at the middle of a sorted set of numbers and removes half of the data.
What is a Problem in computing?
A general description of a task that can (or cannot) be solved with an algorithm.
What is an Algorithm?
A finite set of instructions that accomplish a task.
What is Sequencing?
Putting steps in order.
What is Selection?
Deciding which steps to do next.
What is Iteration in algorithms?
Doing some steps over and over.
What is Reasonable Time?
Algorithms with a polynomial efficiency or lower are said to run in a reasonable amount of time.
What is Unreasonable Time?
Algorithms with exponential or factorial efficiencies are examples of algorithms that run in an unreasonable amount of time.
What are Decision Problems?
Problems that ask ‘is there a path?’
What are Optimization Problems?
Problems that ask ‘what is the shortest path?’
What is the Travelling Salesman Problem?
A problem that can be solved with an algorithm, which checks each possible option.
What are Heuristics?
Provide a ‘good enough’ solution to a problem when an actual solution is impractical or impossible.
What is an Undecidable Problem?
A problem for which no algorithm can be constructed that is always capable of providing a correct yes or no answer.
What is Sequential Computing?
Programs run in order, one command at a time.
What is Parallel Computing?
Programs are broken into small pieces, some of which are run simultaneously.
What is Distributed Computing?
Programs are run on multiple devices.
What is Speedup?
The time used to complete a task sequentially divided by the time to complete a task in parallel.
