Manu's Open Tech Glossary

2021.07.01

(Still work in progress!)

I spent 14 years at Google, which has a bit of a Not Invented Here syndrome and tends to reinvent (or invent!) everything it uses. After leaving, I’m learning about all those awesome open tools and this page is a glossary attempt, mostly for myself.

• Babel: Javascript compiler to translate newer features into more compatible code.
• Chai: Javascript library containing assertion functions, for testing.
• Enzyme: Javascript library for writing unit tests against React components.
• Flow: Javascript static type checker.
• GraphQL: Query language to replace all REST operations using a single endpoint, reduce round trip count and unneeded data in the response.
• Mocha: Javascript testing library.
• Phabricator: General software dev tool, but mostly used for code reviews. No longer maintained.
• React: Library for Javascript to build user interfaces.
• Redux: State container for Javascript apps, with redundancy functionality. Can be in-memory (like memcache) but also persistent.
• Thrift: Open version of protocol buffers.
• Webpack: Module bundler. Takes modules with dependencies and packs them into static assets to be served. Can also do minification, and includes a dev webserver for on-the-fly refreshes.
• Yarn: Javascript package manager. Similar to Node Package Manager.