Stand with Ukraine
"Hi! And welcome! Thank you for accepting our offer. Let's meet your team. They have a daily right now. You left at the end of the sprint, so no work has been scheduled for you yet. Once the stand-up is over, you can read the specs, team OKRs, and view the backlog for the next sprint. For any questions, please contact your PO".
Everyone who works in IT has certainly come across professional jargon and computer slang. You can love it or hate it, accept it or tolerate it, but the fact remains that IT jargon exists and there is no getting away from it.
When you join a new company, a bunch of unfamiliar words fall on you. There seem to be so many that it will take a long time to understand and learn them all. You already know many words. You can guess the meaning of others. Some of them are English-based, so it is not difficult to guess their meaning. "Why employ English terms in Ukrainian speech when there are plenty of Ukrainian alternatives?" is the initial reaction. Then you make an effort to avoid using "bad" words. In the end, you start talking just like everyone else. It's unavoidable.
It's impossible to ruin the Ukrainian language with professional jargon. Furthermore, it allows you to speed up the verbal communication of IT specialists and improve their mutual understanding. Usually, the words are short and succinct. Sometimes one word contains a whole phrase. Therefore, they are useful, in my opinion.
Technical glossary
Technical and informational tools and apps for the workplace.
Branch is a complete copy of a project that is being developed. A project can have many branches, which allows you to work on different parts of the code at the same time. Then all branches are loaded into the master.
Mock is a layout with a UX design for development. Despite the fact that the word literally translates as "sketch" or "prototype", mocks are ready-made layouts with designs.
Prod, short for production, is a branch with a working version of the product that users see. This is the final point where the development result falls. It is sometimes referred to as "master".
Ref, short for reference, is a similar functionality or appearance that is used as a guide. It serves as a comparison.
Spec, which is short for specification, is a document that explains in detail the requirements, conditions, and technical aspects of how the developed functionality should work.
Task is an assignment that has been started or planned for any teammate, sometimes by a team lead. In ITOMYCH STUDIO, we log our work on tasks in Jira.
Scope is a set of features and parts of the product assigned to a separate team.
Feature is a certain part or detail of a common product that is developed in isolation.
Spaghetti code refers to a program's source code that is particularly difficult to understand. It's not uncommon for a coworker's programmer to produce code that's as opaque as mud. Changing project needs, a lack of programming style norms, and a lack of programming expertise may all contribute to this.
Camel, Snake, and Kebab cases relate to the way programmers write their code. CamelCase stands for writing several words without spaces between the phrases, and each word inside a sentence is capitalized. In Snake Case, underscores are used instead of spaces. In Kebab or Dash Case, spaces are substituted by a dash.
Boilerplate refers to a piece of code that is used repeatedly and seldom changes. It can be used in a positive or negative way, depending on the situation.
Repo, short for repository, is a folder containing all the source files of a project. There's also a detailed history of every file and line of code in there, so you can go back and review anything.
Organizational glossary
Here, we’ll discover a project management methodology. First, referring to the scrum, which is a set of principles, values, policies, and rituals for organizing work. Scrum has many terms, but only a few of them have become commonplace. Then, we’ll find out the glossary referring to the organization of work.
Flow is the order of actions when working on a task. For example, first the task is taken into development, then it is reviewed, then it is tested, etc.
Sprint is a given period of time for which you need to complete the planned amount of work so that at the end of this segment there is an expected result. In addition to people who use Scrum, the word "sprint" is often used by those who simply desire to organize their work and provide a clear framework for accomplishing their goals.
Backlog is not yet the planned amount of work that the team needs to complete. Each newly created task first gets into the backlog, and then into the sprint. As with sprint, the term is also used in isolation from scrum. A backlog is often referred to as pending tasks which need to be done, but not immediately.
Goal is the purpose of the sprint (there is one or more), which the team undertakes to do. There are several steps that must be taken in order to accomplish a goal. The word is used both as a noun and as an adjective, and may be plural.
Daily is a short (from 5 to 30 minutes) meeting of the team in order to share progress on the tasks completed for the previous day and voice the work plan for the current day. Also, daily can be called stand-up (from daily standup), because usually such meetings take place standing up-for greater efficiency when offline.
DevOps, short for Developer Operations (literally, the integration of development and operations), is a specialist involved in the implementation of the DevOps methodology. The full job title is DevOps Engineer, but the second part is always omitted from the speech.
PO or PeO, short for Product Owner, is the role in the Scrum methodology, the person responsible for developing the product and distributing the backlog. They know about the requirements of the user and the capabilities of the team. Before taking a task into a sprint, ask the PIO if there are resources for it.
PM, short for Product Manager, is a manager who is responsible for the product. His duties are the same as those of the PaO. The only difference is that this is the title of the position, not the role in Scrum.
Concern is a mixture of many meanings, such as: special interest, purpose, alertness, fear, etc. It depends on the speaker and the situation discussed.
OKRs, short for Objectives and Key Results, are a system for setting and achieving goals. It is needed to synchronize the work of all members of the company, department, or team, so that everyone moves in the same direction, with clear priorities and a constant rhythm. In contrast to KPI, this is a lofty goal. Achieving 70-80% OKRs is an excellent result.
Slang glossary
To boost is the process of improving performance and speeding up loading.
To roll (out) means to send the finished work to the deployment and take steps to prepare the branch for merging into the product branch.
To match means to achieve the full correspondence of something with something. The process of bringing about uniformity.
VSD or day-off is simply any day away from work. They arrange vacation and sick days and day-offs.
Driver is a person who takes the initiative to manage a project, process, or task. It is their responsibility to monitor and manage the process they have created. They motivate other people to do work to achieve goals.
Offer is simply a job proposal.
Point is most commonly used to mean "point of view". "Essence", "meaning", and "argument" are all included in the definitions.
Deploy is the process of integrating code from development branches into the product (master) branch. The term is also used as a noun, as a verb, and as an adjective.
To compile means to collect the written code together, convert it from one format to another, and convert it to the required form to work in the browser.
Crutches are temporary "backups" in the code, which leads to the desired result, but the solution itself is ideologically wrong.
Lag is a poor performance, slowdown, error handling.
Legacy is a code written a certain time ago and considered obsolete. It still works, but it causes rejection among developers.
Now that you know all these words, you can easily understand your fellow programmers. We think it’s a great idea to give to the newcomers a decoding of an unfamiliar glossary that falls on the very first day of work. Does such deciphering give clarity or only confuse more? Share your opinion with us and feel free to send us your CV if you find a perfect position for you.
