The latest edition of the scripting language based on a draft proposal of ECMAScript 4 that Flex and Flash use to develop Web and desktop applications. See also ECMAScript.

A build and deployment utility written in Java that uses XML build scripts to divide build-and-deploy operations into separate targets made of one or more tasks.

A set of functions in an application that's made publicly available to be used by other applications for the purposes of data interchange.

A data structure consisting of a group of elements that can be accessed by indexing or key names.

A data object that can be attached to (via an event handler) and send a notification when the value is modified. See also data.

An open-source Java Web application messaging technology, primarily used to send and receive data from applications written by using Adobe Flex or Adobe AIR.

A standard style sheet language used to describe the presentation aspects — such as fonts, colors, layout instructions, and images — of the visual elements in a Web application.

An object-oriented construct found in Java, ActionScript, and other languages that includes properties and methods for manipulating those properties. Classes can be instantiated.

A way to interact with a computer by typing commands after a prompt to perform certain tasks.

A program that translates source code and creates object code.

A special method used to create a new instance of a Java or ActionScript class by using the new keyword.

A collection of numbers, characters, and images or other outputs to be processed by the overall application.

A popular open-source IDE for many programming languages. This is also the framework that Flex Builder is built on.

A scripting language that has been standardized by Ecma International in the ECMA-262 specification.

A cross-platform application and multimedia player originally known as FutureSplash and created by FutureWare Software. It was acquired by Macromedia and renamed Flash. Since the merger of Adobe and Macromedia, it has been released under the Adobe name.

An application development framework used to develop and deploy cross-platform rich Internet applications that run in the Adobe Flash Player or Adobe AIR runtime.

An IDE for Flex development built on the Eclipse IDE.

An extension of the Flex ecosystem that allows developers to create more advanced applications alongside Java or similar server technologies.

The freely distributed software development kit consisting of the Flex Framework and command-line development tools, such as compilers and debuggers. This kit doesn't require a purchased license and can create the same output as Flex Builder.

A portion of code within a larger program that performs a certain task while staying relatively independent of the other code. A function in Java development is known as a method.

A Java object-relational mapping framework used to translate between Java objects and tables in a relational database.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol, a communication protocol used to transfer information across the Internet. This protocol is used in Flex to communicate with server-side scripting.

A way to form new classes by extending classes that have been previously defined. The new class inherits properties and methods from the class it extends.

An object-oriented construct that defines method definitions and constant values but provides no implementations of those methods. Classes can implement interfaces and must provide implementations for all methods in any interfaces that they implement.

A Java library for quickly creating PDF documents from within Java applications.

A Java reporting engine for building highly customized reports for Java applications.

An object-oriented programming language developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc., that uses structures and syntax similar to C++ but is compiled into platform-independent bytecode that runs in its own virtual machine.

An archive containing the classes and files that are part of a Java library or application. The JAR file format is based on the ZIP file format.

A Java class that conforms to a particular structural convention. A Java bean class contains one or more private properties, a public no-argument constructor, and public getter and setter methods for each of the properties that follow a known naming convention.

A standard Java API that contains interfaces and classes used for writing applications that access or update data in a relational database.

A product of Sun Microsystems, Inc., containing a set of libraries and command-line tools used for Java application development, debugging, and execution.

A Java enterprise API used for sending synchronous or asynchronous messages between modules or applications in a Java application server. Messages can be sent by using either a point-to-point or a publish/subscribe domain.

A product of Sun Microsystems, Inc., containing a set of libraries and command-line tools used for Java application execution.

An open-source Java application server used to run Java Web applications and enterprise applications.

An open-source Java unit testing framework.

An application that compiles data from multiple other applications and then combines it into a new service.

A portion of code associated with a class or object that's used to perform a certain task.

An application design pattern that divides application code into a model layer representing the data, domain objects, and business logic of the application; a view layer representing the user interface elements of the application; and a controller layer that handles requests from the view layer, retrieves data from the model, and passes that data back to the view.

An open-source relational database management system.

A pragmatic container to store data and allow binding to other elements. This can also be a reference to a class instance when working with classes.

A programming process that uses objects and their interactions to develop applications and various computer programs. See also Object.

A programming methodology by which the fields in Java objects are translated into fields in database tables through an intermediary XML mapping file.

A method used to group related classes and interfaces in an application. Classes in the same package have access to one another's protected properties and methods. In ActionScript, a package may also contain functions.

A Model-View-Controller framework implementation written in ActionScript for use in Flex applications.

An open-source Java job scheduling system that allows Java applications to perform tasks at regular intervals or specific times.

A database that stores data in tables composed of columns that describe the data and data type being held and rows that contain data for a single instance of the data represented by the columns.

Representational state transfer, a type of architecture for Web services. This isn't a complete specification but is more of a best practice setup.

An open-source Java application framework consisting of a number of modules for developing Web applications.

A Spring Framework subproject that provides security features for Spring-based Web applications. Spring Security can integrate with popular authentication and authorization mechanisms, such as LDAP.

The language used to create, retrieve, update, and delete data in a relational database.

A string used to identify the name or location of some resource on the Internet. A URL used to identify the location of a Web page is one example of a URI.

A piece of code whose purpose is to test the functionality of another piece of code and determine whether it's functioning properly. A unit test typically tests the smallest possible testable piece of code (for example, a method in a Java class).

A reference with a property that can be accessed once the variable has been defined.

An archive file that contains all the Java class files, static resources such as images and HTML files, and configuration necessary to deploy and run a Web application within an application server.

A language specification used to create customized and extensible markup languages. XML is frequently used in Web application configuration files as well as in Ant build scripts and as a data exchange format between Java and Flex.

A language for retrieving specific nodes from an XML document by using a structure reminiscent of a directory listing.