I

I/O:

I/O means Input/Output, which refers to the activity of reading from, and writing to disk. Disk storage access speed is much slower than communication between RAM (Random Access Memory) and the CPU (Central Processing Unitthe processor) of a computer. I/O is very significant for overall computer performance and should always be considered seriously.

If Statement:

A programming control structure allowing the selection of different options, depending on criteria.

Implementation:

The process of creating software from a design of that software. A physical database is an implementation of a database model.

INCITS:

International Committee for Information Technology Standards.

Index:

An index is usually and preferably a copy of a very small section of table, such as a single field, and preferably a short length field.

Indexing:

See Index .

Inheritance:

One class can inherit structure (attributes) and even methods from another class. In fact during execution, an object that inherits structure from a parent class can even inherit attribute values. Again the object model tends to make the difference between data and metadata more of a gray zone. Inheritance allows the application of any structure (attributes), values (attribute values), and functionality ( methods ), all the way down through a class hierarchy. A class inheriting from a parent class can use what is defined for a parent class, or can even redefine some or all of what is inherited. In very advanced definitions of XSD, XML documents can include inheritance.

In-House:

A term applied to something occurring or existing within a company. An in-house application is an application serving company employees only. An intranet application is generally in-house within a company, or within the scope of its operational capacity.

INSERT:

An SQL language command used to add new records to a relational table.

Instantiate:

To create a copy of something from a definition, usually programmatically. So, an object is instantiated from a class, and a variable is instantiated from a data type (being defined as being of a specific data type).

Instantiation:

Create a copy or duplicate of a definition. See Instantiate .

Integer:

A whole number. 555 is an integer. 55.43 is not.

Internet Browser:

See Browser .

Internet Explorer:

See Browser .

Interpreter:

Interprets programming language commands in their raw form (as written by a programmer, and not compiled in binary machine language see Compiler ). Scripting languages such as HTML, JavaScript, and XML are all interpreted by a browser when loaded into a browser (see Browser ), because they are interpreted every time they are read. Thus they are scripting languages and not programming languages. A programming language is compiled and a scripting language is interpreted.

Intersection:

An intersection is a term from mathematical set theory for items common to two sets (existing in both sets). An SQL intersection join finds all records that are common to two tables.

Item Value:

This can be an atomic value or a node.

Iterate:

See Iterative .

Iterative:

In computer jargon, iterative means that a process can be repeated over and over again. When there is more than one step, all steps can be repeated, sometimes in any order.