P

P3P

See also Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P).

Palm

A mobile, handheld device normally associated with office tasks such as maintaining an address list or appointment calendar. The Palm uses the Palm operating system. Although this device lacks the processing power of higher end devices such as the Pocket PC, most office workers prefer its small size and long battery life.

Parameter

A value received by a function or procedure from another function or procedure, the command line, or some other source.

Parse

The act of reducing a string or other data structure to its constituent parts . For example, spreadsheets normally break words and numbers apart using the spaces between them as the break point. Developers use a multitude of application programming techniques to perform data element parsing and some object technology even includes a Parse() method.

PDA

See also Personal Digital Assistant (PDA).

PERL

See also Practical Extraction and Report Language (PERL).

Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)

A small hand-held device such as a Palm Pilot or Pocket PC. These devices are normally used for personal tasks such as taking notes and maintaining an itinerary during business trips. Some PDAs rely on special operating systems and lack any standard application support. However, newer PDAs include some level of standard application support, because vendors are supplying specialized compilers for them. In addition, you'll find common applications included, such as browsers and application office suites that include word processing and spreadsheet support.

Personal Web Server (PWS)

A less capable version of Internet Information Server (IIS) that's designed to provided limited Web access on an intranet. PWS isn't designed to provide the same level of services as IIS, but it does provide enough capability for a small company intranet or for a developer's test setup.

PHP

PHP Hypertext Processor

Platform

A description of the combination of software and hardware used to create a computing system. For example, many users use a combination of the Windows operating system and an Intel processor. The combination often appears as the Wintel platform. In some cases, a discussion will only use the operating system as the basis for a platform. A developer might create applications only for the Windows platform. The use of the term platform is often ambiguous and requires the actual platform type to make the meaning clear.

Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P)

A Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) sponsored technique for ensuring privacy through specialized programming techniques. The specification defines methods of communicating information requests , use, storage technique, and requirements to the requestor. The requestor then decides whether the requirements are acceptable and optionally transfers the necessary information.

Portable Network Graphic (PNG)

A graphics file format (pronounced ping) similar to the Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) used for Internet graphics. This graphics format is newer than the GIF and many developers consider it superior because it uses a newer compression mechanism. Many developers use the PNG file format because it doesn't rely on patented technology as the GIF format does.

PNG

See also Portable Network Graphic (PNG).

Pocket PC

A mobile, handheld device used to perform any of a number of computing tasks. A Pocket PC normally runs some form of advanced mobile operating system such as Windows CE or Windows XP. Most developers differentiate a Pocket PC from a Palm handheld device by the enhanced processing power, greater number of features, and larger display of the Pocket PC. A Pocket PC is also bulkier than a Palm, making it less suitable for some applications.

Point of Presence (POP)

An access point to the Internet normally associated with physical access such as a modem connection.

POP

See also Point of Presence (POP).

Practical Extraction and Report Language (PERL)

Originally designed as a report generation language for the Internet, PERL has found other uses as well for more general Internet programming needs. PERL is normally an interpreted scripting language.

PWS

See also Personal Web Server (PWS).