Taken from my funkypool profile ub3rnator: Link is here: http://www.funkypool.com/thread/19343/programming-terms-and-meanings

This thread is to help those understand a bit better; Programming phrases and their meanings. I will keep this thread up-to-date as time goes on. So without further ado.

8-bit, 16-bit etc:
These terms all refer to the number of wires (or data lines) connecting a computer chip to it's storage and arithmetic units. This dictates the size of number it can rapidly deal with. More is better; modern PCs are 32 or even 64 bits wide and can perform HUGE calculations rapidly.
In comparison, an 8-bit computer can only easily operate on 8-bit numbers (0-255) - to do longer calculations, it would need to do two or more fetches from its memory in 'lumps' of 8-bits and the same to put them back again when it was finished. To perform a 16-bit sum, would require it to do two 8-bit fetches to get the first number and so om. This is much slower than a proper 16-bit machine does it.

ASCII:
Stands for 'American Standard Code for Information Interchange'. Long ago, many different standards existed for how characters should be stored on computer. One system might store A as 33, another might store it as 54. Clearly these two systems would have difficulty making sense to each other and so the ASCII system was created to avoid such problems. Nearly every computer today uses the system, Incidentally, the ASCII approved code for A is 65.

Continued...

Binary:
Binary is simply a numeral system that uses base-2 to count; the numbers we all use everyday are from the base-10 system. This 'base' concept stems from mathematics and is otherwise known as the radix; it is just telling you how many unique numerals there are in that system.
Base-10 systems have ten unique numerals as we know; the numbers 0-9. All of our base-10 numbers can be written or expressed using these numerals. Binary is just the same, but it only has two unique numbers; 0 and 1.
In all number systems, each 'column' of a number indicates ever-greater values - the resulting number is all of the lesser numbers added together. In base-10, each column equals 10x the previous one; 99 means 9 lots of 10 and 9 lots of 1 added together. In binary, each column is 2x the previous on. Because we are very familiar with the base-10 system, we perform the maths without thinking! This familiarity makes any different counting systems seem very unusual and cumbersome, but it's perfectly natural and soon becomes easier.
So, in base-10 we have units, tens, hundreds, thousands and so on, whereas in binary we have units, twos, fours, eights and so on. Each column is 2x the previous column, not 10x like we're used to. So, the binary number 1011 = 1 x 8 + 0 x 4 +1 x 2 + 1 x 1, or 11 in decimal.

Continued...

Bug:
A bug is simply any unwanted or unintentional behaviour/aspect of a program. Say your game asks for a player name at the start - if you enter no name and just hit return, the program crashes!
It is often caused by unexpected behaviour that the programmers have failed to predict - they often take to using their code the same old way when testing it.
Motto: Always assume that users are going to do unexpected things to your 'masterpiece' and try to cope accordingly!

Bit, Byte:
A computer 'bit' is the smallest amount of information that can be stored on a computer. It can equate to a 1 or an 0, or on and off. Because a bit has only these two states, it can be stored in electronics quite easily; it is the presence or absence of a signal or voltage.
Because it can be stored so easily, the bit has become the unit of choice in the computer world. Unfortunately, a bit can only hold 1 or 0 as we've said; it is little use at storing larger number!
Several bits have to be combined together to store bigger numbers. Early computers working in multiples of 8 bits and the convention remains today. 8 bits is enough to store the positive numbers from 0 - 255 in binary. A collection of 8 bits is known as a 'byte'

I dont have time to finish but i will when i have more time, But in the meantime, this took the a good 2 hours to write and weeks of studying. Critisism is welcome, if i have missed anything please let me know. I would greatly appreciate feedback thanks!

Being a programmer myself, this means alot... and as us programmers know, there's a whole lot more than the above I'm doubt the average jo on here will understand.... or would need to understand? Was there a specific reason behind posting this... has the question been raised on pool previously and knowledge of the above proved useful in some way?

Totally pointless thread.

Couldnt have put it better myself

Denis Ritchie - This man is the reason we don't type in Binary to this day the creator of 'C' died the same year as Steve Jobs but nobody really noticed!!

Just as this is a 'Programming thread' thought I would mention the great mans name

Not really a pointless thread, it gives you an idea on how much dedication goes into making simple 2d games. People seem to think it is so easy but if you'r having to code from scratch (i.e, C++ or Javascript) It becomes that much harder than using a game making tool such as Game Maker.

I here what you say and I've written lots of games over the years, before C++, Java etc was even invented.... or even the web.... wow, showing my age. Yes, an awful lots goes into code a game, program flow, logic, deciding the variables, designed graphics, error trapping, keyboard, hand devices input, joysticks etc.. could go on.... and for sure, I'd say to anyone, go give it a try.... it's made my career... as I'm now a senior software consultant designing and programming client solutions for a worldwide software house.... but less about me... a good thread nethertheless.... keep it going, would be great to hear of individual experiences with programming, acheivements, fails etc, anything.

Christ!!! The old sausage has a brain

Haha, he certainly does James not just a sausage

Haha

HOW? Do you type 1 wpm?