Glossary

Acronyms

Acronym	... stands for	Explanation
ABI	Application Binary Interface	See here
API	Application Programming Interface	The sum total of available functions, classes, etc. of a given program
ARM	Advanced RISC Machines	Family of RISC architectures, second-most widely used processor family after x86
AVX	Advanced Vector eXtensions	Various extensions to the x86 instruction set (AVX, AVX2, AVX512), evolution after SSE
BLAS	Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms	Specification resp. implementation for low-level linear algebra routines
BOLT	Binary Optimization and Layout Tool	See here
cffi	The C FFI for Python	See here
CI	Continuous Integration	Testing all changes made to a given software, resp. the infrastructure that makes this possible
CLI	Command Line Interface
CPU	Central Processing Unit	Main circuitry for executing machine instructions on a computer; contrast GPU
CRAN	Comprehensive R Archive Network	Main index for R language packages, comparable to PyPI
CUDA	Compute Unified Device Architecture	Parallel Computing Framework for NVIDIA GPUs
DRY	Don't Repeat Yourself	Principle in software development aimed at reducing repetition
GCC	GNU Compiler Collection	Main compiler family (for C / C++ / Fortran etc.) on Linux
GUI	Graphical UI
GNU	GNU's Not Unix	Collection of free software packages under GPL License
GPL	(GNU) General Public License	Foundational "copyleft" license of the free software movement
glibc	GNU C Library	Widely used implementation of the C standard library
FFI	Foreign Function Interface	Calling functions written in a different language than the one currently used
GPU	Graphics Processing Unit	Specialized circuitry for quickly computing graphics-related tasks
ILP64	-	Name used for the standard 64-bit interface to BLAS/LAPACK. Also see "(64 bit) Data Models" below
IR	Intermediate Representation	Language-agnostic yet still semantic representation of code within a compiler
LAPACK	Linear Algebra PACKage	Standard software library for numerical linear algebra
ISA	Instruction Set Architecture	Specification of an instruction set for a CPU; e.g. x86-64, arm64, ...
JIT	Just-in-time Compilation	Compiling code just before execution; used in CUDA, PyTorch, PyPy, Numba etc.
LLVM	-	Cross-platform compiler framework, home of Clang, MLIR, BOLT etc.
LTO	Link-Time Optimization	See here
LTS	Long-Term Support	Version of a given software/library/distribution designated for long-term support
musl	-	An alternative implementation of the C standard library
MPI	Message Passing Interface	Standard for message-passing in parallel computing
MLIR	Multi-Level IR	Higher-level IR within LLVM; used i.a. in machine learning frameworks
MSVC	Microsoft Visual C++	Main compiler on Windows
NEP	Numpy Enhancement Proposal	See here
OpenMP	Open Multi Processing	Multi-platform API for enabling multi-processing in C/C++/Fortran
OS	Operating System	E.g. Linux, MacOS, Windows
PEP	Python Enhancement Proposal	See here
pip	Pip Installs Packages	Default installer for Python packages, distributed with CPython itself; see here
PGO	Profile-Guided Optimization	See here
PSF	Python Software Foundation	See here
PyPA	Python Packaging Authority	Group which maintains core set of projects in Python packaging
PyPI	Python Package Index	Main index where packages get installed from
PyPy	-	An implementation of the Python specification in (quasi-)Python, with JIT capabilities
QEMU	Quick EMUlator	Predominant emulation framework on Linux
RHEL	Red Hat Enterprise Linux	Commercial distribution with some of the longest-running support timelines
RISC	Reduced Instruction Set Computer	Paradigm underlying many past and current CPU architectures
ROCm	Radeon Open Compute	Software stack for AMD GPUs; comparable to CUDA
sdist	Source DISTribution	An archive of the source code of a Python project with metadata
SIMD	Single Instruction, Multiple Data	CPU-specific instructions that can process more data in a single instruction
SIG	Special Interest Group	E.g., Distutils-SIG (now replaced by Discourse)
SSE	Streaming SIMD Extensions	Various extensions to the x86 instruction set (SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4) for SIMD
TOML	Tom's Obvious Minimal Language	Configuration language chosen for pyproject.toml, cargo etc., see here
UCRT	Universal C Runtime	Windows equivalent to glibc/musl
UI	User Interface
UX	User eXperience
VCS	Version Control System	Tool to keep track of changes in source code, e.g. git
venv	Virtual ENVironments	Python standard library module for creating environments; distinct from virtualenv

Terms

Term	Explanation	Examples / References
Architecture	In the context of packaging software, this generally refers to the CPU architecture (=ISA)
ABI Break	Failing to maintain the ABI	See here
Binary Compatibility	Succeeding to maintain the ABI (e.g. across versions / upgrades)	See here
Build Backend	Specifically in the context of pyproject.toml builds, the tool responsible for building a Python package	setuptools, flit, hatch, ...
Build Frontend	Specifically in the context of pyproject.toml builds, the tool used to trigger a build	Predominantly pip
Calling Convention	Agreed-upon contract with describes how to interact with a given CPU (family)	See here
cargo	Package manager for the Rust language, often upheld as a positive example for installation UX	See here
Conda	Cross-platform package & environment manager, based on distribution channels separate from PyPI	See here
Conda-forge	Community-led packaging effort for (predominantly) Python packages	See here
Cross-compilation	Compiling on a given platform for another platform	See here
(64 bit) Data Models	Choice of bit-widths for int/long integer types	ILP32, ILP64, LP64; see here
Demuxer / Demuxing	Colloquial name for demultiplexing, which can be considered a single-input, multiple-output switch	See here
Distribution	An entity distributing (consistent) binary artefacts, often forming its own ecosystem	Incl. OS: Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, RHEL... OS-less: Conda, Spack, Homebrew, ...
distutils	Python standard library module for building and installing packages; added in 1.6, to be removed in 3.12	See here
easy_install	Deprecated method for installing Python packages, superseded by pip install	See here
Egg	Historical format for distributing Python packages	See here
Emulation	Pretending to run on a different CPU architecture; this can be used to avoid cross-compilation	See QEMU, resp. here
Linker	A tool to correctly find the required third-party symbols for a given project	GNU's gold, LLVM's lld, mold
Mamba	Alternative implementation of the conda CLI tool with a faster solver	See here
Manylinux	Baseline tooling to allow distributing wheels across various Linux distributions	See PEP 600 and the PEPs it replaces
numpy.distutils	Extension to distutils, adding i.a. support for BLAS/LAPACK, Fortran, SIMD etc.	See here
Platform	Colloquially used as interchangeable with the OS, though really only fully specified by the target triple
pyproject.toml	Standard metadata file for Python packages	See PEP 517 & 518
setuptools	Most widely used tool for building Python packages; new home of distutils	See here
Symbol	A compiled version of a function	See here
Tarball	Colloquial name for various flavors of .tar archive files	See here
(Target) Triple	Unambiguous specification of the platform for the purpose of (cross-)compiling software for it, usually <arch>-<vendor>-<OS>	See PEP 11, resp. here or here
virtualenv	Installable module for handling virtual environments; largely a superset of venv	See here
Wheel	A format for distributing and installing binary artefacts for Python packages; essentially a tarball plus metadata	See here