ActiveX

Microsoft's brand name for the technologies that enable interoperability among components using the Component Object Model (COM).

ActiveX control

A user interface element created using ActiveX technology. Controls built with the MFC Control Developer's Kit meet the ActiveX control specification.

ActiveX Data Object  (ADO.NET)

ADO is designed to eventually replace Data Access Objects (DAO) and Remote Data Objects (RDO). Unlike RDO and DAO, which are designed only for accessing relational databases, ADO is more general and can be used to access all sorts of different types of data, including web pages, spreadsheets, and other types of documents.

Together with OLE DB and ODBC, ADO is one of the main components of Microsoft's Universal Data Access (UDA) specification, which is designed to provide a consistent way of accessing data regardless of how the data are structured.

Active Server Pages

ASP technology provides an open, compile-free application environment in which Web developers can combine HTML, scripts, and reusable Active Server components. ASP technology enables server-side scripting for IIS with native support for both Visual Basic Scripting Edition and JScript.

Common Language Runtime (CLR)

Manages the execution of  code compiled for the .NET platform.

Component Object Model (COM)

The programming model and binary standard on which ActiveX and Automation technologies are based. COM defines how ActiveX and OLE objects and their clients interact within processes or across process boundaries.

COM object

An object that conforms to the Component Object Model. Such objects implement and use the set of interfaces that support object interaction.

Dynamic Link Library (DLL)

A Dynamic Link Library (DLL) is a file of code containing functions that can be called from other executable code (either an application or another DLL). Programmers use DLLs to provide code that they can reuse and to parcel out distinct jobs. Unlike an executable (EXE) file, a DLL cannot be directly run. DLLs must be called from other code that is already executing.

MFC (Microsoft Foundation Class)

The MFC is a set of C++ classes that encapsulate a majority of the functionality of applications written for the Microsoft Windows operating system. Since the creation of Windows predates the popularity of the C++ programming language, many application-programming interfaces (APIs) were written in the procedural C-language API. MFC permits any C++ Windows interface to be built on top of the procedural API, and guarantees that C++ applications will be able to coexist with C applications.

WFC (Windows Foundation Class)

WFC is an object-oriented framework that provides a rich encapsulation of the Win32 application-programming interface (API). Constructed on the J/Direct API, WFC makes it possible to rapidly write full-featured applications for Windows by providing an architecture and set of prebuilt components. In addition, WFC allows developers to build thin-client Web applications using client- and server-based Java classes that generate Dynamic HTML on the fly.

Namespaces

Logical containers for C# classes that provide similiar or related functionality.

Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)

SOAP provides a way for applications to communicate with each other over the Internet, independent of platform.  SOAP relies on XML to define the format of the information and then adds the necessary HTTP headers to send it. SOAP was developed by Microsoft, DevelopMentor, and Userland Software and has been proposed to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF ) as a standard.