Glossary
This page includes the spellings, capitalizations, and word forms that I prefer to use for various (mostly technical) terms, as well as some usage notes.
Fallback Guideline References
Anything not included here should follow the guidelines given in these references, in this order:
General Guidelines
Only 1 space between sentences. (Used to use 2, but HTML ignores the 2nd one anyway.) (Pro-2: distinguishes between sentence end and abbreviations.) (Pro-1: Kara Pritchard says technical publishers use 1.)
Prefer leaving 1 space after last sentence in a paragraph.
Prefer leaving 1 space after last word on a line when manually wrapping. (Makes it much easier to re-wrap, or add to the line.)
Proper use of dashes, hyphens, etc. (reference AListApart page).
Specific Guidelines
email - no dash; no capitalization (unless in title case or starting a sentence)
Free Software - capitalized
GNU/Linux - prefered form when referring to the Linux operating system; I prefer to write it this way, yet pronounce it "Linux"
HTML - refers to the markup language, not the transport mechanism; a markup language, not a programming language; OK to refer to XHTML as HTML
HTTP - refers to the transport mechanism, not the markup language
Internet - capitalized, despite what others may say (just like the Mississippi and the Arch are capitalized)
intranet - not capitalized, in contrast to Internet
Linux - should generally be written as GNU/Linux; OK to use Linux to express the general idea, but GNU should be mentioned as soon as possible; OK to use when refering to LUGs; when referring to the kernel, generally say "Linux kernel"
Mac OS - not MacOS (although I thought that was proper at one time)
Mac OS X - not MacOS X; pronounced "Mac O-S ten"
Open Source - not OpenSource
operating system - not capitalized
UNIX - all caps, although not an acronym; all caps per section 3.5 of The Open Group document on trademark usage, although there's no need to be as strict as they request on using UNIX in more general terms; general usage seems to be inconsistent
web - not Web (although I'm starting to change my mind on this one, since "the Web" is similar to "the Internet")
webmaster
website - not web site, nor Website
XHTML - OK to refer to XHTML as HTML, unless it's necessary to be specific
XML - a markup language, not a programming language
XML application - generally better to use "XML dialect" even though "XML application" is technically more accurate; too easily confused to mean "an application that can handle XML"
XML dialect - OK to use this term, even though technically "XML application" should be used
XSL - generally should not be used, as it is vague as to whether it refers to XSLT or XSL-FO.
XSLT - the templating/transformation language (XML dialect)
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