Glossary

Technical terms explained in plain English.

A

API

Application Programming Interface. A way for different software programs to talk to each other.

B

Branch

A separate version of your code. Like making a copy to experiment with, without affecting the original.

baseurl

A Jekyll setting that adds a path prefix to all URLs. Used when your site isn’t at the root of a domain (e.g., username.github.io/my-site/).

Bundle / Bundler

A tool that installs Ruby packages (gems) for your project. When you run bundle install, it reads the Gemfile and installs everything listed there.

C

Clone

Downloading a copy of a repository from GitHub to your computer.

CNAME

A DNS record type that points one domain to another. Used to set up custom domains for GitHub Pages.

Commit

A saved snapshot of your changes. Like a checkpoint in a video game.

COMPUTE

An ACM conference focused on computing education, run by iSIGCSE (ACM India Special Interest Group on CS Education). COMPUTE Regional Events bring this community together locally.

CRE

COMPUTE Regional Event. A local gathering of CS educators and researchers, using the ACM CRE template for their event website.

D

Deploy

Publishing your website so others can see it on the internet.

DNS

Domain Name System. Translates domain names (like example.com) to IP addresses. You configure DNS records to point your custom domain to GitHub Pages.

F

Fork

Creating your own copy of someone else’s repository on GitHub.

Feature toggle

A setting that enables or disables a feature. In the ACM CRE template, feature toggles in _config.yml control which sections (sponsors, venue, i18n) are visible.

Front matter

The section at the top of a markdown file between --- marks. It contains settings for that page.

---
layout: default
title: My Page
---

G

Gem

A Ruby package. Like an app for Ruby that adds functionality.

gh-pages

A branch name commonly used for GitHub Pages deployments. The deploy script builds your site and pushes it to this branch.

Git

A version control system that tracks changes to your files over time.

GitHub

A website that hosts Git repositories and provides tools for collaboration.

GitHub Pages

A free service from GitHub that hosts static websites directly from a repository.

H

HTML

HyperText Markup Language. The code that structures web pages.

Short for “internationalisation” (i + 18 letters + n). The process of designing software to support multiple languages. In the ACM CRE template, the i18n feature toggle enables multi-language support.

J

Jekyll

A static site generator. It takes your content (markdown files) and templates, and builds a complete website.

L

Liquid

A templating language used by Jekyll. The {{ }} and {% %} syntax you see in templates.

Local / Localhost

Your own computer. “Running locally” means running on your machine, not on the internet.

M

Markdown

A simple way to format text. **bold** becomes bold, # Heading becomes a heading.

mise

A tool that manages programming language versions. Ensures everyone uses the same Ruby version.

P

Pull Request (PR)

A proposal to merge your changes into another branch or repository.

Push

Uploading your commits from your computer to GitHub.

R

Repository (Repo)

A folder containing your project files and their complete history.

Ruby

A programming language. Jekyll is built with Ruby.

S

Sass / SCSS

A way to write CSS with extra features like variables. Jekyll compiles it to regular CSS.

Static Site

A website made of fixed files (HTML, CSS, images) with no database or server-side code. Fast and secure.

T

Template

A reusable starting point. The ACM CRE template gives you a website structure you can customise.

Terminal

A text-based interface for running commands on your computer. Also called command line, console, or shell.

Y

YAML

A format for configuration files. The .yml files in _data/ are YAML. Uses indentation and colons:

event:
  name: My Event
  date: 2026-03-21

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