farmbot_os/docs/glossary.md

FarmBot OS Source Glossary

This file contains a basic glossary of commonly used terms

FarmBot Specific Terms

• Asset - REST resource stored in Farmbot's database stored on the SD card
• Arduino Firmware - The code that runs on the Arduino.
  • Source
• CelleryScript - FarmBot OS's scripting language
• FarmbBot API/Web App - The REST server FarmBot communicates with

General Terms

• Elixir - Programming language FarmBot is developed in
  • More info
  • Docs
• Erlang - Programming language and VM that Elixir compiles down too
  • More info
  • Even more info
  • Docs
• UART - Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter. hardware based transport mechanism
• SSH - Secure Shell.
• MQTT/AMQP - network protocols for pub/sub data transport
• HTTP - network protocol for accessing REST resource

Nerves Specific Terms

• Nerves - Framework that allows cross compilation of Elixir code
  • More info
  • Docs
• NervesHub - Cloud based firmware management
  • More info
  • Docs
• Firmware - Usually refers to the code that gets deployed onto the Raspberry Pi

OTP Terms

• Beam - Virtual machine that runs compiled Erlang bytecode
• OTP - Open Telecom Platform. Erlang's runtime libraries
  • More info
• Supervisor - OTP Process responsible for supervising Workers
• Worker - OTP Process responsible for doing work. Usually Supervised
• Process - OTP concept responsible for sending/receiving messages. everything is a process in erlang
• Application - OTP concept responsible for containing many Supervisors and Workers
• Distribution - OTP concept of networking multiple Beam instances together
• ETS - Erlang Term Storage. OTP application for storing data in memory
• DETS - Disk Erlang Term Storage. OTP application for storing data on disk