Plain meanings for the words that come up in the slides and the tutorials. If a word on a slide is not here, ask — it will be added.
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| repository (repo) | A folder that git is watching. Your assignment is one; the course material is one. |
| commit | A saved version of the folder, with a short message saying what changed. |
| push | Send your commits to GitHub. Pull brings down what changed there. |
| clone | Download a whole repo, with its history, to your machine. |
| branch | A parallel version of the same repo. The course repo has 2026 (this year) and 2025 (last year). |
| fork | Your own copy of somebody else's repo, under your account. |
| pull request (PR) | "I changed something in my copy — please take it into yours." |
| issue | A note on a repo: a bug, a question, something unclear. |
| README.md | The file GitHub shows on a repo's front page. .md is markdown: text with a little formatting. |
| organisation (org) | A shared GitHub account for a group. Ours is sd5913. Being a member is not the same as being allowed to write to a repo. |
| the registry | pfad.ait4x.org — where your GitHub account is matched to your student ID. |
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| terminal | The window where you type commands instead of clicking. In VS Code: Ctrl+`` (the key top-left, under Esc). |
| script | A file of Python. schotter.py is a script. |
| run | Make the computer carry out a script, top to bottom. uv run schotter.py. |
| uv | The tool that runs Python scripts and fetches what they need. The only Python command we type. |
| library (package) | Code somebody else wrote, that your script imports. pygame is one. |
| dependency | A library your script needs. A script should say what it needs at the top. |
| environment | The Python and the libraries a script runs with. If it is not written down, the script only works on your machine. |
| console (REPL) | A place to type one line of Python at a time and see the answer. On the slides: press the ` key. |
| output | What a program prints or draws when it runs. |
| error (traceback) | Python's report of what went wrong and on which line. Read it from the bottom. |
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| syntax | The spelling and grammar of code. Wrong syntax: the program does not start. |
| variable | A name for a value. size = 24 makes a variable called size. |
| type | What kind of value something is: a whole number (int), a number with a decimal point (float), text (str), yes/no (bool), a list, a dict. |
string (str) |
Text. The quotes are what make it text: "3" is text, 3 is a number. |
| list | Several things in order: [3, 1, 4]. Positions count from 0. |
| dict (dictionary) | Values you look up by name: {"name": "Ada"}. |
boolean (bool) |
True or False. What a comparison like a > b gives you. |
| loop | Do something once for each item: for w in range(size):. |
| condition | A yes/no test that decides what happens: if bar or cap:. |
| function | A named piece of code you can call: print(...), abs(...), or one you define with def. |
| return | What a function hands back. A function with no return gives back None. |
| None | Python's word for "nothing here". |
| indentation | The spaces at the start of a line. In Python they say what belongs inside a loop, a condition, a function. Four spaces. |
| state | Something a program remembers from one step to the next. last_square_empty is state. |
| random | A number the program picks by chance. The same seed gives the same random numbers again. |
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| spec (specification) | A sentence about what the program must do, that is either true or false. "A cap never sits under a drawn cell." |
| bug (fault) | Code that runs but does the wrong thing. |
| predict | Say what the output will be before you run it. |
| diff | The lines that differ between two versions of a file. GitHub shows one on every commit. |
| check (a workflow) | A program GitHub runs on your repo every time you push, that ends in a green tick or a red cross. |
| SVG | A picture described as text — lines, shapes, coordinates. A script can write one. |