After over a decade in the software and web development industry, developer humor has a special place in my heart. It’s like an ongoing set of inside jokes!
Of course, the software that we use to create apps is also created by developers, so I feel like the same sense of humor I’ve loved for years also comes shining through in the terminology used in our day to day work. Here are some of the terms used here at Push that used to (or still do) give me a little bit of extra joy every time I hear them said aloud.
Toasts
Toasts are used in Android apps to display a brief message to the user. For example, they are often used to tell someone that their message has been saved as a draft, their message has been sent, they’ve just connected to a Wi-Fi network, or there is an problem with the action they’re trying to perform.
Toasts generally appear near the bottom of your screen and disappear on their own after a few seconds.
This was one of the first terms that really stood out to me because, in my mind, the name didn’t really correlate to what it is. I caught myself asking the devs to repeat themselves: “Did you just say ‘Toast message’?” If you think about toast popping up from a toaster then I suppose it’s easier to remember.
Push and pop
Both of these terms signify the direction that a new screen slides into view in an iOS app.
A screen that slides from the right side of your device to left side is using a push animation. This is typically used when diving deeper into the navigation hierarchy that’s related to the page you were just on.
When a new screen slides from the bottom up, this is called a pop. The convention is to use a pop when the new screen is not directly related to the screen you were just on. For example, viewing contact information, or a form that you fill out to provide app feedback.
AppThwack
This is one of the most amusing software names that I’ve come across! AppThwack is a very useful testing tool but you’d never know what it is from the name. With AppThwack, you can run automated tests on your app against a large number of devices without having to own every model of phone and version of operating system yourself.
MonkeyTalk
Another effective testing tool keeping things interesting for our quality assurance engineers with its off-the-wall name! MonkeyTalk is used to record the user interface of an app on either iOS or Android devices while a user makes their way through the app. This automation ensures consistency in your testing between your devices and various iterations of the project.
