adds glossary

glossary.md

@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+## Scientific terms
+> Public service announcement: I'm not a physicist.
+
+* PLD deposition: fabrication method.
+* Sample: what is being produced by a deposition. A sample is made up of different stacked layers of material (target) deposited upon another material (substrate).
+* Target: material "consumed" during the deposition.
+* Substrate: material on which the target is deposited.
+* Layer: one of the layers of material of which a sample is composed; every layer can have different properties, both in the physical sense (i.e. shape, thickness...) and regarding their manufacturing process (i.e. frequency of pulses, deposition temperature and pressure...).
+
+## eLabFTW glossary
+> PSA: I'm not a Deltablot developer either.
+
+* Experiment: main type of entry on eLabFTW, used to store data related to the single experiment.
+* Resource or Item: secondary type of entry on eLabFTW, used to store data related to resources such as raw materials, instruments, machinery etc.
+* Elabid: unique ID used to identify a resource or an experiment; resources and experiments have different indexing and different API endpoints.
+* Categories: experiments or resources with common characteristics are associated by assigning them to the same category - e.g. experiments flagged as "PLD Deposition" contain data on a layer of a sample; categories also come with a mask of parameters (extra fields) which need to be compiled by the user.
+* Metadata: extra data; in eLabFTW it all falls under either the key "metadata" (as a single string of text) or the key "metadata_decoded". Metadata is then divided into "extra_fields" and "extra_fields_groups" - of which usually only the first one contains relevant metadata.
+* ReST API: [something I use to get my JSON files](https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/api/what-is-a-rest-api); endpoints are the URLs I point my requests to.
+* JSON: fancy dictionaries with important data.
+
+### Endpoints
+Base url: https://{ELAB_BASE_URL}:{PORT}/api/v2
+
+#### GET, PATCH, DELETE
+* `/items/{elabid}`: data on a resource identified by its elabid.
+* `/experiments/{elabid}`: data on an experiment identified by its elabid.
+
+## What is what
+At CNR-SPIN @Na we use eLabFTW resources to store:
+* Our samples;
+* Our instruments;
+* Our substrate batches and our PLD targets;
+* The compounds substrates and targets are made of (incl. chemical formula);
+* Other things.
+
+We use experiments to store:
+* Our laboratory journals;
+* The layers a sample is made up of.