In the software world, the terminology is often influenced by English idioms — or expressions that say one thing and mean another. To be clear, it’s very likely that a developer of any kind has never come across a legitimate ‘stack’ in any of their code. Whether that’s a stack of pancakes or a stack of laundry, these are not important elements of coding. That said, the stack is a relevant metaphor to describe the layers involved in software development. Integral to this idea, is that software development builds on top of itself rather than being linear. Since a stack by definition is a large quantity of something, it makes sense that this term would be appropriate for software development. Because in this context, a stack in its fullest form has all the ingredients for a complete software project. A full stack, for example, is composed of all the components necessary for the front-end and back-end of development. Clearly, front-end and back-end are idioms too, representing different parts of the stack that need to be addressed. In addition to front-end and back-end development, the layers of a stack may or may not involve databases, DevOps, or features unique to mobile app development.