IDL
IDL is short for Interface Definition Language, a term that refers to various domain-specific programming languages built to facilitate communication between differint software components by translating between their different interfaces. IDLs were commonly used in remote procedure call software. In these cases the machines at either end of the "link" may be using different operating systems and computer languages, and IDLs offer a bridge between the two different systems. Software systems based on IDLs include Sun's ONC RPC, The Open Group's Distributed Computing Environment, IBM's System Object Model, the Object Management Group's CORBA, Facebook's Thrift, and Microsoft COM and DCOM.
IDL may also refer to a programming language popular in the astronomy and remote sensing communities.
IDL is the scripting language behind the ENVI image analysis tool.