What does ASCII stand for in computer programming?

ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It is a character encoding standard used for representing text in computers, communication equipment, and other devices that use text. ASCII assigns a unique number to each character, which allows for a consistent way of representing letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and control characters. This system facilitates the exchange of information between different devices and software applications by providing a common standard for text representation.

The reason why this answer is appropriate is that it accurately reflects the historical purpose of ASCII, which was developed to standardize the way text data is handled in computing systems, promoting interoperability. The other options do not represent established standards or definitions in computer programming, making them incorrect descriptors of ASCII.