Questions tagged [terminology]
Questions about the meaning or usage of programming terms.
terminology
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What is dependency injection?
There have been several questions already posted with specific questions about dependency injection, such as when to use it and what frameworks are there for it. However,
What is dependency injection ...
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24
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What is reflection and why is it useful?
What is reflection, and why is it useful?
I'm particularly interested in Java, but I assume the principles are the same in any language.
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10
answers
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What is JSONP, and why was it created?
I understand JSON, but not JSONP. Wikipedia's document on JSON is (was) the top search result for JSONP. It says this:
JSONP or "JSON with padding" is a JSON extension wherein a prefix is specified ...
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What are MVP and MVC and what is the difference?
When looking beyond the RAD (drag-drop and configure) way of building user interfaces that many tools encourage you are likely to come across three design patterns called Model-View-Controller, Model-...
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What is Inversion of Control?
Inversion of Control (IoC) can be quite confusing when it is first encountered.
What is it?
Which problem does it solve?
When is it appropriate to use and when not?
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What's the difference between a method and a function?
Can someone provide a simple explanation of methods vs. functions in OOP context?
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21
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What's the difference between a proxy server and a reverse proxy server? [closed]
What is the difference between a proxy server and a reverse proxy server?
Vicky
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48
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What is a monad?
Having briefly looked at Haskell recently, what would be a brief, succinct, practical explanation as to what a monad essentially is?
I have found most explanations I've come across to be fairly ...
1332
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19
answers
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What is a race condition?
When writing multithreaded applications, one of the most common problems experienced is race conditions.
My questions to the community are:
What is the race condition?
How do you detect them?
How do ...
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14
answers
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What are "named tuples" in Python?
What are named tuples and how do I use them?
When should I use named tuples instead of normal tuples, or vice versa?
Are there "named lists" too? (i.e. mutable named tuples)
For the last ...
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16
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What do "branch", "tag" and "trunk" mean in Subversion repositories?
I've seen these words a lot around Subversion (and I guess general repository) discussions.
I have been using SVN for my projects for the last few years, but I've never grasped the complete concept of ...
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What is (functional) reactive programming?
I've read the Wikipedia article on reactive programming. I've also read the small article on functional reactive programming. The descriptions are quite abstract.
What does functional reactive ...
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16
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What is the meaning of "POSIX"?
What exactly is POSIX? I have read the Wikipedia article but I still don't understand.
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38
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What's the difference between an argument and a parameter?
When verbally talking about methods, I'm never sure whether to use the word argument or parameter or something else. Either way the other people know what I mean, but what's correct, and what's the ...
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6
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Definition of "downstream" and "upstream"
I've started playing with Git and have come across the terms "upstream" and "downstream". I've seen these before but never understood them fully. What do these terms mean in the context of SCMs (...
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What is the difference between a framework and a library? [closed]
What is the difference between a framework and a library?
I always thought of a library as a set of objects and functions that focuses on solving a particular problem or a specific area of ...
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What's the difference between faking, mocking, and stubbing?
I know how I use these terms, but I'm wondering if there are accepted definitions for faking, mocking, and stubbing for unit tests? How do you define these for your tests? Describe situations where ...
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What is the difference between a 'closure' and a 'lambda'?
Could someone explain? I understand the basic concepts behind them but I often see them used interchangeably and I get confused.
And now that we're here, how do they differ from a regular function?
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What is the difference between application server and web server?
What is the difference between application server and web server?
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8
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What is monkey patching?
I am trying to understand, what is monkey patching or a monkey patch?
Is that something like methods/operators overloading or delegating?
Does it have anything common with these things?
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10
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What's the difference between a module and package in Python?
What's the difference between a module and package in Python?
See also: What's the difference between "package" and "module"? (for other languages)
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What is a lambda (function)?
For a person without a comp-sci background, what is a lambda in the world of Computer Science?
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8
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What's the difference between unit, functional, acceptance, and integration tests? [closed]
What is the difference between unit, functional, acceptance, and integration testing (and any other types of tests that I failed to mention)?
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25
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What is 'Currying'?
I've seen references to curried functions in several articles and blogs but I can't find a good explanation (or at least one that makes sense!)
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754
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20
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What is the difference between UTF-8 and Unicode?
I have heard conflicting opinions from people - according to the Wikipedia UTF-8 page.
They are the same thing, aren't they? Can someone clarify?
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"Parameter" vs "Argument" [duplicate]
I got parameter and argument kind of mixed up and did not really pay attention to when to use one and when to use the other.
Can you please tell me?
dummy
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13
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What is the difference between Serialization and Marshaling?
I know that in terms of several distributed techniques (such as RPC), the term "Marshaling" is used but don't understand how it differs from Serialization. Aren't they both transforming ...
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What's the name for hyphen-separated case?
This is PascalCase: SomeSymbol
This is camelCase: someSymbol
This is snake_case: some_symbol
So my questions is whether there is a widely accepted name for this: some-symbol? It's commonly used in ...
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votes
9
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Difference between DTO, VO, POJO, JavaBeans?
Have seen some similar questions:
What is the difference between a JavaBean and a POJO?
What is the Difference Between POJO (Plain Old Java Object) and DTO (Data Transfer Object)?
Can you also ...
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11
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What is a "static" function in C?
The question was about plain c functions, not c++ static methods, as clarified in comments.
I understand what a static variable is, but what is a static function?
And why is it that if I declare a ...
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659
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9
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What does the NS prefix mean?
Many classes in Cocoa/Cocoa Touch have the NS prefix. What does it mean?
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What do < and > stand for?
I know that the entities < and > are used for < and >, but I am curious what these names stand for.
Does < stand for something like "Left tag" or is it just a code?
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What is "runtime"?
I have heard about things like "C Runtime", "Visual C++ 2008 Runtime", ".NET Common Language Runtime", etc.
What is "runtime" exactly?
What is it made of?
How ...
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What does it mean if a Python object is "subscriptable" or not?
Which types of objects fall into the domain of "subscriptable"?
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What does the term "porcelain" mean in Git?
The term "porcelain" appears occasionally in the Git documentation. What does it mean?
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What are magic numbers and why do some consider them bad?
What is a magic number?
Why do many programmers advise that they be avoided?
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Simulator or Emulator? What is the difference?
While I understand what simulation and emulation mean in general, I almost always get confused about them. Assume that I create a piece of software that mimics existing hardware/software, what should ...
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What are iterator, iterable, and iteration?
What are "iterable", "iterator", and "iteration" in Python? How are they defined?
See also: How to build a basic iterator?
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What is a 'Closure'?
I asked a question about Currying and closures were mentioned.
What is a closure? How does it relate to currying?
547
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What do the terms "CPU bound" and "I/O bound" mean?
What do the terms "CPU bound" and "I/O bound" mean?
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What is the difference between currying and partial application?
I quite often see on the Internet various complaints that other peoples examples of currying are not currying, but are actually just partial application.
I've not found a decent explanation of what ...
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What is boilerplate code?
A coworker had never heard of this, and I couldn't provide a real definition. For me, it's always been an instance of 'I-know-it-when-I-see-it'.
Bonus question, who originated the term?
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Epoch vs Iteration when training neural networks [closed]
What is the difference between epoch and iteration when training a multi-layer perceptron?
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Functional, Declarative, and Imperative Programming [closed]
What do the terms functional, declarative, and imperative programming mean?
curiouskitty
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6
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What is the difference between a shim and a polyfill?
Both seem to be used in web development circles, see e.g. HTML5 Cross Browser Polyfills, which says:
So here we're collecting all the shims, fallbacks, and polyfills...
Or, there's the es5-shim ...
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What is the difference between task and thread?
In C# 4.0, we have Task in the System.Threading.Tasks namespace. What is the true difference between Thread and Task. I did some sample program(help taken from MSDN) for my own sake of learning with
...
user372724
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7
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Difference between 'cls' and 'self' in Python classes?
Why is cls sometimes used instead of self as an argument in Python classes?
For example:
class Person:
def __init__(self, firstname, lastname):
self.firstname = firstname
self....
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What does '# noqa' mean in Python comments?
While searching through a Python project, I found a few lines commented with # noqa.
import sys
sys.path.append(r'C:\dev')
import some_module # noqa
What does noqa mean in Python? Is it specific ...
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What is the difference between depth and height in a tree?
This is a simple question from algorithms theory.
The difference between them is that in one case you count number of nodes and in other number of edges on the shortest path between root and concrete ...
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