A language feature is a distinct aspect of a programming language, such as binding rules, lexical design, or facets of the type system.
Questions tagged [language-features]
618 questions
18
votes
8 answers
What is the purpose of case sensitivity in languages?
Possible Duplicates:
Is there any advantage of being a case-sensitive programming language?
Why are many languages case sensitive?
Something I have always wondered, is why are languages designed to be case sensitive?
My pea brain can't fathom any…
Tom Gullen
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18
votes
6 answers
Java Private Field Visibility
So I was making a class the other day and used Eclipse's method to create the equals method when I realized that it generated the following working code:
class Test {
private int privateInt;
[...]
public boolean equals(Object obj) {
[...]
…
pek
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17
votes
5 answers
Why is Self assignable in Delphi?
This code in a GUI application compiles and runs:
procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
begin
Self := TForm1.Create(Owner);
end;
(tested with Delphi 6 and 2009)
why is Self writable and not read-only?
in which situations could this be…
mjn
- 36,362
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17
votes
1 answer
C#: Property overriding by specifying the interface explicitly
While attempting to override the explicit interface implementation of the ICollection.IsReadOnly property from the Collection class, I came across some documents stating that explicit interface member implementations cannot be overridden…
Daniel A.A. Pelsmaeker
- 47,471
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17
votes
6 answers
Is there a Python equivalent to `perl -pi -e`?
I know of python -c '
', but I'm wondering if there's a more elegant python equivalent to perl -pi -e ''. I still use it quite a bit for things like find and replace in a whole directory (perl -pi -e s/foo/bar/g * or even find . | xargs…
Silfheed
- 11,585
- 11
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- 67
17
votes
3 answers
How to do lazy evaluation in Dart?
Is there a native (language supported) lazy evaluation syntax? Something like lazy val in Scala.
I've gone through the docs, and could not find anything. There is only a chapter about "lazily loading a library", but it's not what I am asking.
Based…
Maciej Sz
- 11,151
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17
votes
11 answers
Can you do Logic Programming in Scala?
I read somewhere that Pattern Matching like that supported by the match/case feature in Scala was actually borrowed from Logic languages like Prolog.
Can you use Scala to elegantly solve problems like the Connected Graph problem?
e.g.…
Alex R
- 11,364
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16
votes
2 answers
Is the order of fields in a javascript object predictable when looping through them?
In php, if you have the following code:
$map = array(
"first" => 1,
"second" => 2
);
$map["third"] = 3;
foreach($map as $key => $value) {
// code
}
You know the entries will be listed in the order they have been added to the array.
Now, can…
Julian Aubourg
- 11,346
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- 29
16
votes
5 answers
Why doesn't Haskell have symbols (a la ruby) / atoms (a la erlang)?
The two languages where I have used symbols are Ruby and Erlang and I've always found them to be extremely useful.
Haskell does have algebraic datatypes, but I still think symbols would be mighty convenient. An immediate use that springs to mind is…
Anupam Jain
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16
votes
4 answers
string.Format() parameters
How many parameters can you pass to a string.Format() method?
There must be some sort of theoretical or enforced limit on it. Is it based on the limits of the params[] type or the memory usage of the app that is using it or something else entirely?
Blatfrig
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16
votes
3 answers
R as a general purpose programming language
I liked Python before because Python has rich built-in types like sets, dicts, lists, tuples. These structures help write short scripts to process data.
On the other side, R is like Matlab, and has scalar, vector, data frame, array and list as its…
Yin Zhu
- 16,980
- 13
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- 117
16
votes
7 answers
equivalent of Python's "with" in Ruby
In Python, the with statement is used to make sure that clean-up code always gets called, regardless of exceptions being thrown or function calls returning. For example:
with open("temp.txt", "w") as f:
f.write("hi")
raise…
Claudiu
- 224,032
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16
votes
5 answers
C1x: When will it land, what to expect?
C99 still isn't supported by many compilers, and much of the focus is now on C++, and its upcoming standard C++1x.
I'm curious as to what C will "get" in its next standard, when it will get it, and how it will keep C competitive. C and C++ are known…
Matt Joiner
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16
votes
7 answers
Why are Nested Comments forbidden?
Why are nested comments forbidden in C++, Java inspite of the fact that nested comments are useful, neat, and elegant and can be used to comment out statements that have comments?
Primal Pappachan
- 25,857
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16
votes
3 answers
Is there anything like Enumerable.Range(x,y) in Java?
Is there something like C#/.NET's
IEnumerable range = Enumerable.Range(0, 100); //.NET
in Java?
Simon
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