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Questions tagged [terminology]

Questions about the meaning or usage of programming terms.

From computing.surrey.ac.uk

Three major points:

  1. Firstly, proper terminology is concerned with the relationship between concepts, and between them and their designations, rather than with designations alone or with the objects they represent. This point is essential if quality is to be achieved, especially with synonyms and in multilingual environments.
  2. Secondly, a designation does not necessarily have to be a word or phrase, although it often is. Thus terminological resources may comprise symbols, drawings, formulae, codes, etc. as well as, or even instead of, words. This point is especially important given the move to multimedia systems.
  3. Thirdly, terminology is inextricably linked with specialist knowledge and hence with special languages or languages for special purposes (LSPs).
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What is the difference between a definition and a declaration?

The meaning of both eludes me.
Maciek
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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 history of the terms? I'm a C# programmer, but I…
rohancragg
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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?
sker
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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 you might use each. Here is how I use them: Fake:…
tvanfosson
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What is the difference between application server and web server?

What is the difference between application server and web server?
TwiggedToday
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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?
Brian Warshaw
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What's the difference between unit, functional, acceptance, and integration tests?

What is the difference between unit, functional, acceptance, and integration testing (and any other types of tests that I failed to mention)?
Andrew
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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)
Dave
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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?
Sergei Basharov
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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!)
Ben
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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?
sarsnake
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"Parameter" vs "Argument"

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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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 objects into series of bits? Related: What is…
Peter
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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 please tell me the contexts in which they are used? Or…
jai
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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 url's.
lmirosevic
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