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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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Why are statements referred to as clauses in the ECMAScript spec?

Throught the ECMAScript specification (ECMA-262 - 9th Edition) I've noticed that in many places the term "clause" is used instead of "statement". More specifically the following keywords are referred to as clauses: catch, extends, case, default and…
bezbos.
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What is the term for noddy code to test a principle

Apologies if this is a bad question for this forum! A colleague thinks there is a short single-word term for a throwaway program written to verify that an algorithm or technique works as expected but can't remember what it is, and on-one else in the…
user41013
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binary compatibility vs backward compatibilty

I've been reading some details about Qt d-pointer and came across the binary compatibility term. Is this the same as backward compatibility?
Tharanga
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What is the significance of the word "Correctness" in Software Testing?

There is a fact in Software Testing which says : Testing is used to find errors in the Software but cannot be used to show the correctness of Software . I am unable to get the significance of the Word Correctness here . Also is it true that…
radhika
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What is the name of feature that allows separate function implementations for different values of parameters?

In some programming languages one can specify the function implementation for particular values of arguments: factorial[x] = x * factorial[x-1] factorial[0] = 1 Calling the function with 0 will use the second definition while calling it with 3 will…
Džuris
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What does it mean that a CSS keyword is considered 'experimental'?

Time and time again I'm reading about a very interesting CSS property on MDN only to see that MDN considers some values it can take "experimental", recommends against using it in production and warns that its behavior may change in the future. Two…
user4385532
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Where does the term "unsigned integer" come from?

Many programming languages I've encountered contain multiple integer types, including a distinction between "signed" and "unsigned integers". I've never heard the term "unsigned integer" before I've gotten into programming, and to me it seems that…
Askaga
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Notation of register values 1'b0 and 2'b00

I've seen in a datasheet the notation 1'b0 and 2'b00 to refer to some register values. I assume that it is used to represent a value in binary, specifying the number of bits at the beginning, and its value at the end. Anyway, where is this notation…
EUS
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Terminology for function interface/DLL used only to fix parameter types between different languages?

I have several cases where I needed to make an interface library somewhat "dummy", meaning that it is just needed to make an application written in language A call a library written in language B, in order to fix data types and other small details,…
BillyJoe
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Is there a general term for a class field starting with an underscore that are for internal use by a getter/setter of the same name?

Why I need this is a long story, basically it boils down to naming a variable. Anyway, a basic example in js: class my_class { constructor(some_value) { this._internal_thing_1 = Math.floor(some_value / 3); this._internal_thing_2…
user81993
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What is the part "baltimore.legistar" of the URL "http://baltimore.legistar.com" called?

What is it called when a website's domain is like: http://baltimore.legistar.com What is the baltimore.legistar part called? I see this sometimes where there's a large website and they appended something else to it such…
Zack Adams
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Is there a proper name for URL schema followed by colon and double slash?

Is there a word for the URL schema/protocol taken together with the colon and two slashes, for example http://, mailto://, ftp://? I thought to call it a prefix, yet Microsoft already has UrlPrefix. Probably copyrighted.
Serge
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what is the jargon of the alias variable after import module in Python?

There are lots of packages in Python ecosystem, like NumPy, Matplotlib. to simplify coding, we usually code this way import numpy as np np is an alias, or shortcut, or something else. the question is, what is the jargon of this usage? an link to…
user11074017
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Terminology capturing ordering characteristic of arguments in functional composition

In functional composition g compose f what terms are used to refer to and differentiate the ordering property of functional arguments f and g passed to composition operator compose? For example, given the following compositions val reverse = (s:…
Mario Galic
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MATLAB Terminology: Why use Parent for Axis?

This is a MATLAB terminology question on the Parent application in Matlab. Often I use axes1 = axes(‘Parent’, figure1) in my plotting, because I have memorized the plotting steps. Yet I don’t even understand why I use this line. I understand we…
Minimalist
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