Programming Terms

Whether you're a newbie or an experienced programmer, any questions, help, or just talk of any language will be welcomed here.

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Kleithap
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Re: Programming Terms

Post by Kleithap »

Here's another important one for the error list: logic error. Probably the hardest to spot and fix :D
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Arce
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Re: Programming Terms

Post by Arce »

Code: Select all

* composition : oh boy...
I'm lost...Is 'oh boy' supposed to be taken as "I don't know" or "I'm not getting into this" or "this is not a good thing/practice?"

Also, I'm vowing that I will
1) Unify all terms listed thus far into the 1st topic post
2) Clearly define all the terms on my list.

Now, just gotta wait till I get time. ;P

Great job with the creation of this topic; I personally thing it's a great idea.

edit: Topic stickied until we find some other way to sort tutorial/educational posts from others.
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Re: Programming Terms

Post by XianForce »

Arce wrote:

Code: Select all

* composition : oh boy...
I'm lost...Is 'oh boy' supposed to be taken as "I don't know" or "I'm not getting into this" or "this is not a good thing/practice?"

Also, I'm vowing that I will
1) Unify all terms listed thus far into the 1st topic post
2) Clearly define all the terms on my list.

Now, just gotta wait till I get time. ;P

Great job with the creation of this topic; I personally thing it's a great idea.

edit: Topic stickied until we find some other way to sort tutorial/educational posts from others.
Ya, I was hoping people would post definitions with their terms, then I could easily compile it into the first post. Well after there is a few useful posts, you could make a useful posts thread, and have links to different threads.

In other news, today I went on vacation to Hawaii, and while I was on the plane I was reading my C++ book, and I had my laptop out. somebody tripped over my bag, and when I bent down to grab it, my book chipped my 'o' key right off! so now I just got the little button, and the plastic key itself is broken, so I gotta get that fixed lol, hard to type that dang 'o'.
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avansc
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Re: Programming Terms

Post by avansc »

there are 2 types of composition that i know about.

Object composition, combining simpler data types into more complex data types, or function calls into calling functions
Function composition, an act or mechanism to combine simple functions to build more complicated ones

courtesy of wiki.

these two definitions by them self are very ambigouse, you cant just do a one lines for most of these especially for this one. this entails computational complexities, datastructure, pointers, inheritance, polymorphism. so i just say "Oh Boy..." as in, im not gonna write something down so some poor sod will read it and think he knows what composition is.
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Re: Programming Terms

Post by villeballa89 »

is these the useful terms that might be obvious because while I know what a pointer is and how to use one or what Data hiding and its purpose might be, there are alot of terms used that I donnot know/ feel dumb about not knowing. so here they are.

SDL

-I'm half asleep at the moment so I'll add more as I think, and just btw, I know what SDL does it's more of an understanding of it than knowing it, if that makes sense-
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Re: Programming Terms

Post by XianForce »

villeballa89 wrote:is these the useful terms that might be obvious because while I know what a pointer is and how to use one or what Data hiding and its purpose might be, there are alot of terms used that I donnot know/ feel dumb about not knowing. so here they are.

SDL

-I'm half asleep at the moment so I'll add more as I think, and just btw, I know what SDL does it's more of an understanding of it than knowing it, if that makes sense-
anything you want that you think will be any bit useful...


but please if you post terms, post their definitions too.
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Re: Programming Terms

Post by Arce »

SDL stands for Simple Direct-Media Layer and is a library written in C . It has subsystems to handle graphics, input, audio, networking and loads of other goodz.

I'm sure a google search of this one will bring a much better defintion. ;P

And yes, I WILL get on defining the terms sometime. 90% of the time you know what a term is, you simply haven't heard the technical name for it. I remember that being the case for 'short circuiting' and a few others. Anyway, this is a good topic and thanks all for contributing. I personally have learned a few. ;P
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Re: Programming Terms

Post by XianForce »

Arce wrote:SDL stands for Simple Direct-Media Layer and is a library written in C . It has subsystems to handle graphics, input, audio, networking and loads of other goodz.

I'm sure a google search of this one will bring a much better defintion. ;P

And yes, I WILL get on defining the terms sometime. 90% of the time you know what a term is, you simply haven't heard the technical name for it. I remember that being the case for 'short circuiting' and a few others. Anyway, this is a good topic and thanks all for contributing. I personally have learned a few. ;P
lol I had no idea what that was, until yesterday, I was thinking it was like when something stops working, and people refer to it short circuiting.
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Re: Programming Terms

Post by villeballa89 »

~scratches head~ that's not what it is??

well..... ~whistles like he knows anyway~
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Re: Programming Terms

Post by Arce »

You'll probably find a better definition via google, but this is what I've been taught of short circuting:

It's when you use knowledge of procedural execution of code to stop a certain condition (usually one that would result in an error) from happening.

Example:

Code: Select all

while(node!=NULL && node->next!=NULL)
     node=node->next;
This is probably not the best example, but this is the best thing i could pull out of my ass while tired. Assume that node in the above code refers to a linked list. We have a certain node selected, and we do not know which.

if node->next is equal to null, then we're at the end of the list. If we check what node->next is, and node IS null, then the program will crash. In the above code, I guess that'll only be true in the event of an empty list...

Now, look at the above code. Because the '&&' operator checks if two separate conditions return 1, the computer is efficient about it and will stop checking if the first condition is false. Meaning, if "node!=NULL" is false, (making node equal to null, meaning empty list or end of list) then the computer wouldn't even bother checking if "node->next!=NULL". Had it kept checking, it would have crashed, because you're trying to access a member of null, which is the equiv of

Code: Select all

(NULL)->next!=NULL
So, we've saved ourselves the trouble of an extra if statement to check if node's null.

Had the code been rewritten as

Code: Select all

while(node!=NULL & node->next!=NULL)
     node=node->next;
(Note the single '&') it would execute BOTH conditions and XAND their values. In the event that node=NULL, it would crash.
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Re: Programming Terms

Post by XianForce »

Arce wrote:You'll probably find a better definition via google, but this is what I've been taught of short circuting:

It's when you use knowledge of procedural execution of code to stop a certain condition (usually one that would result in an error) from happening.

Example:

Code: Select all

while(node!=NULL && node->next!=NULL)
     node=node->next;
This is probably not the best example, but this is the best thing i could pull out of my ass while tired. Assume that node in the above code refers to a linked list. We have a certain node selected, and we do not know which.

if node->next is equal to null, then we're at the end of the list. If we check what node->next is, and node IS null, then the program will crash. In the above code, I guess that'll only be true in the event of an empty list...

Now, look at the above code. Because the '&&' operator checks if two separate conditions return 1, the computer is efficient about it and will stop checking if the first condition is false. Meaning, if "node!=NULL" is false, (making node equal to null, meaning empty list or end of list) then the computer wouldn't even bother checking if "node->next!=NULL". Had it kept checking, it would have crashed, because you're trying to access a member of null, which is the equiv of

Code: Select all

(NULL)->next!=NULL
So, we've saved ourselves the trouble of an extra if statement to check if node's null.

Had the code been rewritten as

Code: Select all

while(node!=NULL & node->next!=NULL)
     node=node->next;
(Note the single '&') it would execute BOTH conditions and XAND their values. In the event that node=NULL, it would crash.
Here I'll simplify that:

in the statement:

if (x==10)||(y==9)

it asks if either x is 10 OR y is 9. So if 10 evaluates to true, then it won't go on to check the second statement, because either being true is sufficient.

The same thing is when you use the logical AND operator.

if (x==10)&&(y==9)

so if the first statement evaluates to false, it won't go on to check the second.
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Re: Programming Terms

Post by M_D_K »

FUBAR - Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition(if your code gets like this you have a problem)

Thats my favorite programming term :lol:
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Re: Programming Terms

Post by avansc »

M_D_K wrote:FUBAR - Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition(if your code gets like this you have a problem)

Thats my favorite programming term :lol:
actually i think that came from the millitary, meaning "Fucked Up Beyond All Repair"
but i do like the computer term analogy.
Wiki wrote:Etymology

Electronics engineers say that SNAFU and FUBAR were used before World War II by repairmen sent out to repair phone booths.
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Re: Programming Terms

Post by Kleithap »

avansc wrote: M_D_K wrote:FUBAR - Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition(if your code gets like this you have a problem)

Thats my favorite programming term :lol:



actually i think that came from the millitary, meaning "Fucked Up Beyond All Repair"
but i do like the computer term analogy.
Nah, the R doesn't stand for one particular word. Here's a list of different meanings:

# Fucked Up Beyond All Repair
# Fucked Up Beyond All Reality
# Fucked Up Beyond All Reason
# Fucked Up Beyond All Recall
# Fucked Up Beyond All Recovery
# Fucked Up Beyond All Relief
# Fucked Up Beyond All Restitution
# Fucked Up Beyond All Renaissance
# Fucked Up Beyond Any Resolvability
# Fucked Up But All Right.

Courtesy of the dutch wiki page.
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Re: Programming Terms

Post by trufun202 »

I actually learned SNAFU and FUBAR in 9th grade english class.

They spelled it out as f*****, but I still can't believe that was part of the curriculum.
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