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Constant (programming)
In computer programming, a constant is a value that should not be altered by the program during normal execution, i.e., the value is ''constant''. When associated with an identifier, a constant is said to be "named," although the terms "constant" and "named constant" are often used interchangeably. This is contrasted with a ''variable,'' which is an identifier with a value that can be changed during normal execution, i.e., the value is ''variable.'' Constants are useful for both programmers and compilers: For programmers they are a form of self-documenting code and allow reasoning about correctness, while for compilers they allow compile-time and run-time checks that verify that constancy assumptions are not violated, and allow or simplify some compiler optimizations. There are various specific realizations of the general notion of a constant, with subtle distinctions that are often overlooked. The most significant are: compile-time (statically valued) constants, run-time (dy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Programming
Computer programming is the process of performing a particular computation (or more generally, accomplishing a specific computing result), usually by designing and building an executable computer program. Programming involves tasks such as analysis, generating algorithms, profiling algorithms' accuracy and resource consumption, and the implementation of algorithms (usually in a chosen programming language, commonly referred to as coding). The source code of a program is written in one or more languages that are intelligible to programmers, rather than machine code, which is directly executed by the central processing unit. The purpose of programming is to find a sequence of instructions that will automate the performance of a task (which can be as complex as an operating system) on a computer, often for solving a given problem. Proficient programming thus usually requires expertise in several different subjects, including knowledge of the application domain, specialized algori ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Characters Per Line
In typography and computing, characters per line (CPL) or terminal width refers to the maximal number of monospaced characters that may appear on a single line. It is similar to line length in typesetting. History The limit of the line length in 70–80 characters may well have originated from various technical limitations of various equipment. The American teletypewriters could type only 72 CPL, while the British ones even less, 70 CPL. In the era of typewriters, most designs of the typewriter carriage were limited to 80–90 CPL. Standard paper sizes, such as the international standard A4, also impose limitations on line length: using the US standard Letter paper size (8.5×11"), it is only possible to print a maximum of 85 or 102 characters (with the font size either 10 or 12 characters per inch) without margins on the typewriter. With various margins – usually from for each side, but there is no strict standard – these numbers may shrink to 55–78 CPL. In compu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Functional Programming
In computer science, functional programming is a programming paradigm where programs are constructed by Function application, applying and Function composition (computer science), composing Function (computer science), functions. It is a declarative programming paradigm in which function definitions are Tree (data structure), trees of Expression (computer science), expressions that map Value (computer science), values to other values, rather than a sequence of Imperative programming, imperative Statement (computer science), statements which update the State (computer science), running state of the program. In functional programming, functions are treated as first-class citizens, meaning that they can be bound to names (including local Identifier (computer languages), identifiers), passed as Parameter (computer programming), arguments, and Return value, returned from other functions, just as any other data type can. This allows programs to be written in a Declarative programming, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ALGOL 68
ALGOL 68 (short for ''Algorithmic Language 1968'') is an imperative programming language that was conceived as a successor to the ALGOL 60 programming language, designed with the goal of a much wider scope of application and more rigorously defined syntax and semantics. The complexity of the language's definition, which runs to several hundred pages filled with non-standard terminology, made compiler implementation difficult and it was said it had "no implementations and no users". This was only partly true; ALGOL 68 did find use in several niche markets, notably in the United Kingdom where it was popular on International Computers Limited (ICL) machines, and in teaching roles. Outside these fields, use was relatively limited. Nevertheless, the contributions of ALGOL 68 to the field of computer science have been deep, wide-ranging and enduring, although many of these contributions were only publicly identified when they had reappeared in subsequently developed programming lang ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SIGPLAN Notices
SIGPLAN is the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on programming languages. Conferences * Principles of Programming Languages (POPL) * Programming Language Design and Implementation (PLDI) * International Symposium on Memory Management (ISMM) * Languages, Compilers, and Tools for Embedded Systems (LCTES) * Symposium on Principles and Practice of Parallel Programming (PPoPP) * International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP) * Systems, Programming, Languages, and Applications: Software for Humanity (SPLASH) * Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications (OOPSLA) * History of Programming Languages (HOPL) * Dynamic Languages Symposium (DLS) Associated journals * ACM Transactions on Architecture and Code Optimization * ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages Newsletters * SIGPLAN Notices - Home pageat ACM * Fortran Forum - * Lisp Pointers (final issue 1995) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benjamin Cummings
Benjamin Cummings is a publishing imprint of Pearson Education that specializes in science. Benjamin Cummings publishes medical textbooks, anatomy and physiology laboratory manuals, biology and microbiology textbooks, and health/kinesiology textbooks. Cummings Publishing Company was formed in 1968 as a division of Addison-Wesley Addison-Wesley is an American publisher of textbooks and computer literature. It is an imprint of Pearson PLC, a global publishing and education company. In addition to publishing books, Addison-Wesley also distributes its technical titles through .... In 1977, Addison-Wesley purchased the W. A. Benjamin Company and merged it with Cummings. Benjamin Cummings, along with the rest of Addison-Wesley, was purchased by Pearson in 1988. References External links * Book publishing companies based in San Francisco Pearson plc Publishing companies established in 1977 {{US-publish-company-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Static Variable
In computer programming, a static variable is a variable that has been allocated "statically", meaning that its lifetime (or "extent") is the entire run of the program. This is in contrast to shorter-lived automatic variables, whose storage is stack allocated and deallocated on the call stack; and in contrast to objects, whose storage is dynamically allocated and deallocated in heap memory. Variable lifetime is contrasted with scope (where a variable can be used): "global" and "local" refer to scope, not lifetime, but scope often implies lifetime. In many languages, global variables are always static, but in some languages they are dynamic, while local variables are generally automatic, but may be static. In general, is the allocation of memory at compile time, before the associated program is executed, unlike dynamic memory allocation or automatic memory allocation where memory is allocated as required at run time. History Static variables date at least to ALGOL 60 (1960) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Global Variable
In computer programming, a global variable is a variable with global scope, meaning that it is visible (hence accessible) throughout the program, unless shadowed. The set of all global variables is known as the ''global environment'' or ''global state.'' In compiled languages, global variables are generally static variables, whose extent (lifetime) is the entire runtime of the program, though in interpreted languages (including command-line interpreters), global variables are generally dynamically allocated when declared, since they are not known ahead of time. In some languages, all variables are global, or global by default, while in most modern languages variables have limited scope, generally lexical scope, though global variables are often available by declaring a variable at the top level of the program. In other languages, however, global variables do not exist; these are generally modular programming languages that enforce a module structure, or class-based object-oriente ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macro (computer Science)
In computer programming, a macro (short for "macro instruction"; ) is a rule or pattern that specifies how a certain input should be mapped to a replacement output. Applying a macro to an input is known as macro expansion. The input and output may be a sequence of lexical tokens or characters, or a syntax tree. Character macros are supported in software applications to make it easy to invoke common command sequences. Token and tree macros are supported in some programming languages to enable code reuse or to extend the language, sometimes for domain-specific languages. Macros are used to make a sequence of computing instructions available to the programmer as a single program statement, making the programming task less tedious and less error-prone. (Thus, they are called "macros" because a "big" block of code can be expanded from a "small" sequence of characters.) Macros often allow positional or keyword parameters that dictate what the conditional assembler program generates ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Instruction (computer Science)
In computer science, an instruction set architecture (ISA), also called computer architecture, is an abstract model of a computer. A device that executes instructions described by that ISA, such as a central processing unit (CPU), is called an ''implementation''. In general, an ISA defines the supported instructions, data types, registers, the hardware support for managing main memory, fundamental features (such as the memory consistency, addressing modes, virtual memory), and the input/output model of a family of implementations of the ISA. An ISA specifies the behavior of machine code running on implementations of that ISA in a fashion that does not depend on the characteristics of that implementation, providing binary compatibility between implementations. This enables multiple implementations of an ISA that differ in characteristics such as performance, physical size, and monetary cost (among other things), but that are capable of running the same machine code, so that a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Literal (computer Science)
In computer science, a literal is a notation for representing a fixed value in source code. Almost all programming languages have notations for atomic values such as integers, floating-point numbers, and strings, and usually for booleans and characters; some also have notations for elements of enumerated types and compound values such as arrays, records, and objects. An anonymous function is a literal for the function type. In contrast to literals, variables or constants are symbols that can take on one of a class of fixed values, the constant being constrained not to change. Literals are often used to initialize variables; for example, in the following, 1 is an integer literal and the three letter string in "cat" is a string literal: int a = 1; string s = "cat"; In lexical analysis, literals of a given type are generally a token type, with a grammar rule, like "a string of digits" for an integer literal. Some literals are specific keywords, like true for the boolean lit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don't Repeat Yourself
"Don't repeat yourself" (DRY) is a principle of software development aimed at reducing repetition of software patterns, replacing it with abstractions or using data normalization to avoid redundancy. The DRY principle is stated as "Every piece of knowledge must have a single, unambiguous, authoritative representation within a system". The principle has been formulated by Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas in their book ''The Pragmatic Programmer''. They apply it quite broadly to include " database schemas, test plans, the build system, even documentation". When the DRY principle is applied successfully, a modification of any single element of a system does not require a change in other logically unrelated elements. Additionally, elements that are logically related all change predictably and uniformly, and are thus kept in sync. Besides using methods and subroutines in their code, Thomas and Hunt rely on code generators, automatic build systems, and scripting languages to observe t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
