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Circular Dependency
In software engineering, a circular dependency is a relation between two or more modules which either directly or indirectly depend on each other to function properly. Such modules are also known as mutually recursive. Overview Circular dependencies are natural in many domain models where certain objects of the same domain depend on each other. However, in software design, circular dependencies between larger software modules are considered an anti-pattern because of their negative effects. Despite this, such circular (or cyclic) dependencies have been found to be widespread among the source files of real-world software. Mutually recursive modules are, however, somewhat common in functional programming, where inductive and recursive definitions are often encouraged. Problems Circular dependencies can cause many unwanted effects in software programs. Most problematic from a software design point of view is the ''tight coupling'' of the mutually dependent modules which reduces o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software Engineering
Software engineering is a branch of both computer science and engineering focused on designing, developing, testing, and maintaining Application software, software applications. It involves applying engineering design process, engineering principles and computer programming expertise to develop software systems that meet user needs. The terms ''programmer'' and ''coder'' overlap ''software engineer'', but they imply only the construction aspect of a typical software engineer workload. A software engineer applies a software development process, which involves defining, Implementation, implementing, Software testing, testing, Project management, managing, and Software maintenance, maintaining software systems, as well as developing the software development process itself. History Beginning in the 1960s, software engineering was recognized as a separate field of engineering. The development of software engineering was seen as a struggle. Problems included software that was over ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reference Counting
In computer science, reference counting is a programming technique of storing the number of references, pointers, or handles to a resource, such as an object, a block of memory, disk space, and others. In garbage collection algorithms, reference counts may be used to deallocate objects that are no longer needed. Advantages and disadvantages The main advantage of the reference counting over tracing garbage collection is that objects are reclaimed ''as soon as'' they can no longer be referenced, and in an incremental fashion, without long pauses for collection cycles and with clearly defined lifetime of every object. In real-time applications or systems with limited memory, this is important to maintain responsiveness. Reference counting is also among the simplest forms of memory management to implement. It also allows for effective management of non-memory resources such as operating system objects, which are often much scarcer than memory (tracing garbage collection systems ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dependency Hell
Dependency hell is a colloquial term for the frustration of some software users who have installed software packages which have dependencies on specific versions of other software packages. The dependency issue arises when several packages have dependencies on the same ''shared'' packages or libraries, but they depend on different and incompatible versions of the shared packages. If the shared package or library can only be installed in a single version, the user may need to address the problem by obtaining newer or older versions of the dependent packages. This, in turn, may break other dependencies and push the problem to another set of packages. Problems Dependency hell takes several forms: ; Many dependencies : An application depends on many libraries, requiring lengthy downloads, large amounts of disk space, and being very portable (all libraries are already ported enabling the application itself to be ported easily). It can also be difficult to locate all the depende ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acyclic Dependencies Principle
The acyclic dependencies principle (ADP) is a software design principle defined by Robert C. Martin that states that "''the dependency graph of packages or components should have no cycles''". This implies that the dependencies form a directed acyclic graph. Example In this UML package diagram, package ''A'' depends on packages ''B'' and ''C''. Package ''B'' in turn depends on package ''D'', which depends on package ''C'', which in turn depends on package ''B''. The latter three dependencies create a cycle, which must be broken in order to adhere to the acyclic dependencies principle. Types of dependencies Software dependencies can either be explicit or implicit. Examples of explicit dependencies includes: * Include statements, such as #include in C/C++, using in C# and import in Java. * Dependencies stated in the build system (e.g. dependency tags in Maven configuration). Examples of implicit dependencies includes: * Relying on specific behaviour that is not well-defined ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Observer Pattern
In software design and software engineering, the observer pattern is a software design pattern in which an object, called the ''subject'' (also known as ''event source'' or ''event stream''), maintains a list of its dependents, called observers (also known as ''event sinks''), and automatically notifies them of any state (computer science), state changes, typically by calling one of their method (computer science), methods. The subject knows its observers through a standardized interface and manages the subscription list directly. This pattern creates a one-to-many dependency where multiple observers can listen to a single subject, but the coupling is typically synchronous and direct—the subject calls observer methods when changes occur, though asynchronous implementations using event queues are possible. Unlike the publish-subscribe pattern, there is no intermediary broker; the subject and observers have direct references to each other. It is commonly used to implement event ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software Design Pattern
In software engineering, a software design pattern or design pattern is a general, reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem in many contexts in software design. A design pattern is not a rigid structure to be transplanted directly into source code. Rather, it is a description or a template for solving a particular type of problem that can be deployed in many different situations. Design patterns can be viewed as formalized best practices that the programmer may use to solve common problems when designing a software application or system. Object-oriented design patterns typically show relationships and interactions between classes or objects, without specifying the final application classes or objects that are involved. Patterns that imply mutable state may be unsuited for functional programming languages. Some patterns can be rendered unnecessary in languages that have built-in support for solving the problem they are trying to solve, and object-oriented patterns are no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Callback (computer Programming)
In computer programming, a callback is a function that is stored as data (a reference) and designed to be called by another function often ''back'' to the original abstraction layer. A function that accepts a callback parameter may be designed to call back before returning to its caller which is known as '' synchronous'' or ''blocking''. The function that accepts a callback may be designed to store the callback so that it can be called back after returning which is known as ''asynchronous'', '' non-blocking'' or ''deferred''. Programming languages support callbacks in different ways such as function pointers, lambda expressions and blocks. A callback can be likened to leaving instructions with a tailor for what to do when a suit is ready, such as calling a specific phone number or delivering it to a given address. These instructions represent a callback: a function provided in advance to be executed later, often by a different part of the system and not necessarily by t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Java (software Platform)
Java is a set of computer software and specifications that provides a software platform for developing application software and deploying it in a cross-platform computing environment. Java is used in a wide variety of computing platforms from embedded devices and mobile phones to enterprise servers and supercomputers. Java applets, which are less common than standalone Java applications, were commonly run in secure, Sandbox (computer security), sandboxed environments to provide many features of native applications through being embedded in HTML pages. Writing in the Java (programming language), Java programming language is the primary way to produce code that will be deployed as Java byte code, byte code in a Java virtual machine (JVM); byte code compilers are also available for other languages, including Ada (programming language), Ada, JavaScript, Kotlin (programming language), Kotlin (Google's preferred Android language), Python (programming language), Python, and Ruby (p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Garbage Collection (computer Science)
In computer science, garbage collection (GC) is a form of automatic memory management. The ''garbage collector'' attempts to reclaim memory that was allocated by the program, but is no longer referenced; such memory is called ''garbage (computer science), garbage''. Garbage collection was invented by American computer scientist John McCarthy (computer scientist), John McCarthy around 1959 to simplify manual memory management in Lisp (programming language), Lisp. Garbage collection relieves the programmer from doing manual memory management, where the programmer specifies what objects to de-allocate and return to the memory system and when to do so. Other, similar techniques include stack-based memory allocation, stack allocation, region inference, and memory ownership, and combinations thereof. Garbage collection may take a significant proportion of a program's total processing time, and affect computer performance, performance as a result. Resources other than memory, such a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mutual Recursion
In mathematics and computer science, mutual recursion is a form of recursion where two mathematical or computational objects, such as functions or datatypes, are defined in terms of each other. Mutual recursion is very common in functional programming and in some problem domains, such as recursive descent parsers, where the datatypes are naturally mutually recursive. Examples Datatypes The most important basic example of a datatype that can be defined by mutual recursion is a tree, which can be defined mutually recursively in terms of a forest (a list of trees). Symbolically: f: [1 ..., t[k t: v f A forest ''f'' consists of a list of trees, while a tree ''t'' consists of a pair of a value ''v'' and a forest ''f'' (its children). This definition is elegant and easy to work with abstractly (such as when proving theorems about properties of trees), as it expresses a tree in simple terms: a list of one type, and a pair of two types. Further, it matches many algorithms on trees, whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Memory Leak
In computer science, a memory leak is a type of resource leak that occurs when a computer program incorrectly manages memory allocations in a way that memory which is no longer needed is not released. A memory leak may also happen when an object is stored in memory but cannot be accessed by the running code (i.e. unreachable memory). A memory leak has symptoms similar to a number of other problems and generally can only be diagnosed by a programmer with access to the program's source code. A related concept is the "space leak", which is when a program consumes excessive memory but does eventually release it. Because they can exhaust available system memory as an application runs, memory leaks are often the cause of or a contributing factor to software aging. Effects Minor leaks If a program has a memory leak and its memory usage is steadily increasing, there will not usually be an immediate symptom. In modern operating systems, normal memory used by an application is releas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Domino Effect
A domino effect is the cumulative effect produced when one event sets off a series of similar or related events, a form of chain reaction. The term is an analogy to a falling row of dominoes. It typically refers to a linked sequence of events where the time between successive events is relatively short. The term can be used literally (about a series of actual collisions) or metaphorically (about causal linkages within systems such as global finance or politics). The literal, mechanical domino effect is exploited in Rube Goldberg machines. In chemistry, the principle applies to a domino reaction, in which one chemical reaction sets up the conditions necessary for a subsequent one that soon follows. In the realm of process safety, a domino-effect accident is an initial undesirable event triggering additional ones in related equipment or facilities, leading to a total incident effect more severe than the primary accident alone. The metaphorical usage implies that an outcome ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
