Procedural Programming Language
Procedural programming is a programming paradigm, derived from imperative programming, based on the concept of the ''procedure call''. Procedures (a type of routine or subroutine) simply contain a series of computational steps to be carried out. Any given procedure might be called at any point during a program's execution, including by other procedures or itself. The first major procedural programming languages appeared circa 1957–1964, including Fortran, ALGOL, COBOL, PL/I and BASIC. Pascal and C were published circa 1970–1972. Computer processors provide hardware support for procedural programming through a stack register and instructions for calling procedures and returning from them. Hardware support for other types of programming is possible, but no attempt was commercially successful (for example Lisp machines or Java processors). Procedures and modularity Modularity is generally desirable, especially in large, complicated programs. Inputs are usua ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Programming Paradigm
Programming paradigms are a way to classify programming languages based on their features. Languages can be classified into multiple paradigms. Some paradigms are concerned mainly with implications for the execution model of the language, such as allowing side effects, or whether the sequence of operations is defined by the execution model. Other paradigms are concerned mainly with the way that code is organized, such as grouping a code into units along with the state that is modified by the code. Yet others are concerned mainly with the style of syntax and grammar. Common programming paradigms include: * imperative in which the programmer instructs the machine how to change its state, ** procedural which groups instructions into procedures, ** object-oriented which groups instructions with the part of the state they operate on, * declarative in which the programmer merely declares properties of the desired result, but not how to compute it ** functional in which the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Argument (computer Programming)
In computer programming, a parameter or a formal argument is a special kind of variable used in a subroutine to refer to one of the pieces of data provided as input to the subroutine. These pieces of data are the values of the arguments (often called ''actual arguments'' or ''actual parameters'') with which the subroutine is going to be called/invoked. An ordered list of parameters is usually included in the definition of a subroutine, so that, each time the subroutine is called, its arguments for that call are evaluated, and the resulting values can be assigned to the corresponding parameters. Unlike ''argument'' in usual mathematical usage, the ''argument'' in computer science is the actual input expression passed/supplied to a function, procedure, or routine in the invocation/call statement, whereas the ''parameter'' is the variable inside the implementation of the subroutine. For example, if one defines the add subroutine as def add(x, y): return x + y, then x, y are paramet ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Branch Table
In computer programming, a branch table or jump table is a method of transferring program control ( branching) to another part of a program (or a different program that may have been dynamically loaded) using a table of branch or jump instructions. It is a form of multiway branch. The branch table construction is commonly used when programming in assembly language but may also be generated by compilers, especially when implementing optimized switch statements whose values are densely packed together. Typical implementation A branch table consists of a serial list of unconditional branch instructions that is branched into using an offset created by multiplying a sequential index by the instruction length (the number of bytes in memory occupied by each branch instruction). It relies on the fact that machine code instructions for branching have a fixed length and can be executed extremely efficiently by most hardware, and is most useful when dealing with raw data values that may be ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Goto
GoTo (goto, GOTO, GO TO or other case combinations, depending on the programming language) is a statement found in many computer programming languages. It performs a one-way transfer of control to another line of code; in contrast a function call normally returns control. The jumped-to locations are usually identified using labels, though some languages use line numbers. At the machine code level, a goto is a form of branch or jump statement, in some cases combined with a stack adjustment. Many languages support the goto statement, and many do not (see § language support). The structured program theorem proved that the goto statement is not necessary to write programs that can be expressed as flow charts; some combination of the three programming constructs of sequence, selection/choice, and repetition/iteration are sufficient for any computation that can be performed by a Turing machine, with the caveat that code duplication and additional variables may need to be int ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Non-structured Programming
Non-structured programming is the historically earliest programming paradigm capable of creating Turing-complete algorithms. It is often contrasted with the structured programming paradigm, in particular with the use of unstructured control flow using goto statements or equivalent. The distinction was particularly stressed by the publication of the influential "Go To Statement Considered Harmful" open letter in 1968 by Dutch computer scientist Edsger W. Dijkstra, who coined the term "structured programming". Unstructured programming has been heavily criticized for producing hardly-readable ("spaghetti") code. There are both high- and low-level programming languages that use non-structured programming. Some languages commonly cited as being non-structured include JOSS, FOCAL, TELCOMP, assembly languages, MS-DOS batch files, and early versions of BASIC, Fortran, COBOL, and MUMPS. Features and typical concepts Basic concepts A program in a non-structured language uses unst ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Control Flow
In computer science, control flow (or flow of control) is the order in which individual statements, instructions or function calls of an imperative program are executed or evaluated. The emphasis on explicit control flow distinguishes an '' imperative programming'' language from a ''declarative programming'' language. Within an imperative programming language, a ''control flow statement'' is a statement that results in a choice being made as to which of two or more paths to follow. For non-strict functional languages, functions and language constructs exist to achieve the same result, but they are usually not termed control flow statements. A set of statements is in turn generally structured as a block, which in addition to grouping, also defines a lexical scope. Interrupts and signals are low-level mechanisms that can alter the flow of control in a way similar to a subroutine, but usually occur as a response to some external stimulus or event (that can occur asynch ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Scope (computer Science)
In computer programming, the scope of a name binding (an association of a name to an entity, such as a variable) is the part of a program where the name binding is valid; that is, where the name can be used to refer to the entity. In other parts of the program, the name may refer to a different entity (it may have a different binding), or to nothing at all (it may be unbound). Scope helps prevent name collisions by allowing the same name to refer to different objects – as long as the names have separate scopes. The scope of a name binding is also known as the visibility of an entity, particularly in older or more technical literature—this is from the perspective of the referenced entity, not the referencing name. The term "scope" is also used to refer to the set of ''all'' name bindings that are valid within a part of a program or at a given point in a program, which is more correctly referred to as ''context'' or ''environment''. Strictly speaking and in practice for most ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Block (programming)
In computer programming, a block or code block or block of code is a lexical structure of source code which is grouped together. Blocks consist of one or more declarations and statements. A programming language that permits the creation of blocks, including blocks nested within other blocks, is called a block-structured programming language. Blocks are fundamental to structured programming, where control structures are formed from blocks. Blocks have two functions: to group statements so that they can be treated as one statement, and to define scopes for names to distinguish them from the same name used elsewhere. In a block-structured programming language, the objects named in outer blocks are visible inside inner blocks, unless they are masked by an object declared with the same name. History Ideas of block structure were developed in the 1950s during the development of the first autocodes, and were formalized in the Algol 58 and Algol 60 reports. Algol 58 introduced the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Logo (programming Language)
Logo is an educational programming language, designed in 1967 by Wally Feurzeig, Seymour Papert, and Cynthia Solomon. ''Logo'' is not an acronym: the name was coined by Feurzeig while he was at Bolt, Beranek and Newman, and derives from the Greek ''logos'', meaning ''word'' or ''thought''. A general-purpose language, Logo is widely known for its use of turtle graphics, in which commands for movement and drawing produced line or vector graphics, either on screen or with a small robot termed a turtle. The language was conceived to teach concepts of programming related to Lisp and only later to enable what Papert called " body-syntonic reasoning", where students could understand, predict, and reason about the turtle's motion by imagining what they would do if they were the turtle. There are substantial differences among the many dialects of Logo, and the situation is confused by the regular appearance of turtle graphics programs that are named Logo. Logo is a multi-paradigm adaptati ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Processor Register
A processor register is a quickly accessible location available to a computer's processor. Registers usually consist of a small amount of fast storage, although some registers have specific hardware functions, and may be read-only or write-only. In computer architecture, registers are typically addressed by mechanisms other than main memory, but may in some cases be assigned a memory address e.g. DEC PDP-10, ICT 1900. Almost all computers, whether load/store architecture or not, load data from a larger memory into registers where it is used for arithmetic operations and is manipulated or tested by machine instructions. Manipulated data is then often stored back to main memory, either by the same instruction or by a subsequent one. Modern processors use either static or dynamic RAM as main memory, with the latter usually accessed via one or more cache levels. Processor registers are normally at the top of the memory hierarchy, and provide the fastest way to access data ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Code Library
In computer science, a library is a collection of non-volatile resources used by computer programs, often for software development. These may include configuration data, documentation, help data, message templates, pre-written code and subroutines, classes, values or type specifications. In IBM's OS/360 and its successors they are referred to as partitioned data sets. A library is also a collection of implementations of behavior, written in terms of a language, that has a well-defined interface by which the behavior is invoked. For instance, people who want to write a higher-level program can use a library to make system calls instead of implementing those system calls over and over again. In addition, the behavior is provided for reuse by multiple independent programs. A program invokes the library-provided behavior via a mechanism of the language. For example, in a simple imperative language such as C, the behavior in a library is invoked by using C's normal function-c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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System Platform
A computing platform or digital platform is an environment in which a piece of software is executed. It may be the hardware or the operating system (OS), even a web browser and associated application programming interfaces, or other underlying software, as long as the program code is executed with it. Computing platforms have different abstraction levels, including a computer architecture, an OS, or runtime libraries. A computing platform is the stage on which computer programs can run. A platform can be seen both as a constraint on the software development process, in that different platforms provide different functionality and restrictions; and as an assistant to the development process, in that they provide low-level functionality ready-made. For example, an OS may be a platform that abstracts the underlying differences in hardware and provides a generic command for saving files or accessing the network. Components Platforms may also include: * Hardware alone, in the case ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |