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Questions tagged [programming]

Questions about English used for talking about programming, but not about programming languages themselves. Note that helping to name programming variables/classes is out of this site's scope.

Questions about English used for programming computers, but not about programming languages or the naming of programming constructs.

For example, a question about how “macro” in computer programming came about is fine, but a question about variable naming is usually not.

385 questions
7
votes
2 answers

Pre(-)processing/post(-)processing hyphen presence in research publications written in UK/US English

Which of the following spellings of pre|post(-)processing are the most commonly used in research publications written in UK English and in US English? pre-processing, post-processing versus preprocessing, postprocessing
Matthias
  • 173
7
votes
7 answers

Is it correct to say "consecutively in time"?

I'm writing a technical report and I want to emphasize that each sample that I have stored in a buffer has been collected before the following one. Can I say, The samples from the buffer are known to have been captured consecutively in time?
Jal
  • 73
4
votes
3 answers

How to describe this unrecognizable content?

In programming, I got the following content which is unrecognizable in the output. When communicating with others, how should I describe the issue I encountered in more natural way? In fact, this unrecognized contents should be other languages, like…
niaomingjian
  • 149
4
votes
7 answers

Why is it said that "messages are sent to methods"?

In object-oriented programming, it is said that messages are sent to methods. In this context, why is the word "method" used instead of "procedure" or "function"? In other words, why was the word "method" introduced to programming?
H2ONaCl
  • 1,240
3
votes
2 answers

Programming: what does "to bump a counter" mean?

I can't figure out the meaning of the word "bump" in the following sentence: Periodically, a full sweep is made — large objects are still not copied (they just get their generation count bumped), and blocks containing small objects are copied and…
Kirill Smirnov
  • 355
3
votes
1 answer

Is checkedness a word?

In the W3C HTML 5 specification, there are a number times the word checkedness is used, the following is where each word links to when used: Form controls have a value and a checkedness. Is checkedness a technical term or a word defined in a…
Professor of programming
  • 133
3
votes
2 answers

Examples of programming language affecting the english language

I'm a programmer. I'm told I often use 'else' like the if ... else statement in a programming language. For example, this text message I sent yesterday: Hey, if you haven't had lunch wanna go to the tavern? Else [do you want to see] the latest…
geometrikal
  • 489
3
votes
4 answers

Another phrase for "Working As Designed" or "Not implemented"

I work at a software company. We use the term "Working as Designed" when a client/user reports an issue that is not really a bug but is an issue that was not accounted for in the original programming. We are looking for a better term. "Working as…
Russ
  • 41
2
votes
1 answer

In what year did term "program" first appear in the meaning of "series of coded instructions"?

I'm trying to figure out year when the term "program" was firstly used is the meaning ‘series of coded instructions which directs a computer in carrying out a specific task’. Additionally I need book/paper/essay where I can read this definition. Let…
No Name QA
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2
votes
1 answer

"The Prefix of Output File Names" or "The Prefix of Output Files Name" or both are wrong?

I point this out for making it clear what I try to achieve. I'm writing a little documentation for my command line utility. It generates two files: {Prefix}-{4096}bits.public {Prefix}-{4096}bits.private that contain Prefix value within their…
AlexMelw
  • 123
2
votes
1 answer

Things with expiry date

I'm a software developer and currently I'm creating an inventory application. I need to name things with expiry dates, like medicines or food, in general. In Java (the programming language I'm using) is common to name -for instance- objects you can…
Francisco Carabaño
  • 21
  • 1
2
votes
2 answers

unsigned 64bit integer vs. 64-bit unsigned integer?

I found several way to write the same thing, but it may be that only one is really correct, can you help me to find the correct sentence. I want to specify the type of a parameter for a function (a C programming API). What is the correct version…
alexbuisson
  • 185
1
vote
0 answers

"A" or "an" for symbols that start with @

Possible Duplicate: When should I use “a” vs “an”? I'm writing about concepts in programming languages, and for instance in the Java language, so-called annotations are declared with an "@" sign in front of them. When such annotations are…
Eyvind
  • 1,259
1
vote
1 answer

"Shininess" word to indicate shine effect

In the shaders more than once met the word "shininess" to indicate shine of 3D-object, such as glass. Please tell me why this rare word is used? This word is not even in my dictionary. Thanks in advance!
alexrnov
  • 115
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1
vote
2 answers

What's a specific word for a programmer who has contextual knowledge of a particular programming language, framework, environment, etc?

This term was used by an old Senior Developer of mine but for the life of me I can't recall it. The context of the conversation was that he wasn't necessarily more skilled than an Intermediate Developer, but he had more knowledge and experience in…
CGriffin
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