A generic tag for topics providing definitions.
A generic tag for topics providing definitions.
Questions tagged [definition]
1574 questions
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35 answers
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What is an example of the Liskov Substitution Principle?
I have heard that the Liskov Substitution Principle (LSP) is a fundamental principle of object oriented design. What is it and what are some examples of its use?
NotMyself
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1142
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18 answers
1048
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Definition of "downstream" and "upstream"
I've started playing with Git and have come across the terms "upstream" and "downstream". I've seen these before but never understood them fully. What do these terms mean in the context of SCMs (Software Configuration Management tools) and source…
brendan
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What is the difference between a definition and a declaration?
The meaning of both eludes me.
Maciek
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16 answers
What's the difference between faking, mocking, and stubbing?
I know how I use these terms, but I'm wondering if there are accepted definitions for faking, mocking, and stubbing for unit tests? How do you define these for your tests? Describe situations where you might use each.
Here is how I use them:
Fake:…
tvanfosson
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What's the difference between unit, functional, acceptance, and integration tests?
What is the difference between unit, functional, acceptance, and integration testing (and any other types of tests that I failed to mention)?
Andrew
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What are the differences between unit tests, integration tests, smoke tests, and regression tests?
What are unit tests, integration tests, smoke tests, and regression tests? What are the differences between them and which tools can I use for each of them?
For example, I use JUnit and NUnit for unit testing and integration testing. Are there any…
caltuntas
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803
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24 answers
What is 'Currying'?
I've seen references to curried functions in several articles and blogs but I can't find a good explanation (or at least one that makes sense!)
Ben
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495
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What is boilerplate code?
A coworker had never heard of this, and I couldn't provide a real definition. For me, it's always been an instance of 'I-know-it-when-I-see-it'.
Bonus question, who originated the term?
Nate Parsons
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What is the difference between currying and partial application?
I quite often see on the Internet various complaints that other peoples examples of currying are not currying, but are actually just partial application.
I've not found a decent explanation of what partial application is, or how it differs from…
SpoonMeiser
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What is a Y-combinator?
A Y-combinator is a computer science concept from the “functional” side of things. Most programmers don't know much at all about combinators, if they've even heard about them.
What is a Y-combinator?
How do combinators work?
What are they good…
Chris Ammerman
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What is a "thread" (really)?
I have been trying to find a good definition, and get an understanding, of what a thread really is.
It seems that I must be missing something obvious, but every time I read about what a thread is, it's almost a circular definition, a la "a thread is…
richard
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351
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11 answers
How to find where a method is defined at runtime?
We recently had a problem where, after a series of commits had occurred, a backend process failed to run. Now, we were good little boys and girls and ran rake test after every check-in but, due to some oddities in Rails' library loading, it only…
Matt Rogish
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Software Design vs. Software Architecture
Could someone explain the difference between Software Design and Software Architecture?
More specifically; if you tell someone to present you the 'design' - what would you expect them to present? Same goes for 'architecture'.
My current…
Mads Mobæk
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