GotoGoto (goto, GOTO, GO TO, GoTo, 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.
Thread (computing)In computer science, a thread of execution is the smallest sequence of programmed instructions that can be managed independently by a scheduler, which is typically a part of the operating system. The implementation of threads and processes differs between operating systems. In Modern Operating Systems, Tanenbaum shows that many distinct models of process organization are possible. In many cases, a thread is a component of a process.
Parameter (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.
Forth (programming language)Forth is a procedural, stack-oriented programming language and interactive environment designed by Charles H. "Chuck" Moore and first used by other programmers in 1970. Although not an acronym, the language's name in its early years was often spelled in all capital letters as FORTH. The FORTH-79 and FORTH-83 implementations, which were not written by Moore, became de facto standards, and an official standardization of the language was published in 1994 as ANS Forth. A wide range of Forth derivatives existed before and after ANS Forth.
PIC microcontrollersPIC (usually pronounced as [phɪk]) is a family of microcontrollers made by Microchip Technology, derived from the PIC1650 originally developed by General Instrument's Microelectronics Division. The name PIC initially referred to Peripheral Interface Controller, and is currently expanded as Programmable Intelligent Computer. The first parts of the family were available in 1976; by 2013 the company had shipped more than twelve billion individual parts, used in a wide variety of embedded systems.
Application binary interfaceIn computer software, an application binary interface (ABI) is an interface between two binary program modules. Often, one of these modules is a library or operating system facility, and the other is a program that is being run by a user. An ABI defines how data structures or computational routines are accessed in machine code, which is a low-level, hardware-dependent format. In contrast, an application programming interface (API) defines this access in source code, which is a relatively high-level, hardware-independent, often human-readable format.
Evaluation strategyIn a programming language, an evaluation strategy is a set of rules for evaluating expressions. The term is often used to refer to the more specific notion of a parameter-passing strategy that defines the kind of value that is passed to the function for each parameter (the binding strategy) and whether to evaluate the parameters of a function call, and if so in what order (the evaluation order). The notion of reduction strategy is distinct, although some authors conflate the two terms and the definition of each term is not widely agreed upon.
Scheme (programming language)Scheme is a dialect of the Lisp family of programming languages. Scheme was created during the 1970s at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT AI Lab) and released by its developers, Guy L. Steele and Gerald Jay Sussman, via a series of memos now known as the Lambda Papers. It was the first dialect of Lisp to choose lexical scope and the first to require implementations to perform tail-call optimization, giving stronger support for functional programming and associated techniques such as recursive algorithms.
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.
Object-oriented programmingObject-Oriented Programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of "objects", which can contain data and code. The data is in the form of fields (often known as attributes or properties), and the code is in the form of procedures (often known as methods). A common feature of objects is that procedures (or methods) are attached to them and can access and modify the object's data fields. In this brand of OOP, there is usually a special name such as or used to refer to the current object.
Memory addressIn computing, a memory address is a reference to a specific memory location used at various levels by software and hardware. Memory addresses are fixed-length sequences of digits conventionally displayed and manipulated as unsigned integers. Such numerical semantic bases itself upon features of CPU (such as the instruction pointer and incremental address registers), as well upon use of the memory like an array endorsed by various programming languages. A digital computer's main memory consists of many memory locations.
