Functional programmingIn computer science, functional programming is a programming paradigm where programs are constructed by applying and composing functions. It is a declarative programming paradigm in which function definitions are trees of expressions that map values to other values, rather than a sequence of imperative statements which update the running state of the program. In functional programming, functions are treated as first-class citizens, meaning that they can be bound to names (including local identifiers), passed as arguments, and returned from other functions, just as any other data type can.
Persistent data structureIn computing, a persistent data structure or not ephemeral data structure is a data structure that always preserves the previous version of itself when it is modified. Such data structures are effectively immutable, as their operations do not (visibly) update the structure in-place, but instead always yield a new updated structure. The term was introduced in Driscoll, Sarnak, Sleator, and Tarjans' 1986 article. A data structure is partially persistent if all versions can be accessed but only the newest version can be modified.
Programming languageA programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming language is usually split into the two components of syntax (form) and semantics (meaning), which are usually defined by a formal language. Some languages are defined by a specification document (for example, the C programming language is specified by an ISO Standard) while other languages (such as Perl) have a dominant implementation that is treated as a reference.
Declarative programmingIn computer science, declarative programming is a programming paradigm—a style of building the structure and elements of computer programs—that expresses the logic of a computation without describing its control flow. Many languages that apply this style attempt to minimize or eliminate side effects by describing what the program must accomplish in terms of the problem domain, rather than describing how to accomplish it as a sequence of the programming language primitives (the how being left up to the language's implementation).
Programming paradigmProgramming 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.
Data structureIn computer science, a data structure is a data organization, management, and storage format that is usually chosen for efficient access to data. More precisely, a data structure is a collection of data values, the relationships among them, and the functions or operations that can be applied to the data, i.e., it is an algebraic structure about data. Data structures serve as the basis for abstract data types (ADT). The ADT defines the logical form of the data type. The data structure implements the physical form of the data type.
Logic programmingLogic programming is a programming paradigm which is largely based on formal logic. Any program written in a logic programming language is a set of sentences in logical form, expressing facts and rules about some problem domain. Major logic programming language families include Prolog, answer set programming (ASP) and Datalog. In all of these languages, rules are written in the form of clauses: H :- B1, ..., Bn. and are read declaratively as logical implications: H if B1 and ... and Bn. H is called the head of the rule and B1, .
Purely functional programmingIn computer science, purely functional programming usually designates a programming paradigm—a style of building the structure and elements of computer programs—that treats all computation as the evaluation of mathematical functions. Program state and mutable objects are usually modeled with temporal logic, as explicit variables that represent the program state at each step of a program execution: a variable state is passed as an input parameter of a state-transforming function, which returns the updated state as part of its return value.
Recursive data typeIn computer programming languages, a recursive data type (also known as a recursively-defined, inductively-defined or inductive data type) is a data type for values that may contain other values of the same type. Data of recursive types are usually viewed as directed graphs. An important application of recursion in computer science is in defining dynamic data structures such as Lists and Trees. Recursive data structures can dynamically grow to an arbitrarily large size in response to runtime requirements; in contrast, a static array's size requirements must be set at compile time.
High-level programming languageIn computer science, a high-level programming language is a programming language with strong abstraction from the details of the computer. In contrast to low-level programming languages, it may use natural language elements, be easier to use, or may automate (or even hide entirely) significant areas of computing systems (e.g. memory management), making the process of developing a program simpler and more understandable than when using a lower-level language. The amount of abstraction provided defines how "high-level" a programming language is.
Function (computer programming)In computer programming, a function or subroutine is a sequence of program instructions that performs a specific task, packaged as a unit. This unit can then be used in programs wherever that particular task should be performed. Functions may be defined within programs, or separately in libraries that can be used by many programs. In different programming languages, a function may be called a routine, subprogram, subroutine, or procedure; in object-oriented programming (OOP), it may be called a method.
Compile-time function executionIn computing, compile-time function execution (or compile time function evaluation, or general constant expressions) is the ability of a compiler, that would normally compile a function to machine code and execute it at run time, to execute the function at compile time. This is possible if the arguments to the function are known at compile time, and the function does not make any reference to or attempt to modify any global state (i.e. it is a pure function).
Purely functional data structureIn computer science, a purely functional data structure is a data structure that can be directly implemented in a purely functional language. The main difference between an arbitrary data structure and a purely functional one is that the latter is (strongly) immutable. This restriction ensures the data structure possesses the advantages of immutable objects: (full) persistency, quick copy of objects, and thread safety. Efficient purely functional data structures may require the use of lazy evaluation and memoization.
Procedural programmingProcedural 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.
Esoteric programming languageAn esoteric programming language (sometimes shortened to esolang) is a programming language designed to test the boundaries of computer programming language design, as a proof of concept, as software art, as a hacking interface to another language (particularly functional programming or procedural programming languages), or as a joke. The use of the word esoteric distinguishes them from languages that working developers use to write software.
Inline functionIn the C and C++ programming languages, an inline function is one qualified with the keyword inline; this serves two purposes: It serves as a compiler directive that suggests (but does not require) that the compiler substitute the body of the function inline by performing inline expansion, i.e. by inserting the function code at the address of each function call, thereby saving the overhead of a function call. In this respect it is analogous to the register storage class specifier, which similarly provides an optimization hint.
Modular programmingModular programming is a software design technique that emphasizes separating the functionality of a program into independent, interchangeable modules, such that each contains everything necessary to execute only one aspect of the desired functionality. A module interface expresses the elements that are provided and required by the module. The elements defined in the interface are detectable by other modules. The implementation contains the working code that corresponds to the elements declared in the interface.
Binary search treeIn computer science, a binary search tree (BST), also called an ordered or sorted binary tree, is a rooted binary tree data structure with the key of each internal node being greater than all the keys in the respective node's left subtree and less than the ones in its right subtree. The time complexity of operations on the binary search tree is directly proportional to the height of the tree. Binary search trees allow binary search for fast lookup, addition, and removal of data items.
Recursion (computer science)In computer science, recursion is a method of solving a computational problem where the solution depends on solutions to smaller instances of the same problem. Recursion solves such recursive problems by using functions that call themselves from within their own code. The approach can be applied to many types of problems, and recursion is one of the central ideas of computer science. The power of recursion evidently lies in the possibility of defining an infinite set of objects by a finite statement.
Compile timeIn computer science, compile time (or compile-time) describes the time window during which a language's statements are converted into 0s and 1s for the computer to understand. The term is used as an adjective to describe concepts related to the context of program compilation, as opposed to concepts related to the context of program execution (runtime). For example, compile-time requirements are programming language requirements that must be met by source code before compilation and compile-time properties are properties of the program that can be reasoned about during compilation.
