Programing Language Jargons. Index

When programers use math jargons, such as git directed acyclic graph, haskell monad, http ideompotency, lisp homoiconicity, they dunno which side is mouth, which side is ass.

Naming, terminalogy, are critical, because misnomers create perpetual misunderstanding.

Programing Jargons

What is Regular in Regular Expression?

the term “regular expression” came from “regular grammar”. The word “regular” there is a misnomer. It should be replaced by “linear”.

Jargon “Lexical”

the “lexical” in “lexical scope” and “lexical grammar” are totally different. The former pertains to “textual”, the latter “identifier/word/token”.

Jargon “Hygienic Macro”

in Scheme lisp, there's hygienic macro. That added “hygienic” made it abstruse. A better name is simply macro, or Racket lisp's even better “define-syntax-rule”. The Common Lisp case, is simply a bug.

Jargon “Datatype”

“datatype” is a confusing term. It may refer to 2 things: (1) computer language's types. For example, int, string, list, array, vector, hashtable. (2) data structure of algorithms. For example, linked list, tree, hashtable, associative list, set. This confusion, engendered countless arguments in language crowd. For example, {list, array}.

Jargon “Object”

the “Object” in “object oriented programing” should be called data-bundle.

Algorithm should be renamed recipe

Algorithm should be renamed recipe.
Programing language should be renamed recipe language.
This will massively increase understanding.

The only problem is that the word recipe is hard to spell correctly. It does not follow the alphabetic principle, e.g. it's better spelled “resapi”. Also it confuses with other complex orthography words such as receipt, receive.