Unit 9: Vocabulary

Please study the 20 vocabulary terms below. Then press the Mark Complete button to continue.
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.NET Framework
a software framework by Microsoft which executes code via a virtual machine
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The .NET Framework is Microsoft's premium solution for programming applications, and supports over 20 languages including C#, VB.NET, and IronRuby.
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bash
a command language written by Brian Fox in 1989 and used to administer linux and other Unix-like systems
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Bash is an acronym for "Bourne-again shell", a joke based on the name of the Bourne shell that it replaces and on the Christian religious term "born again".
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C programming language
a low-level, compiled programming language developed in the early 1970s by Dennis Ritchie for use on the UNIX operating system
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C is still a popular programming language 40 years after it was created, mainly due to its minimalism and extreme speed.
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compiler
a program that takes human readable code and turns it into machine readable code for running at a later time
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The students liked programming python more than C because they didn't have to use a compiler before execution.
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ECMAScript
the official specification or "standard" for the language commonly known as JavaScript
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The professor told us that officially JavaScript should be called ECMAScript, but that few people do so in practice.
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elegant code
concise, clean, and clear code which allows other developers to understand and extend it
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The junior programmer wrote elegant code and used variable names with a clear meaning.
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interpreter
a program that reads a high-level programming language, converts it into machine code, and then immediately runs that code
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Computer languages that require an interpreter often run slower than languages that require a compile
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Java
a high-level, compiled, object-oriented programming language owned by software giant Oracle
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The computer science professor predicted that as processor speeds increased, Java would eventually replace C++ in application development.
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JavaScript
a popular programming language originally developed by Brendan Eich at Netscape to provide client-side interactivity in web pages
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The web programmer used JavaScript to alert the user about invalid data entered in a required field.
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multi-paradigm language
a programming language that supports both procedural and object-oriented programming philosophies
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PHP started out as a procedural language, but grew into a multi-paradigm language when it added support for objects in version 4.
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object-oriented language
any programming language optimized for modeling real-world objects and concepts
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Java is the most popular object-oriented language.
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Perl
a high-level, interpreted programming language written by Larry Wall in 1986 and typically used for system administration
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Larry Wall is the inventor of Perl, a widely used programming language that has a very devout following.
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PHP (PHP Hypertext Preprocessor)
a high-level, interpreted programming language written by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1995 and aimed mainly at web developers creating dynamic applications
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The professor said that PHP is the most popular web scripting language in the world and supports many advanced object-oriented programming techniques.
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portability
a measure of how easily programs can be moved to a new system without having to make any changes
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Java and ANSI C are two attempts at making software portability a priority.
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primitive type
basic data types such as: boolean, byte, char, double, float, int, long, and short
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Pure object-oriented programming languages such as Ruby and Smalltalk do not contain any primitive types.
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procedural language
any programming language that is based on a step-by-step approach to solving a problem
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C is the standard example of a procedural language.
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Python
a high-level, interpreted programming language developed by Guido van Rossum at CWI in the Netherlands
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The motto of Python is "there should be one- and preferably only one- obvious way to do it".
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Ruby
an object-oriented, high-level, interpreted programming language developed in the 1990's by ace Japanese programmer Yukihiro Matsumoto.
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The creator of Ruby wanted a scripting language that was more elegant than Perl, and more object-oriented than Python.
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syntax
rules governing the structure of a programming language
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The basic concepts of all programming languages are quite similar, even if the syntax can be quite different.
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VB (Visual Basic)
a Windows-only, multi-paradigm programming language developed by Microsoft and intended for beginners or casual use
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The high school programming teacher taught his students Visual Basic in his Introduction to Programming class.
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