#language-design

Lot of developers don’t know the language specifications. But, with a little knowledge on programming constructs they tend to code for years.

The above statement is so common for junior developers.

It’s better to check how the language was designed ahead instead of looking at google to get a solution to your programming problems.

The idea of a pro­gram­ming lan­guage that can be molded by its users—I like the phrase lan­guage exten­si­bil­ity—is almost as old as our old­est pro­gram­ming lan­guages, given the his­tory of macros in Lisp. So why isn’t every­one already using macros to extend lan­guages? Like garbage col­lec­tion, macros may seem like a cool idea in prin­ci­ple, but with too much over­head to be prac­ti­cal (but with the over­head in pro­gram under­stand­ing, instead of pro­gram exe­cu­tion). Like first-class func­tions, macros add an extra dimen­sion to code that may seem too mind-twist­ing for an aver­age pro­gram­mer. And like a type sys­tem, the the­ory behind hygienic macros may seem too daunt­ing to be worth the extra guar­an­tees that hygiene pro­vides. Maybe so. But Beau­ti­ful Racket makes the case that the time for lan­guage exten­si­bil­ity has come. That’s why this book is impor­tant. It’s not an abstract argu­ment about the ben­e­fits of macros or a par­tic­u­lar style of macros. Instead, this book shows you, step by step, how to use Racket’s macro sys­tem on real prob­lems and, as a result, get a feel for its ben­e­fits.

Answer: What does DIM stand for in Visual Basic and BASIC? #dev #it #programming

What does DIM stand for in Visual Basic and BASIC?

What does DIM stand for in Visual Basic?

Answer [by JoshBerke]: What does DIM stand for in Visual Basic and BASIC?

Dimension a variable, basically you are telling the compiler that you are going to need a variable of this type at some point.

Answer [by Shoban]: What does DIM stand for in Visual Basic and BASIC?

Variable declaration. Initially,…

Answer: How to Correctly Use Lists in R? #solution #development #fix

How to Correctly Use Lists in R?

Brief background: Many (most?) contemporary programming languages in widespread use have at least a handful of ADTs [abstract data types] in common, in particular,

string (a (sequence comprised of characters)

list (an ordered collection of values), and

map-based type (an unordered array that maps keys to values)

In the R programming language, the first two are…

How-to: Function overloading by return type? #computers #dev #programming

Function overloading by return type?

Why don’t more mainstream statically typed languages support function/method overloading by return type? I can’t think of any that do. It seems no less useful or reasonable than supporting overload by parameter type. How come it’s so much less popular?

Answer [by Greg Hewgill]: Function overloading by return type?

In such a language, how would you resolve the…

Answer: How does "this" keyword work within a JavaScript object literal? #programming #solution #development

How does "this" keyword work within a JavaScript object literal?

I just came across an interesting situation in Javascript. I have a class with a method that defines several objects using object-literal notation. Inside those objects, the this pointer is being used. From the behavior of the program, I have deduced that the thispointer is referring to the class on which the method was invoked,…

Answer: Does any other language other than JavaScript have a difference between brace start locations (same line and next line)? #fix #dev #it

Does any other language other than JavaScript have a difference between brace start locations (same line and next line)?

Today, while I was randomly reading the JavaScript patterns O’Reilly book, I found one interesting thing (page 27 for reference).

In Javascript, in some cases, there is a difference if the brace start location is different.

function test_function1() { return { name: 'rajat' };…

Solution: Benefits of prototypal inheritance over classical? #fix #programming #development

Benefits of prototypal inheritance over classical?

So I finally stopped dragging my feet all these years and decided to learn JavaScript “properly”. One of the most head-scratching elements of the languages design is it’s implementation of inheritance. Having experience in Ruby, I was really happy to see closures and dynamic typing; but for the life of me can’t figure out what benefits are to be…