Programming Idioms

Programming idioms are little snippets of code that only make sense in the context of a given programming language, and then only on reflection. Here are some collectors of idioms:
Actually, I think a ProgrammingIdiom is a small-scale pattern that only applies to a particular programming language -- it may or may not be a code snippet, as KentBeck will attest to. Anyway, I'm collecting them now for Java (JavaIdioms).

KyleBrown


I think of multiple-dereference as a programming idiom that spans several languages: typical example is with lists, where the list node has a ref-list field in it and much code passes around a ref-ref-list which is initially where the list header/carrier records the head of the list, but each time I add an item to the (tail of the) list I record it where my ref-ref-list is pointing and revise my ref-ref-list to point to where this new item wants to put its successor. This works in (at least) Algol 68 and C but I still think of it as a programming idiom. Similar tricks work for more complex data structures, so the approach is a pattern (unless I've misunderstood), but it's a pattern of implementation detail, not of design problem-solving. I think.
 -- Eddy (EdwardWelbourne).


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