Searches should include Wikipedia, which is surprisingly good for a number of programming concepts/terms such as Application Programming Interface: What is an API? An application programming interface (API) is a particular set of rules (‘code’) and specifications that software programs can follow to communicate with each other. It serves as an interface between different software … Read more
You are correct. Deprecated means that it is still in use, but only for historical purposes and it will be removed probably in the next big release. It is recommended that you do not use deprecated functions or features – even if they are present in the current library for example. Obsolete means that is … Read more
Simple Explanation via Cartoon An example of a shim: Summary A shim is some code that takes care of what’s asked (by ‘interception’), without anyone being any wiser about it. Example of a Shim An example of a shim would be rbenv (a neat ruby tool). Calls to ruby commands are “shimmed”. i.e. when you … Read more
@Marnix has a pretty good answer, but to step away from the technical aspect of it: Claims Based Authentication is about defining who you trust to give you accurate information about identity, and only ever using that information provided. My (the) go-to example is at a bar. Imagine for a moment that you want to … Read more
If you’re replacing one implementation completely with another, it’s “overwriting” or more commonly “replacing“. If you’re replacing an implementation with another for some specific cases, it’s “overriding“. To “overwrite” something is to put something else in its place, destroying the thing overwritten. To “override” something is to cause something else to operate instead of it … Read more
The most important difference, and in fact the defining difference between a library and a framework is Inversion of Control. What does this mean? Well, it means that when you call a library, you are in control. But with a framework, the control is inverted: the framework calls you. (This is called the Hollywood Principle: … Read more
Static/Dynamic Typing is about when type information is acquired (Either at compile time or at runtime) Strong/Weak Typing is about how strictly types are distinguished (e.g. whether the language tries to do an implicit conversion from strings to numbers). See the wiki-page for more detailed information.
A shim is any piece of code that performs interception of an API call and provides a layer of abstraction. It isn’t necessarily restricted to a web application or HTML5/CSS3. A polyfill is a type of shim that retrofits legacy browsers with modern HTML5/CSS3 features usually using Javascript or Flash. Answering your specific question, call … Read more
At the time of writing this, the top voted answers on this page are imprecise and muddled on the declarative vs. imperative definition, including the answer that quotes Wikipedia. Some answers are conflating the terms in different ways. Refer also to my explanation of why spreadsheet programming is declarative, regardless that the formulas mutate the … Read more
“boilerplate code” is any seemingly repetitive code that shows up again and again in order to get some result that seems like it ought to be much simpler. It’s a subjective definition. The term comes from “boilerplate” in the newspaper industry: wiki