Revision as of 18:51, 4 December 2007

Wiki 1010 Table of Contents

Glossary

- A -

• ACM - Association for Computing Machinery. A non-profit professional organization dedicated to the advancement of computing as a science and a profession.
• Algorithm - a set of well defined instructions for completing a task, for example: a computer program that calculates the class average would be an algorithm.
• Argument - A value passed to a method's parameter during a method call.
• Array- An object that can contain many values of the same type. [ABU]
• Array Length - Array length means the maximum size of the array. [ABU]

- B -

• Binary - A numbering system that uses only the digits 0 and 1. Any number can be represented in binary: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ... = 1, 10, 11, 100, 101, ...
• bug- A program error is referred to as a bug. See debugging.

• Binary Search - A binary search finds a search value in a sorted array by checking the middle element, determining if our search value is less than or greater than the middle element, and discarding the half that our search value is not in. If our middle element value is our search value, the binary search is complete. If the left or right bounds overlap, the element is not in the array.

• Bit - The smallest unit of information in a computer, with a value of either 0 or 1.
• Byte -The amount of computer memory needed to store one character of a specified size,a single byte consisting of eight bits.

- C -

• Casting - A means to convert a variable of one data type to a different data type.
• Char - A char is a data type in Java which can store one letter, digit, or other charcter.
• Control Statement - A statement that returns a boolean value usually used to denote conditions for an if statement or the end case of a loop.

- D -

• Data Structure - A way of storing data in the computer so that the data can be processed efficiently. Common data structures are array, linked list, queue, stack and tree.
• debugging- The process of isolating, correcting, and verifying the correction is called debugging.
• Double - A double is a data type in Java which can store postive and negative numbers with decimal places, which are more formally called real numbers.

- G -

• GUI - Short for Graphical User Interface, is a graphical (rather than purely textual) user interface to a computer where the user clicks on a visual screen that has icons, windows and menus, by using a pointing device, such as a mouse. GUI is pronounced like "gooey". As you read this, you are looking at the GUI or graphical user interface of your particular Web browser. The term came into existence because the first interactive user interfaces to computers were not graphical; they were text-and-keyboard oriented and usually consisted of commands you had to remember and computer responses that were infamously brief.

- H -

• Hexadecimal - (sometimes abbreviated to hex) A numbering system that uses a total of 16 digits: 0-9, A-F. A-F represent the decimal values 10-15, with the hex value 10 representing 16, hex 11 representing 17, and so on.

- I -

• If - A Java keyword that is used to perform a conditional test and execute a block of statements if the test evaluates to true.

• IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. A non-profit professional organization dedicated to the advancements in the field of electronics and electrical engineering.

• Integer - An integer is a number that can be written without a fraction or a decimal. The data type 'int' in Java can be used to store integers.

- J -

• JDK - Short for Java Development Kit, is a free software development package from Sun Microsystem's JavaSoft division that implements the basic set of tools needed to write, test and debug Java applications and applets.
• Journal - A publication of articles submitted by researchers and academics on specific topics in the specific field of study.

- K -

• Keyword - In Java programming language, some words are set aside as keywords - these words are reserved by the language itself and therefore are not available as names for variables or methods. Examples of Java keywords: if, void, null, and public.
• Kilobyte - (KB) A unit of storage equal to 2^10 or 1024 bytes.

- L -

• Loop - A loop is part of a program that is repeated. There are two main types of loops counted and conditional. A counted loop executes a defined number of times and conditional loop executes until a condition is met.

• Linear Search - A linear search checks each element in sequence until the search value is found, or we have searched the whole array.

- M -

• Main Method - The method which Java runs when it is told to execute a class.

- N -

• Nested Method Call - A method call in which another method call is used as an argument.

- O -

• Operator - An operator is a symbol used for logical, mathematical or assignment operations, such as =, + or &&.
• Overflow - A problem which occurs when a data value becomes too large for the variable to hold. This can have devastating and unpredictable results on a program.

- P -

• Parameter - An input value which that a method expects.
• Polymorphism - The ability to call an object that has different data types using the same method name.
• Popup - A Menu that provides no visual cue to its presence, but simply pops up when a user performs a particular action. It is a window that is displayed on top of the existing window or web page. It "pops up" on screen. Popups are commonly used to display messages.
• Primitive Data Type - A primitive data type is a basic variable type that computer itself can understand. In Java char, int, float and double are all primitive data types.
• Parallel Array - Parallel arrays are used to create create connected lists of data. See Parallel Arrays.
• prefix - a letter or letters placed before or joined to the beginning of word which affects or changes the meaning of that word.

- R -

• Return Value - Any user-declared method can return a primitive data type, such as void, int, String, etc. For example, to return an int from the method calcAvg(), our method declaration is: public static int calcAvg(...).
• Reference Variable - A variable that is used as a pointer (or an address) to an object. [ABU]

- S -

• String - A String is an array of characters that Java treats in a special way, allowing you to mainpulate it more easily.

• Sequential - Sequential refers to doing one thing at a time; in order. An example would be when searching an array, we would check element 0, then element 1, then element 2, ..., element n.

- U -

• User - The person who is giving input to and interpreting output from your program.
• User-Defined Method - A section of code which is declared once in a program, then used by other code sections.

- V -

• Virtual Machine - A virtual machine is a program that simulates a CPU, allowing implementation of Java on a variety of actual machines independent of their CPU architecture.