Investment castingInvestment casting is an industrial process based on lost-wax casting, one of the oldest known metal-forming techniques. The term "lost-wax casting" can also refer to modern investment casting processes. Investment casting has been used in various forms for the last 5,000 years. In its earliest forms, beeswax was used to form patterns necessary for the casting process. Today, more advanced waxes, refractory materials and specialist alloys are typically used for making patterns.
Abstract typeIn programming languages, an abstract type is a type in a nominative type system that cannot be instantiated directly; a type that is not abstract – which can be instantiated – is called a concrete type. Every instance of an abstract type is an instance of some concrete subtype. Abstract types are also known as existential types. An abstract type may provide no implementation, or an incomplete implementation. In some languages, abstract types with no implementation (rather than an incomplete implementation) are known as protocols, interfaces, signatures, or class types.
C (programming language)C (pronounced 'siː – like the letter c) is a general-purpose computer programming language. It was created in the 1970s by Dennis Ritchie, and remains very widely used and influential. By design, C's features cleanly reflect the capabilities of the targeted CPUs. It has found lasting use in operating systems, device drivers, protocol stacks, though decreasingly for application software. C is commonly used on computer architectures that range from the largest supercomputers to the smallest microcontrollers and embedded systems.
Kotlin (programming language)Kotlin (ˈkɒtlɪn) is a cross-platform, statically typed, general-purpose high-level programming language with type inference. Kotlin is designed to interoperate fully with Java, and the JVM version of Kotlin's standard library depends on the Java Class Library, but type inference allows its syntax to be more concise. Kotlin mainly targets the JVM, but also compiles to JavaScript (e.g., for frontend web applications using React) or native code via LLVM (e.g., for native iOS apps sharing business logic with Android apps).
Interface (object-oriented programming)In object-oriented programming, an interface or protocol type is a data type that acts as an abstraction of a class. It describes a set of method signatures, the implementations of which may be provided by multiple classes that are otherwise not necessarily related to each other. A class which provides the methods listed in a protocol is said to adopt the protocol, or to implement the interface. If objects are fully encapsulated then the protocol is the only way in which they may be accessed by other objects.
Inheritance (object-oriented programming)In object-oriented programming, inheritance is the mechanism of basing an object or class upon another object (prototype-based inheritance) or class (class-based inheritance), retaining similar implementation. Also defined as deriving new classes (sub classes) from existing ones such as super class or base class and then forming them into a hierarchy of classes. In most class-based object-oriented languages like C++, an object created through inheritance, a "child object", acquires all the properties and behaviors of the "parent object", with the exception of: constructors, destructors, overloaded operators and friend functions of the base class.
Graphical widgetA graphical widget (also graphical control element or control) in a graphical user interface is an element of interaction, such as a button or a scroll bar. Controls are software components that a computer user interacts with through direct manipulation to read or edit information about an application. User interface libraries such as Windows Presentation Foundation, Qt, GTK, and Cocoa, contain a collection of controls and the logic to render these.
Branching (version control)Branching, in version control and software configuration management, is the duplication of an object under version control (such as a source code file or a directory tree). Each object can thereafter be modified separately and in parallel so that the objects become different. In this context the objects are called branches. The users of the version control system can branch any branch. Branches are also known as trees, streams or codelines.
Method (computer programming)A method in object-oriented programming (OOP) is a procedure associated with an object, and generally also a message. An object consists of state data and behavior; these compose an interface, which specifies how the object may be used. A method is a behavior of an object parametrized by a user. Data is represented as properties of the object, and behaviors are represented as methods. For example, a Window object could have methods such as open and close, while its state (whether it is open or closed at any given point in time) would be a property.
Function (computer programming)In computer programming, a function or subroutine is a sequence of program instructions that performs a specific task, packaged as a unit. This unit can then be used in programs wherever that particular task should be performed. Functions may be defined within programs, or separately in libraries that can be used by many programs. In different programming languages, a function may be called a routine, subprogram, subroutine, or procedure; in object-oriented programming (OOP), it may be called a method.
Trait (computer programming)In computer programming, a trait is a concept used in programming languages which represents a set of methods that can be used to extend the functionality of a class. In object-oriented programming, behavior is sometimes shared between classes which are not related to each other. For example, many unrelated classes may have methods to serialize objects to JSON. Historically, there have been several approaches to solve this without duplicating the code in every class needing the behavior.
Class (computer programming)In object-oriented programming, a class is an extensible program-code-template for creating objects, providing initial values for state (member variables) and implementations of behavior (member functions or methods). In many languages, the class name is used as the name for the class (the template itself), the name for the default constructor of the class (a subroutine that creates objects), and as the type of objects generated by instantiating the class; these distinct concepts are easily conflated.
