Programming terms starting with L

54 terms

label The FDA approved label is the official description of a drug product which includes indication (what the drug is used for); who should take it; adverse…
LAN (Local Area Network) A network of computers that generally spans a small area, such as a single building.
layout manager An object responsible for sharing the available space between multiple components within a graphical container.
laziness The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure.
LCDUI (Liquid Crystal Display User Interface) LCDUI is a shorthand way of referring to the MIDP user interface APIs, contained in the javax.microedition.lcdui package.
left shift A "bit shift" that multiplies the number by some power of 2.
left shift operator The left shift operator (<<) is a bit manipulation operator. It moves the bits in its left operand zero or more places to the left, according to the value…
leftmost longest The preference of the "regular expression" engine to match the leftmost occurrence of a "pattern", then given a position at which a match will occur, the…
lexeme Fancy term for a "token".
lexer Fancy term for a "tokener".
lexical Pertaining to how the characters in source code are translated into tokens that the compiler can understand.
lexical analysis Fancy term for "tokenizing".
lexical scoping Looking at your Oxford English Dictionary through a microscope. (Also known as "static scoping", because dictionaries don't change very fast.
lexical variable A "variable" subject to "lexical scoping", declared by my. Often just called a "lexical".
lexicographic ordering The ordering of words as they would be found in a dictionary. It should be noted that different locales order similar looking words according to their own…
library A collection of cells, usually bacteria or yeast, that have been transformed with recombinant vectors carrying DNA inserts from a single species.
life cycle (J2EE component) The framework events of a J2EE component's existence. Each type of component has defining events that mark its transition into states in which it has…
life cycle (JavaServer Faces) A set of phases during which a request for a page is received, a UI component tree representing the page is processed, and a response is produced.
LIFO Last In, First Out. See also "FIFO". A LIFO is usually called a "stack".
LIFO (last in, first out) The (LIFO) semantics of a stack data structure. Items are removed in the opposite order to which they arrived in the stack, so newer items are always…
lightweight process See thread.
line See Groove
line buffering Used by a "standard I/O" output stream that flushes its "buffer" after every "newline".
line feed See new line.
line number The number of lines read previous to this one, plus 1. Perl keeps a separate line number for each source or input file it opens.
link See Hyperlink.
linker A short, double-stranded oligonucleotide containing a restriction endonuclease recognition site, which is ligated to the ends of a DNA fragment.
LIST A Web site component that stores and displays information that users can add to by using their browsers.
list context The situation in which an "expression" is expected by its surroundings (the code calling it) to return a list of values rather than a single value.
list operator An "operator" that does something with a list of values, such as join or grep. Usually used for named built-in operators (such as print, unlink, and…
list value An unnamed list of temporary scalar values that may be passed around within a program from any list-generating function to any function or construct that…
literal A string, a number, or a date which directly represents a constant value. 'XYZ123', '1234' and '6/10/57' are examples of a string literal, a numeric…
little-endian A common difference between machines is the order in which they store the individual bytes of multi-byte numerical data.
livelock A situation in which a thread waits to be notified of a condition but, on waking, finds that another thread has inverted the condition again.
local Not meaning the same thing everywhere. A global variable in Perl can be localized inside a dynamic scope via the local operator.
local inner class An inner class defined within a method.
local subset That part of the DTD that is defined within the current XML file.
local variable A variable defined inside a method body.
Locale Details which are dependent upon conventions and customs adopted by a particular country or culture.
logical error An error in the logical of a method or class. Such an error might not lead to an immediate runtime error, but could have a significant impact on overall…
logical operator Another term for Boolean operator. See Boolean expression.
logical operators Operators, such as &&, ||, &, | and ^ that take two boolean operands and produce a boolean result.
long A term signifying ownership of securities. "I am long 100 XYZ," means that the speaker owns 100 shares of XYZ.
look-and-feel The visual impression and interaction style provided by a user interface. This is predominantly the responsibility of the window manager (in collaboration…
lookahead An "assertion" that peeks at the string to the right of the current match location.
lookbehind An "assertion" that peeks at the string to the left of the current match location.
loop A construct that performs something repeatedly, like a roller coaster.
loop control statement Any statement within the body of a loop that can make a loop prematurely stop looping or skip an "iteration".
loop label A kind of key or name attached to a loop (or roller coaster) so that loop control statements can talk about which loop they want to control.
loop variable A variable used to control the operation of a loop, such as a for loop. Typically, a loop variable will be given an initial value and it is then…
low level programming languages Often known as `assembly languages', these provide little more than the basic instruction set of a particular Central Processing Unit.
lvaluable Able to serve as an "lvalue".
lvalue Term used by language lawyers for a storage location you can assign a new "value" to, such as a "variable" or an element of an "array".
lvalue modifier An adjectival pseudofunction that warps the meaning of an "lvalue" in some declarative fashion.