Programming terms starting with O

35 terms

OASIS An isolated, fertile tract or green locality in a desert region, made so by the presence of water. See also Palm oasis
Obfuscation Obfuscation is a technique used to complicate code. Obfuscation makes code harder to understand when it is de-compiled, but it typically has no affect on…
object An entity such as a file, folder, shared folder, printer, or Active Directory object, described by a distinct, named set of attributes.
object construction The creation of an object, usually via the new operator. When an object is created, an appropriate constructor from its class is invoked.
object reference A reference to an object. Languages other than Java use term's such as address or pointer.
object serialization The writing of an object's contents in such a way that its state can be restored, either at a later time, or within a different process.
object-oriented design A software design method that models the characteristics of abstract or real objects using classes and objects.
object-oriented language Programming languages such as C++ and Java that allow the solution to a problem to be expressed in terms of objects which belong to classes.
octal Number representation in base 8. In base 8, only the digits 0 to 7 are used. Digit positions represent successive powers of 8.
octal character constant A character constant in the form \ddd, where each d is an octal digit. This may be used for characters with a Unicode value in the range 0-255.
offset You offset an options or futures position by taking a second position in a contract with identical terms, buying if you sold initially or selling if you…
OMG Operational Maneuver Group.
one-liner An entire computer program crammed into one line of text.
one-way messaging A method of transmitting messages without having to block until a response is received.
open source software Programs for which the source code is freely available and freely redistributable, with no commercial strings attached.
operand An operand is an argument of an operator. Expressions involve combinations of operators and operands.
operating system Software which directs the overall activity of a computer (e.g. MS-DOS , Windows , Linux , etcetera).
operator A prokaryotic regulatory element that interacts with a repressor to control the transcription of adjacent structural genes.
operator overloading A kind of "overloading" that you can do on built-in operators to make them work on objects as if the objects were ordinary scalar values, but with the…
operator precedence See precedence rules
optional package An optional package is a set of Java ME APIs providing services in a specific area, such as database access or multimedia.
optional packages The set or sets of APIs in a Java platform edition which are available with and may be supported in a compatible implementation.
options Contracts which give the holder the right to buy (call options) or sell (put option) a fixed amount of a certain stock at a specified price within a…
ORB An often translucent, circular anomaly (or “ball of light”) seen in photography -- and sometimes with the naked eye -- that may be, depending on your…
OS principal A principal native to the operating system on which the J2EE platform is executing.
OTA (Over The Air) Over The Air (OTA) refers to any wireless networking technology.
OTS Off-the-Shelf.
out of scope A variable is in scope as long as the program's flow of control is within the variable's defining block. Otherwise, it is out of scope.
out-of-bounds value A redundant value used to indicate that a different action from the norm is required at some point.
overloading Using one identifier to refer to multiple items in the same scope. In the Java programming language, you can overload methods but not variables or…
overriding Providing a different implementation of a method in a subclass of the class that originally defined the method.
overriding for breadth A form of method overriding in which the sub class version of a method implements its own behavior within the context of the attributes and behavior of…
overriding for chaining A form of method overriding in which the sub class version of a method checks to see whether it can respond to the message on its own and only calls the…
overriding for restriction A form of method overriding in which the sub class version of a method calls the super class version first of all and then uses or manipulates the result…
Owner The only security principal who has an inherent right to allow or deny permission to access an object.