Concept

Interpreter (computing)

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Self-hosting (compilers)

In computer programming, self-hosting is the use of a program as part of the toolchain or operating system that produces new versions of that same program—for example, a compiler that can compile its own source code. Self-hosting software is commonplace on personal computers and larger systems. Other programs that are typically self-hosting include kernels, assemblers, command-line interpreters and revision control software. An operating system is self-hosted when the toolchain to build the operating system runs on that same operating system.

Software portability

A computer program is said to be portable if there is very low effort required to make it run on different platforms. The pre-requirement for portability is the generalized abstraction between the application logic and system interfaces. When software with the same functionality is produced for several computing platforms, portability is the key issue for development cost reduction. Software portability may involve: Transferring installed program files to another computer of basically the same architecture.

Object code

In computing, object code or object module is the product of a compiler. In a general sense object code is a sequence of statements or instructions in a computer language, usually a machine code language (i.e., ) or an intermediate language such as register transfer language (RTL). The term indicates that the code is the goal or result of the compiling process, with some early sources referring to source code as a "subject program". s can in turn be linked to form an or library file.

Maclisp

Maclisp (or MACLISP, sometimes styled MacLisp or MacLISP) is a programming language, a dialect of the language Lisp. It originated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Project MAC (from which it derived its prefix) in the late 1960s and was based on Lisp 1.5. Richard Greenblatt was the main developer of the original codebase for the PDP-6; Jon L. White was responsible for its later maintenance and development. The name Maclisp began being used in the early 1970s to distinguish it from other forks of PDP-6 Lisp, notably BBN Lisp.

Read–eval–print loop

A read–eval–print loop (REPL), also termed an interactive toplevel or language shell, is a simple interactive computer programming environment that takes single user inputs, executes them, and returns the result to the user; a program written in a REPL environment is executed piecewise. The term usually refers to programming interfaces similar to the classic Lisp machine interactive environment. Common examples include command-line shells and similar environments for programming languages, and the technique is very characteristic of scripting languages.

Decompiler

A decompiler is a computer program that translates an executable file to high-level source code. It does therefore the opposite of a typical compiler, which translates a high-level language to a low-level language. While disassemblers translate an executable into assembly language, decompilers go a step further and translate the code into a higher level language such as C or Java, requiring more sophisticated techniques. Decompilers are usually unable to perfectly reconstruct the original source code, thus will frequently produce obfuscated code.

MATLAB

MATLAB (an abbreviation of "MATrix LABoratory") is a proprietary multi-paradigm programming language and numeric computing environment developed by MathWorks. MATLAB allows matrix manipulations, plotting of functions and data, implementation of algorithms, creation of user interfaces, and interfacing with programs written in other languages. Although MATLAB is intended primarily for numeric computing, an optional toolbox uses the MuPAD symbolic engine allowing access to symbolic computing abilities.

Translator (computing)

A translator or programming language processor is a generic term that can refer to a compiler, assembler, or interpreter—anything that converts code from one computer language into another. These include translations between high-level and human-readable computer languages such as C++ and Java, intermediate-level languages such as Java bytecode, low-level languages such as the assembly language and machine code, and between similar levels of language on different computing platforms, as well as from any of these to any other of these.

Bootstrapping (compilers)

In computer science, bootstrapping is the technique for producing a self-compiling compiler – that is, a compiler (or assembler) written in the source programming language that it intends to compile. An initial core version of the compiler (the bootstrap compiler) is generated in a different language (which could be assembly language); successive expanded versions of the compiler are developed using this minimal subset of the language.

Homoiconicity

In computer programming, homoiconicity (from the Greek words homo- meaning "the same" and icon meaning "representation") is a property of some programming languages. A language is homoiconic if a program written in it can be manipulated as data using the language, and thus the program's internal representation can be inferred just by reading the program itself. This property is often summarized by saying that the language treats code as data.