Arcane Sentiment

Any abstraction expresses something all its instances share. Usually this is semantic: all instances have some common meaning. They represen...

Previously I speculated that the word “datatype” might have been used in computing before 1958. In response, dvt found a precedent from 19...

Some languages are too consistent about keeping their names short. Arc and Wart call their macro-defining operators mac instead of defmac...

When a theory fails to usefully describe reality, one bad response is to demand that reality stop disobeying it. Cosma Shalizi illustrates :...

Some languages can return multiple values from a function, just as they can pass multiple arguments to a function. I used to think this was ...

The word “type” has a variety of meanings in programming languages, which are often a focus of confusion and contention. Here's a histor...

Floating-point users today are accustomed (or resigned, sometimes) to compilers that make invalid optimizations by assuming all arithmetic i...