Computer programming folklore

computer program that produces the message "Hello, world!", often used to illustrate the basic syntax of a programming language

thumb|231x231px|Foobar being used to show transclusion

debugging method, in which a programmer explains code, line-by-line, to an inanimate object ("rubber duck") or to another person, until the incongruity between what the code should do and actually does becomes apparent

software development principle with the goal of reducing repetitive software patterns, and replacing them with abstractions that use data normalization to avoid redundancy

symptom in the source code of a program that possibly indicates a deeper problem

self-replicating program

title given to a small number of open-source software development leaders

collection of definitions from computer subcultures

sequence of bytes used to identify or indicate the format of a file

term in programming

In computer programming jargon, a heisenbug is a software bug that seems to disappear or alter its behavior when one attempts to study it. The term is a pun on the name of Werner Heisenberg, the physicist who first introduced the uncertainty principle, and it is a reference to the observer effect, which states that the act of observing a system inevitably alters its state. In electronics, the traditional term is probe effect, where attaching a test probe to a device changes its behavior. The term has been criticized because it confuses Heisenberg's uncertainty principle (to which it owes the n

video game song composed by ZUN; third track from the soundtrack of the 1998 video game Lotus Land Story

sections of code that have to be included in many places with little or no alteration

Slogan created by Sun Microsystems to advertise benefits of Java Platform

unusual C programming idiom that manually implements loop unrolling using interleaved control structures

a rule of thumb in C++ (prior to C++11) stating that if a class defines one (or more) of destructor, copy constructor, or copy assignment operator, then it should probably explicitly define all three

style of computer programming characterized by the ritual inclusion of code or program structures that serve no real purpose

computer programming refactoring rule of thumb

Computing aphorism

story about a computer programmer

code that is valid but counter-intuitive