Avoiding Mixup of Language Details

Posted by DarenW on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by DarenW
Published on 2008-10-22T04:11:20Z Indexed on 2010/04/25 4:53 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 374

Filed under:

languages

|

syntax

Today someone asked me what was wrong with their source code. It was obvious. "Use double equals in place of that single equal in that if statement. Um, i think..." As i remember some languages actually take a single equals for comparison. Since i sometimes forget or mix up the syntax details among the several languages i use, i stepped over to my laptop to try a quickie experiment...

It costs a bit of time and is a break in the flow to try "quick" experiments (though maybe the practice is good for memory.) What tips do you have for keeping straight in your mind the syntax (and other) details of multiple languages?

(And nowadays, this applies just as well to the many wiki-like markups!)

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about languages

Programming languages, positional languages and natural languages

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
Some programming languages are modeled on machine code, like assembly languages. Other languages are modeled on a natural language, the English language. Others are not modeled on either machine code or natural language. Languages such as PROLOG, for example, don't follow either model. I came across… >>> More
Dynamic type languages versus static type languages

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
What are the advantages and limitations of dynamic type languages compared to static type languages? See also: whats with the love of dynamic languages (a far more argumentative thread...) >>> More
Are Mark Up languages considered programming languages?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi Are all those markup languages programming languages? For example XML or HTML are programming languages? >>> More
Managed Languages vs Compiled Language difference?

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
I get confused when people try to make a distinction between compiled languages and managed languages. From experience, I understand that most consider compiled languages to be C,C++ while managed languages are Java,C# (There are obviously more, but these are just few examples). But what exactly is… >>> More
Advantages of compilers for functional languages over compilers for imperative languages

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
As a follow up to this question What are the advantages of built-in immutability of F# over C#?--am I correct in assuming that the F# compiler can make certain optimizations knowing that it's dealing with largely immutable code? I mean even if a developer writes "Functional C#" the compiler wouldn't… >>> More

Related posts about syntax

learning to make sense of the syntax of syntax

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
i want to use alter table but the syntax posted here: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/alter-table.html is very confusing i do not understand what the [ ] mean or the { } mean or the pipes is there some kind of tutorial that can help me understand this? >>> More
C syntax or binary optimized syntax?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Let's take an simple example of two lines supposedly doing the same thing: if (value = 96 || value < 0) ... or if (value & ~ 95) ... Say 'If's are costly in a loop of thousands of iterations, is it better to keep with the traditional C syntax or better to find a binary optimized one if… >>> More
If you had to reinvent a new syntax for regular expressions, what would it look like?

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
Regular expressions as they are today are pretty much as concise and compact as they can be. Consequently, they are often criticised for being unreadable and hard to debug. If you had to reinvent a new syntax for regular expressions, what would it look like? Do you prefer the concise syntax they… >>> More
online utility to convert jquery syntax to mootools syntax

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Is there any online utility to convert jquery syntax to mootools syntax? Is there any guideline to convert jquery to mootools? >>> More
Transform XAML syntax from Shorthand to full syntax

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Is there a tool or a simple way to transform XAML code from the shorthand syntax to the full syntax? For example: moving from something like: <_TextBox Text="{Binding Path=Formula.Production, Mode=TwoWay, UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged}" to <_TextBox <_TextBox.Text <Binding… >>> More