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Programming Language Design and Implementation Beta

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Question score of 25 or more. This badge can be awarded multiple times.
Awarded 44 times.
How do modern compilers choose which variables to put in registers?
Awarded Feb 15 at 14:32
Why do many programming languages use the symbol of two vertical parallel lines `||` to mean "or"?
Awarded Jan 14 at 7:06
How to transpile goto to a language that lacks it?
Awarded Nov 26, 2024 at 22:37
Rationale for requiring struct prefix in C
Awarded Nov 2, 2024 at 17:05
Colored vs uncolored functions
Awarded Sep 30, 2024 at 17:10
Why do "modern" languages not provide argv and exit code in main?
Awarded Sep 10, 2024 at 16:42
What are the benefits of stackful vs. stackless coroutines?
Awarded Sep 7, 2024 at 13:11
What are the ways compilers recognize complex patterns?
Awarded Jul 19, 2024 at 6:38
Are there any advantages of evaluating expressions differently in compile time and runtime?
Awarded May 31, 2024 at 21:25
Why do compilers typically convert code into abstract syntax/parse trees before the final product?
Awarded May 29, 2024 at 19:03
Can "no cyclic data structures" be enforced at compile time?
Awarded Mar 31, 2024 at 10:31
Why are volatile objects so difficult to work with in C++?
Awarded Mar 25, 2024 at 10:11
Why do (or don't) languages forbid unreachable code?
Awarded Mar 23, 2024 at 13:40
I want to make breaking changes to my language, what techniques exist to allow a smooth transition of the ecosystem?
Awarded Feb 16, 2024 at 21:52
Why is almost every programming language made in English?
Awarded Jan 29, 2024 at 23:41
Why don't popular regex engines support complement and intersection?
Awarded Jan 25, 2024 at 4:57
Why does SQL treat null = null as null, unlike all other mainstream programming languages where null = null is true?
Awarded Dec 24, 2023 at 19:46
Negative literals, or unary negated positive literals?
Awarded Dec 6, 2023 at 17:05
Studies on learnability of braces vs. indentation for code blocks for beginners?
Awarded Dec 3, 2023 at 11:05
What are the drawbacks of using indentation for code blocks?
Awarded Nov 29, 2023 at 14:40
Why do common Rust packages depend on C code?
Awarded Nov 28, 2023 at 12:05
Are there Haskell-like languages where equations allow for arbitrary left-hand sides?
Awarded Nov 23, 2023 at 15:41
Why do so many programming languages not have a "built-in" way to do simple math functions?
Awarded Nov 15, 2023 at 19:55
Is it possible to make GC a library?
Awarded Nov 12, 2023 at 4:55
How have modern language designs dealt with Unicode strings?
Awarded Nov 12, 2023 at 2:26
Why did Rust require macro names to have an exclamation point at the end?
Awarded Oct 31, 2023 at 1:36
Why do programming languages use the asterisk * for multiplication?
Awarded Sep 21, 2023 at 20:11
Why do programming languages use delimiters (quotes) for strings?
Awarded Sep 8, 2023 at 0:57
How expressive of a type system is too expressive, for the average programmer?
Awarded Aug 30, 2023 at 13:36
Why did JavaScript choose to include a void operator?
Awarded Aug 28, 2023 at 20:16
How to ensure that an optimising compiler will terminate?
Awarded Aug 28, 2023 at 10:48
Why don't many languages have integer range types?
Awarded Aug 15, 2023 at 15:02
How should I read type system notation?
Awarded Aug 13, 2023 at 15:41
Why would a language have a concept of undefined behavior instead of raising an error?
Awarded Aug 4, 2023 at 6:04
What are the pros and cons of having a unit type over C-like void?
Awarded Aug 2, 2023 at 5:50
Are there good reasons to minimize the number of keywords in a language?
Awarded Aug 1, 2023 at 15:45
Avoiding student confusion about the meaning of `x == a or b`
Awarded Jul 21, 2023 at 3:52
What language design features made Lisp useful for Artificial Intelligence research?
Awarded Jul 20, 2023 at 18:30
What different types of garbage collection are there, and what benefits do they provide?
Awarded Jul 11, 2023 at 10:10
What are the upsides of using explicit line-ending characters (like semicolons) as opposed to newlines?
Awarded Jul 10, 2023 at 2:15
How can we compare expressive power between two Turing-complete languages?
Awarded Jul 5, 2023 at 14:50
How could a language make the loop-and-a-half less error-prone?
Awarded Jul 3, 2023 at 12:21
What are different ways of handling runtime errors?
Awarded May 26, 2023 at 8:28
Why do some PL choose to have a dedicated keyword for elseif instead of like in C?
Awarded May 23, 2023 at 16:17