24-letter words containing f, y
- quick-assembly furniture — furniture such as shelves and cupboards which you buy as a number of separate pieces and assemble yourself
- referential transparency — (programming) An expression E is referentially transparent if any subexpression and its value (the result of evaluating it) can be interchanged without changing the value of E. This is not the case if the value of an expression depends on global state which can change value. The most common example of changing global state is assignment to a global variable. For example, if y is a global variable in: f(x) { return x+y; } g(z) { a = f(1); y = y + z; return a + f(1); } function g has the "side-effect" that it alters the value of y. Since f's result depends on y, the two calls to f(1) will return different results even though the argument is the same. Thus f is not referentially transparent. Changing the order of evaluation of the statements in g will change its result. We could make f above referentially transparent by passing in y as an argument: f(x, y) = x+y Similarly, g would need to take y as an argument and return its new value as part of the result: g(z, y) { a = f(1, y); y' = y+z; return (a + f(1, y'), y'); } Referentially transparent programs are more amenable to formal methods and easier to reason about because the meaning of an expression depends only on the meaning of its subexpressions and not on the order of evaluation or side-effects of other expressions. We can stretch the concept of referential transparency to include input and output if we consider the whole program to be a function from its input to its output. The program as a whole is referentially transparent because it will always produce the same output when given the same input. This is stretching the concept because the program's input may include what the user types, the content of certain files or even the time of day. If we do not consider global state like the contents of files as input, then writing to a file and reading what was written behaves just like assignment to a global variable. However, if we must consider the state of the universe as an input rather than global state then any deterministic system would be referentially transparent! See also extensional equality, observational equivalence.
- ricardian theory of rent — economic rent.
- rocky mountain whitefish — mountain whitefish.
- rubaiyat of omar khayyam — a free translation (first published in 1859) by Edward FitzGerald of a group of quatrains by the Persian poet Omar Khayyám.
- saint ignatius of loyola — Saint Ignatius of (Iñigo López de Loyola) 1491–1556, Spanish soldier and ecclesiastic: founder of the Society of Jesus.
- san joaquin valley fever — coccidioidomycosis.
- self-fulfilling prophecy — a prophecy that comes true because of the expectation that it will
- shadow foreign secretary — the member of the main opposition party in Parliament who would hold the office of Foreign Secretary if their party were in power
- sorrows of young werther — German Die Leiden des Jungen Werther. a romantic novel (1774) in epistolary form by Goethe.
- telephony user interface — (communications) (TUI) Either a software interface to telephony (e.g. a phone-capable PC) or a DTMF-based interface to software (e.g. voicemail).
- the realm of possibility — If you say that something is not beyond the realms of possibility, you mean that it is possible.
- thorn in your side/flesh — If you describe someone or something as a thorn in your side or a thorn in your flesh, you mean that they are a continuous problem to you or annoy you.
- to have egg on your face — If someone has egg on their face or has egg all over their face, they have been made to look foolish.
- to tie yourself in knots — If you tie yourself in knots, you get very confused and anxious.
- twenty-four-hour service — a banking service that is always available
- under the sway of sb/sth — If you are under the sway of someone or something, they have great influence over you.
- under-secretary of state — any of various high officials subordinate only to the minister in charge of a department
- unfederated malay states — a former group of native states in the Malay Peninsula that became British protectorates between 1885 and 1909. All except Brunei joined the Malayan Union (later Federation of Malaya) in 1946. Brunei joined the Federation of Malaysia in 1963 but later became an independent nation
- virtual software factory — (programming, tool) (VSF) A product from Systematica which allows users to develop CASE tools appropriate to any software engineering methodology.
- water of crystallization — water of hydration, formerly thought necessary to crystallization: now usually regarded as affecting crystallization only as it forms new molecular combinations.
- what are you waiting for — If you say to someone 'What are you waiting for?' you are telling them to hurry up and do something.
- you can't be too careful — You can say 'You can't be too careful' as a way of advising someone to be careful, even when this seems unnecessary.