JAVA Vocabulary 1) composition - the process of building a system using simpler components 2) abstraction the process of ignoring irrelevant

t details and emphasizing essential ones 3) computation a sequence of goal directed actions performed by a processor 4) algorithm a set of instructions describing a pattern of behavior guaranteed to achieve a specific goal 5) property a characteristic of an object 6) variable a portion of memory reserved to hold a single value 7) instance variable a variable that contains data stored as part of an objects state 8) state the set of properties of an object and their current values 9) feature a query or command to which an object responds 10) query a feature of an object used to obtain some data value from the object 11) command a feature of an object used to instruct the object to perform some action which typically results in a change of the objects state 12) value a fundamental piece of information manipulated in a program 13) type a set of similar values along with the operations that can be performed with them 14) class a collection of similar objects 15) instance an object 16) reference value a value which denoted or refers to an object 17) identifier a sequence of characters that can be used to name entities in a program 18) literal a sequence of characters used in a program to denote a particular value 19) comment text included in a program purely for the benefit of a human reader 20) client in reference to a given object, a client is another object which uses the given object 21) server in reference to a given object, a server is another object which provides a service to the given object 22) specification (interface) the collection of features of an object as seen by its client 23) method the JAVA construct used to specify and implement queries and commands 24) constructor a mechanism used to create an object 25) statement a language construct that describes an action for the processor to perform 26) expression a language construct that specifies how to compute a particular value 27) assignment statement a statement that instructs the processor to compute a value and store it in a variable 28) named constant a value that has an identifier associated with it 29) method variable a variable that is created when a method is invoked, and deallocated when the method is completed 30) package a set of related class definitions 31) computation unit a file containing the definition of one or more classes of a package

32) local variable a method variable created as part of a method execution, used to hold intermediate results needed during the computation 33) main method the top level method that initiates execution of the system 34) postcondition a condition the implementer of a method guarantees will hold when the method completes execution 35) invariant a condition that always holds 36) class invariant an invariant regarding properties of class instances 37) precondition - a condition the client of a method must make sure holds when the method is invoked 38) programming by contract a programming style in which the invocation of a method is viewed as a contract between client and server with each having explicitly stated responsibilities 39) functional test a test to determine if a system meets customer specifications 40) unit test a test to determine if a class is correctly implemented 41) iteration a process in which an operation is performed several times 42) system design defining a collection of classes and their interactions that will satisfy the system specifications 43) model the subsystem responsible for representing and actually solving the problem at hand 44) architectural class class that helps form the underlying structure of the solution 45) implementation the actual internal details that support the specification of an object 46) interface a language structure that specifies functionality without any hint at implementation 47) subtype a type whose constituent values are also members of another (super) type 48) overloading providing a class with several distinct methods having the same name 49) overriding redefining the implementation of a method that a class inherits from its super class 50) polymorphism dynamic behavior by which the algorithm performed as the result of a call to an overridden method is determined by the runtime class of the object executing the method 51) abstract class a class that can contain abstract methods and cant be instantiated