A fourth-generation programming language (4GL) is a high-level computer programming language that belongs to a class of languages envisioned as an advancement upon third-generation programming languages (3GL). Each of the programming language generations aims to provide a higher level of abstraction of the internal computer hardware details, making the language more programmer-friendly, powerful, and versatile. While the definition of 4GL has changed over time, it can be typified by operating more with large collections of information at once rather than focusing on just bits and bytes. Languages claimed to be 4GL may include support for database management, report generation, mathematical optimization, GUI development, or web development. Some researchers state that 4GLs are a subset of domain-specific languages.
An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source-code editor, build automation tools, and a debugger. Some IDEs, such as IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse and Lazarus contain the necessary compiler, interpreter or both; others, such as SharpDevelop and NetBeans, do not.
Software documentation is written text or illustration that accompanies computer software or is embedded in the source code. The documentation either explains how the software operates or how to use it, and may mean different things to people in different roles.
A software bug is a design defect (bug) in computer software. A computer program with many or serious bugs may be described as buggy.
Software development is the process of designing and implementing a software solution to satisfy a user. The process is more encompassing than programming, writing code, in that it includes conceiving the goal, evaluating feasibility, analyzing requirements, design, testing and release. The process is part of software engineering which also includes organizational management, project management, configuration management and other aspects.
A programming tool or software development tool is a computer program that is used to develop another computer program, usually by helping the developer manage computer files. For example, a programmer may use a tool called a source code editor to edit source code files, and then a compiler to convert the source code into machine code files. They may also use build tools that automatically package executable program and data files into shareable packages or install kits.
In computer science, automatic programming is a type of computer programming in which some mechanism generates a computer program, to allow human programmers to write the code at a higher abstraction level.
Javadoc is an API documentation generator for the Java programming language. Based on information in Java source code, Javadoc generates documentation formatted as HTML and via extensions, other formats. Javadoc was created by Sun Microsystems and is owned by Oracle today.
Continuous integration (CI) is the practice of integrating source code changes frequently and ensuring that the integrated codebase is in a workable state.
A web content management system is a software content management system (CMS) specifically for web content. It provides website authoring, collaboration, and administration tools that help users with little knowledge of web programming languages or markup languages create and manage website content. A WCMS provides the foundation for collaboration, providing users the ability to manage documents and output for multiple author editing and participation. Most systems use a content repository or a database to store page content, metadata, and other information assets the system needs.
Domain-specific modeling (DSM) is a software engineering methodology for designing and developing systems, such as computer software. It involves systematic use of a domain-specific language to represent the various facets of a system.
HeaderDoc is a documentation generator developed and maintained by Apple Inc. Using specially commented source code files as input, HeaderDoc generates documentation for the code in HTML or XML format. Syntax for HeaderDoc comment tags is largely similar to, and as of HeaderDoc version 8, supportive of Javadoc tags. HeaderDoc 8.7 and later also provides partial support for many Doxygen tags. Apple's HeaderDoc project is free, open source software distributed under the Apple Public Source License.
CMake is a free, cross-platform, software development tool for building applications via compiler-independent instructions. It also can automate testing, packaging and installation. It runs on a variety of platforms and supports many programming languages.
Sandcastle is a documentation generator from Microsoft. It automatically produces MSDN-style code documentation out of reflection information of .NET assemblies and XML documentation comments found in the source code of these assemblies. It can also be used to produce user documentation from Microsoft Assistance Markup Language (MAML) with the same look and feel as reference documentation.
An artifact is one of many kinds of tangible by-products produced during the development of software. Some artifacts help describe the function, architecture, and design of software. Other artifacts are concerned with the process of development itself—such as project plans, business cases, and risk assessments.
An API writer is a technical writer who writes documents that describe an application programming interface (API). The primary audience includes programmers, developers, system architects, and system designers.
Sphinx is a documentation generator written and used by the Python community. It is written in Python, and also used in other environments.
wxPHP is an extension for the PHP programming language that wraps the wxWidgets library, which allows writing cross-platform software desktop applications that make use of the native graphical components available to the different platforms. It supports the three major operating systems: Windows, Linux and macOS.
Software analytics is the analytics specific to the domain of software systems taking into account source code, static and dynamic characteristics as well as related processes of their development and evolution. It aims at describing, monitoring, predicting, and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of software engineering throughout the software lifecycle, in particular during software development and software maintenance. The data collection is typically done by mining software repositories, but can also be achieved by collecting user actions or production data.
Automatic bug-fixing is the automatic repair of software bugs without the intervention of a human programmer. It is also commonly referred to as automatic patch generation, automatic bug repair, or automatic program repair. The typical goal of such techniques is to automatically generate correct patches to eliminate bugs in software programs without causing software regression.
