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17.12: Glossary

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    42460
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    object-oriented language:
    A language that provides features, such as programmer-defined types and methods, that facilitate object-oriented programming.
    object-oriented programming:
    A style of programming in which data and the operations that manipulate it are organized into classes and methods.
    method:
    A function that is defined inside a class definition and is invoked on instances of that class.
    subject:
    The object a method is invoked on.
    positional argument:
    An argument that does not include a parameter name, so it is not a keyword argument.
    operator overloading:
    Changing the behavior of an operator like + so it works with a programmer-defined type.
    type-based dispatch:
    A programming pattern that checks the type of an operand and invokes different functions for different types.
    polymorphic:
    Pertaining to a function that can work with more than one type.

    This page titled 17.12: Glossary is shared under a CC BY-NC 3.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Allen B. Downey (Green Tea Press) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.

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