Kotlin programmer dictionary

Originally published on: blog.kotlin-academy.com

When I was writing a book about Kotlin with Igor Wojda, one of big challenges for us was to learn and fully understand technical terms. Of course, people use them in everyday conversations, but often they do not care if they use them correctly. Classic example is the difference between argument andparameter. People use them interchangeably, but they represent two different things. Similarly, people are often talking about lambda expressions, while they actually mean any function literal. We had to extract such words and understand what exactly they mean. It was much harder than I though. This is why I decided to make it easier for others and write series of articles about what I’ve learned. The schedule for articles is following:

• Argument vs Parameter, Type argument vs Type parameter
• Statement vs Expression
• Function vs Method vs Procedure
• Field vs Property
• Class vs Type vs Object
• Object expression vs Object declaration
• Receiver
• Implicit receiver vs Explicit receiver
• Extension receiver vs Dispatch receiver
• Receiver type vs receiver object
• Function Type vs Function literal vs Lambda expression vs Anonymous function
• Higher-order function
• Function literal with receiver vs Function type with receiver
• Invariance vs Covariance vs Contravariance
• Event listener vs Event handler
• Delegation vs Composition

After all, we will define a lot of technical terms:

• Argument
• Parameter
• Type argument
• Type parameter
• Statement
• Expression
• Function
• Method
• Procedure
• Field
• Property
• Class
• Type
• Object
• Object declaration
• Object expression
• Receiver
• Implicit receiver
• Explicit receiver
• Extension receiver
• Dispatch receiver
• Receiver type
• Receiver object
• Function Type
• Function literal
• Lambda expression
• Anonymous function
• Higher order function
• Function literal with receiver
• Function type with receiver
• Invariance
• Covariance
• Contravariance
• Event listener
• Event handler
• Delegation
• Composition

This is a lot of terms. With them in mind, you should be prepared for writing articles and books. Big challenge for me is to describe them now. I am going to release new article with new descriptions every week.

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