Programming idiom
In software engineering include idioms to the patterns (english pattern ).
Bushman defined: " An idiom is a programming language specific pattern, and thus, a pattern on a low level of abstraction. An idiom describes how to implement particular aspects of components or relationships between them with the means of a particular programming language. "
An idiom is thus characterized by the following properties:
- It is programming language- specific
- It is to be found in the detailed design and implementation ( low abstraction level). So it is doing to the implementation of specific design aspects.
It is therefore used for example as follows:
- Concrete implementation of a design pattern.
- Programming conventions: basic idea "The code is not yours ", such as code formatting, naming conventions, comment formatting, etc. This can be done with or without technical support ( Checkstyle / Pretty Printer ).
- Typical code structures, such as minimum class interface
- Typical solutions that are not directly supported by the programming problems, such as memory management
Examples of idioms can be found in the literature, such as Smalltalk, C or C #.