This is a reference for myself, that I update as I further understand terms, and expand on their definitions. Don’t take anything here as gospel, I’m frequently wrong and I appreciate correction!

Dictionary

Key

• Bold is a defined term
• Italics is an assumed known term

Contents

Because y’know programmers love to use confusing language

• Class: A template for creating objects – it is conceptual so is not represent any specific state, but generally shows what the object is and what it can do. It generally has:

  • Properties / Attributes: Defining what makes up the object, and or it’s capabilities;
  • Methods / Functions: Defining what the object can do
  • Classes are static.
    
    

• Constructor: Special functions for classes – specifically for creating new objects. They have these unique properties / functions:

  • Initialise new objects when created
  • They are automatically called when creating the object(s)
  • They cannot return values
  • They do not have a declaration keyword “constructor” – e.g. in Dart you use the class name
    
    

• Object: A specific example of a class. Objects are explicitly created using a class, often through calling a constructor defined in the class. It generally has:

  • Real values but each object can have different values from another object from the same class.
  • Structure / Behaviour defined by the class that the object adheres to
    
    

• Syntactic Sugar: A method of providing more concise or programmer friendly code - depends on each language’s syntax.

  • E.g. One way that Dart uses it is for constructor shorthand - otherwise we’d have to explicitly set the type after the constructor as below:

    class Spacecraft { String name; DateTime? launchDate;
    
        // Read-only non-final property
        int? get launchYear => launchDate?.year;
    
        // Constructor, with syntactic sugar for assignment to members.
        Spacecraft(this.name, this.launchDate) {
            // Initialization code goes here. }
    

    
    

• Type-inference: A variable does not have to explicitly declare it’s type, the language effectively knows from the data declared

  • E.g. int year = 1997 is the same as var year = 1997 in Dart
  • Be careful that types match each other! E.g. You think you have a static list but when you add to it – that’s actually a dynamic list!
    
    

• Type-safe: A language (e.g. Dart) that has an environment that avoids any type mismatches.

  • Dart does this specifically by static-type checking and runtime checks – basically as you type and as it compiles it’s checking what’s expected versus actual data