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Top Questions

29 votes
11 answers
18k views

Why do so many programming languages not have a "built-in" way to do simple math functions?

32 votes
2 answers
17k views

Why do common Rust packages depend on C code?

20 votes
10 answers
4k views

What are the drawbacks of allowing implicit boolean/integer conversions?

11 votes
9 answers
6k views

Can sine converge to zero at infinity?

20 votes
6 answers
7k views

Why do some languages have both immutable "variables" and constants?

29 votes
5 answers
5k views

Are there Haskell-like languages where equations allow for arbitrary left-hand sides?

22 votes
3 answers
5k views

Why are volatile objects so difficult to work with in C++?

21 votes
4 answers
4k views

Why do many template languages have `for-else` statements?

26 votes
2 answers
3k views

Studies on learnability of braces vs. indentation for code blocks for beginners?

6 votes
3 answers
3k views

How to implement + in a language where functions accept only one argument? [closed]

14 votes
1 answer
2k views

What language was the first to treat null checks as smart casts to non-nullable types?

9 votes
3 answers
1k views

What is a "primary expression"?

9 votes
3 answers
1k views

Do parsers typically need access to all tokens?

5 votes
5 answers
859 views

Correctness of mixed signed/unsigned arithmetic

13 votes
1 answer
635 views

Is there a difference between Rust's `macro_rules!` and Scheme's `syntax-rules`?

5 votes
2 answers
616 views

How does the map function work in stack-based languages?

8 votes
2 answers
718 views

The history of "finally" in exception handling?

9 votes
4 answers
252 views

Are there languages that implement a more granular precondition system than just safe/unsafe

9 votes
1 answer
627 views

How does Rust parse ambiguous macros?

5 votes
4 answers
289 views

What goes wrong when division-by-zero is defined as multiplication-by-infinity?

9 votes
1 answer
321 views

Why does ATTAPL's linear product introduction rule not delete the objects from the context?

2 votes
1 answer
994 views

Why do we put imports at the top of files? [closed]

5 votes
3 answers
272 views

Reading Floating Point, perhaps without libc/msvcrt

10 votes
1 answer
236 views

How to tolerate syntax errors in a typed language?

2 votes
3 answers
226 views

How do different template languages handle parsing?

4 votes
5 answers
251 views

How can memory addresses be compile-time constants?

11 votes
1 answer
195 views

What exactly is Pratt parsing used for and how does it work?

9 votes
1 answer
229 views

What is the difference between GAT and HKT?

-1 votes
2 answers
162 views

Why hasn't html a simple way of showing html tags as they are? [closed]

2 votes
1 answer
179 views

Generic method: type inference

1 vote
3 answers
274 views

Is there any way a Java-like language could implement immutable primitive arrays without incurring performance penalties?

6 votes
1 answer
136 views

What's the benefit of using different tokens for accessing nested namespaces/modules versus properties?

9 votes
1 answer
158 views

What was the rationale for making realloc(ptr, 0) have UB in C23

1 vote
1 answer
121 views

Implementing automatic derivation without macros?

4 votes
1 answer
125 views

Should bitwise operations have dedicated operators? [closed]

2 votes
1 answer
158 views

How to assign unique names to variables within a function?

5 votes
1 answer
185 views

Optimization algorithm using conditional invariants

4 votes
2 answers
142 views

Supporting reasonably efficient high-level indexing for strings

2 votes
1 answer
151 views

What if all static methods in Java or C# could be extension methods just by default?

0 votes
0 answers
188 views

Pros and cons of treating endless loops as "anything can happen" UB, versus allowing limited reordering

0 votes
1 answer
96 views

How to minimize total size of static data?

2 votes
1 answer
112 views

Possible ways to determine reach of implicit lambda expressions

1 vote
1 answer
111 views

Expressing runtime constraints with trait-bounds

9 votes
0 answers
110 views

How to detect changes to definitions and their impacts?

0 votes
2 answers
104 views

Challanges to integrate sum types into json/protobuffer/toml/yaml? [closed]

4 votes
0 answers
120 views

Determining the most optimized date type for the platform with type inference

-2 votes
1 answer
135 views

Low effort, high impact optimizations? [closed]

1 vote
1 answer
80 views

What are the potential consequences of allowing decimal-point-less number literals to be interpreted as floats?


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