Deck 2: Language Design Criteria

Question 1

The presence of explicit data types in variable declarations in a language allows for more concise code.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

Python uses statement terminators such as the semicolon.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

FORTRAN's designers attempted to improve the readability of programs by making the constructs look like ordinary written English.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

The most important design criterion of the last 25 years has been the goal of efficiency.

Question 5

Irregularities in a language may be the result of maintaining backward compatibility with a prior version of the language.

Question 6

C++ was designed to be a multiparadigm language that would not enforce any one style of programming.

Question 7

The primary design goal of early programming languages was efficiency of execution.

Question 8

C++ is an open source language that has never had a commercial release.

Question 9

Pascal uses a dedicated return statement for returning values from functions.

Question 10

One of the design goals of C++ was that it would be highly portable.

Question 11

C was chosen as the base language for C++ because it contained class constructs.

Question 12

Java is considered to be a semantically safe language.

Question 13

Macros can be used to improve the readability of a language.

Question 14

The ease with which a complex process or structure can be expressed in a programming language is called its regularity.

Question 15

A language that adds new features via additional releases is considered to be extensible.

Question 16

When applied to data types,value semantics means that assignment produces two references to the same object.

Question 17

Early dialects of FORTRAN supported static storage allocation only.

Question 18

C++ was not intended to undergo incremental development.

Question 19

Java demonstrates a lack of orthogonality in its different handling of primitive data types and object data types.

Question 20

Design goals for programming languages have not changed through the years.

Question 21

C++ does not have a formal language definition.

Question 22

When no type errors are caught during execution,we can infer that they do not exist.

Question 23

A language achieves ____ by avoiding special cases in the use of constructs.

A) orthogonality
B) efficiency
C) generality
D) uniformity

Question 24

The quality of a language that allows a programmer to express a computation clearly,correctly,concisely,and quickly is called _____.

A) efficiency
B) regularity
C) orthogonality
D) writability

Question 25

A programming language's expressiveness ____.

A) refers to how easy it is to express complex processes
B) refers to the efficiency of the code
C) refers to how well its features are integrated
D) refers to its level of generality

Question 26

The fact that C does not allow array types to be the return value of a function indicates a lack of ____ in the language.

A) generality
B) uniformity
C) orthogonality
D) efficiency

Question 27

The fact that Pascal does not allow functions and procedures to be assigned to variables indicates a lack of ____ in the language.

A) uniformity
B) generality
C) orthogonality
D) efficiency

Question 28

The irregularities of primitive types and reference types in Java is the result of the designer's concern with ____.

A) efficiency
B) orthogonality
C) regularity
D) generality

Question 29

Attempts to make programming languages more reliable led to the development of ____.

A) better documentation
B) strong data typing
C) improved writability
D) increased efficiency

Question 30

Python was designed to bridge the gap between a systems language like C and a shell language like Perl.

Question 31

Which of the following is an object-oriented language?

A) C++
B) C
C) FORTRAN
D) Algol

Question 32

Python is type-checked at runtime.

Question 33

A language which prevents a programmer from compiling or executing any statements or expressions that violate the definition of the language is said to be ____.

A) efficient
B) uniform
C) semantically safe
D) orthogonal

Question 34

A program written in Python will require many more lines of code than if it were written in C++.

Question 35

A language is said to have the property of ____ if its constructs can be combined in any meaningful way,with no unexpected restrictions.

A) generality
B) orthogonality
C) uniformity
D) efficiency

Question 36

Which of the following is most closely related to reliability?

A) Generality
B) Regularity
C) Security
D) Uniformity

Question 37

A language is said to have the property of ____ if it has a design in which similar things look similar,and different things look different.

A) generality
B) uniformity
C) orthogonality
D) efficiency

Question 38

Which of the following is an example of lack of generality in a language?

A) In C, arrays cannot be directly compared using the == operator.
B) In Pascal, functions can return only scalar or pointer types as values.
C) In C, local variables can only be defined at the beginning of a block.
D) In Pascal, return statements in functions look like assignments to variables.

Question 39

Because C++ requires a semicolon after a class definition but not after a function definition,C++ is said to lack ____.

A) orthogonality
B) security
C) reliability
D) uniformity

Question 40

Which of the following is a functional language?

A) Lisp
B) ALGOL
C) Python
D) FORTRAN

Question 41

The real benefit of deferring type checking until runtime is ____.

A) greater runtime efficiency
B) greater programmer efficiency
C) higher program reliability
D) higher program safety

Question 42

Python was originally designed for ____.

A) scientists and engineers and other non-programmers
B) expert programmers
C) large scale systems
D) time-critical systems

Question 43

The first implementation of C++ used ____.

A) a compiler named Cfront
B) a preprocessor named Cfront
C) an interpreter named Cfront
D) a compiler named Cpre

Question 44

C++ ____.

A) is an object-oriented language
B) is a functional type language
C) does not have an accepted set of standards
D) is not widely used

Question 45

Of the following languages,which is a statically typed language?

A) Python
B) Lisp
C) Smalltalk
D) Ada

Question 46

All of the following languages are statically typed except ____.

A) Ada
B) C
C) C++
D) Python

Question 47

A language that allows the user to add features to it is said to have the property of ____.

A) uniformity
B) regularity
C) extensibility
D) reliability

Question 48

Python is easy for nonprogrammers to learn and use because ____.

A) it is based on a small but powerful set of primitive operations and data types that can be easily extended
B) it has a very rich set of data types
C) it is highly portable to multiple platforms
D) it does not support advanced abstractions

Question 49

A ____ specifies the syntax of a piece of code that expands to other standard code.

A) compiler
B) macro
C) function
D) procedure

Question 50

Which of the following properties is least exhibited by Python?

A) simplicity
B) portability
C) extensibility
D) efficiency