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Syntax (programming languages) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Syntax highlighting is often used to aid programmers in recognizing ... In computer science, the syntax of a programming language is the set of rules that define ...

syntax: Definition from Answers.com
syntax ( ) n. The study of the rules whereby words or other elements of sentence structure are combined to form grammatical sentences

Syntax - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In linguistics, syntax (from Ancient Greek σύνταξις "arrangement" ... principles that govern the sentence structure of any individual language, as in "the syntax of Modern Irish. ...

CMake/Language Syntax - KitwarePublic
CMake bug 6295 asked for documentation of the core syntax. ... Help other CMake users understand the language and avoid mistakes, contribute to this wiki. ...

Lakhota Syntax
The Lakhota language was never a written one until the early 1930's, ... The rules of syntax which apply to the Lakhota language will leave you somewhat puzzled. ...

Array

The second video deals with language in humans demonstrating that Hebrew letters and word which have known meaning have the same meaning in ...

[GAS] Explains: What is Metaprogramming?

By Sterling “Chip” Camden
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

In recent years, the Greek root meta has perhaps become overused.  Originally, it was just a lowly preposition meaning “after”, “beyond”, or simply “with” – but especially since the writings of Douglas Hofstadter it has taken on the meaning of a higher level of abstraction, especially a self-referential abstraction.  That’s the sense in which it is used in the term metaprogramming – modifying programs programmatically, or modifying the programming language itself.

As with many terms that describe programming, metaprogramming admits of many different incarnations, shades of meaning, and degrees of support.  In the broadest sense, the simple act of creating generalized functions or classes represents an extension and abstraction of the “language” used for programming – but the term “metaprogramming” is usually reserved for more radical modifications.  Languages that provide features for those types of operations are often called dynamic languages.

Generative programming

One use of the term “metaprogramming” refers to programs that generate or manipulate their own code.  Languages that provide the best support for this are those that easily overcome the distinction between code and data.  In more than fifty years since the introduction of Lisp, no other language has devised a more radical yet natural representation of that interchangeability.  Code and data are both represented in Lisp as lists, so any list can easily be treated as either code or data.  It’s simple, therefore, to manipulate code as data, and then execute it – either via EVAL or by returning it as the result of a macro expansion.

By comparison, COBOL’s single contribution to metaprogramming, the odious ALTER statement, seems laughable.  If GOTO is deemed harmful, then ALTER was pure evil.  It allowed you to change the destination of a GOTO statement at runtime, producing stealth spaghetti.  It had all the pitfalls of metaprogramming and none of the benefits, since it reduced readability without improving abstraction.

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