L-S

Law of Demeter

A law stating that the dependencies of an object upon the implementation of a "remote" object should be minimized. To achieve this goal, the rule says that, when implementing a method, messages may be sent only to specific objects:

• To the object itself;

• To objects passed as parameters; and

• To instance variables.

In particular, this law prevents message chains, such as this.getName().getFirstName().equals(...).

Liskov Substitution Principle

A principle stating that an object of a subtype, and thus also an instance of a subclass, should be able to replace the object of the supertype at any given time [Liskov93].

Mapping tool

More exactly, object-relational mapping tool. A library or framework used to map objects to relational databases.

ODBC

Open Database Connectivity. Standard interface to access databases.

OODBMS

Object-oriented database management system. An OODBMS can directly store objects with their properties, their identity—and sometimes even their implementation. Using an object-oriented database frees developers from explicitly having to translate objects to rows in relational database tables.

OUT

Object under test. The object on which the currently running text case executes its operations and asserts.

See also CUT.

Pair programming

An XP practice requiring that each piece of source code to be integrated into the software product should be created by two programmers jointly at one computer.

Persistence

A program's ability to persist beyond its runtime. We also speak of persistent objects, which are stored to a database or somewhere else for later use.

Polymorphism

One of the basic principles of object-orientation allowing an object reference to accept instances from various (sub) classes. A method invocation to the object reference leads to the dynamic execution of the method defined for the references instance.

RDBMS

Relational database management system. A system used to create, edit, and manage relational databases.

Refactoring

Rebuilding and restructuring code in very small steps without changing the behavior visible from outside.

Reflection

A Java mechanism allowing access to class and interface specifications at runtime, defined in the package, java.lang.reflect.

RMI

Remote Method Invocation. A Java-specific distribution mechanism allowing objects of a JVM to invoke methods of objects executed by another JVM (e.g., on another computer).

RTTI

RunTime Type Information. A standard C++ concept allowing the determination of the type of an object at runtime.

Runtime exception

Also called unchecked exception. An exception derived from RuntimeException (e.g., NullPointerException). Such an exception can potentially occur in any statement and thus does not have to be caught or added to the throws clause, in contrast to a checked exception.

RUP

Rational unified process. Commercial software process of Rational.

Servlet

A Java technology for dynamic creation of Web contents.

Smoke tests

A manageable set of functional test cases that merely check for basic functionality. The term originates from the metaphor, Switch on and wait if smoke escapes.

SOAP

Simple object access protocol. A standardized protocol used to call Internet-based services (Web services) by exchanging XML messages.

SQL

Structured Query Language. A commonly used query language for relational databases.

Swing

Since JDK 1.2, Swing is part of the central Java libraries used for platform-independent representation of user interfaces building on AWT.

System test

A test aimed at checking the entire system.