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A comment on Signs that you are a bad programmer. Parent comment

Re:Signs that you are a bad programmer by JonnieCache on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @08:20PM (#3132783)
I guess the point is that there's no "privileged" position in these systems which changes with time, like the point of execution in programming.

What is the proper name for the bit of code that's currently being executed? I've suddenly realised that its a concept you think about constantly when coding, but its so much a part of the scenery so to speak that you never consciously consider it.

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Re:Signs that you are a bad programmer by Androsynth on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @08:55PM (#3132870)
At the hardware level it's called the program counter, which is a register containing the address of the current operation the processor is running. After the operation is finished, it increments itself and moves to the next step in the program.

Edit: just realized I didn't really answer the question, I believe what your actually talking about is a statement.

I usually jump at the chance to talk about stuff from my old EE days :)

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Re:Signs that you are a bad programmer by Zaak on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @10:15PM (#3133100)
The program counter isn't the only element of that "what the program is doing now" state though. The context in which the current instruction is being executed makes a world of difference.
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Re:Signs that you are a bad programmer by jpendry on Thursday October 20, 2011 @10:29AM (#3134966)
And the ability to save all of that into a variable so that you can pass it around to other parts of your program means that your programming language supports Continuations.
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Re:Signs that you are a bad programmer by vogonj on Thursday October 20, 2011 @12:00AM (#3133393)
inclusive of that, the best term is probably "machine state" or similar.
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Re:Signs that you are a bad programmer by calloc on Thursday October 20, 2011 @05:05AM (#3134056)
I consider the "context" the scope. What is the scope in which the current statement is being executed...
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Re:Signs that you are a bad programmer by sounds on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @09:18PM (#3132945)
Current instruction or active instruction (at the processor level)

Currrent statement or active statement at the code level

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Re:Signs that you are a bad programmer by mrb on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @11:05PM (#3133241)
On the amd64/i386 platforms, the Instruction Pointer CPU register points to the executed instruction. Its name is IP for 16-bit code, EIP (extended) for 32-bit code, or RIP (register) for 64-bit code.
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Re:Signs that you are a bad programmer by 5hoom on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @10:10PM (#3133085)
That's an interesting point.

I know that when I'm in the flow coding, there is a sort of Tick:the-program-does-this, Tock:the-program-does-that stepwise execution of the code in my head.

There are many answers as to what the hardware is actually doing with the instructions, but more generally what exactly is the name of an imaginary discrete state of a program that currently only exists in a coders head?

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Re:Signs that you are a bad programmer by JonnieCache on Thursday October 20, 2011 @06:49AM (#3134253)
>but more generally what exactly is the name of an imaginary discrete state of a program that currently only exists in a coders head?

This is what I'm trying to get at. There isn't one is there? It's weird.

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Re:Signs that you are a bad programmer by sambeau on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @10:57PM (#3133224)
What is the proper name for the bit of code that's currently being executed?

I would have used 'Cursor' or 'Program Cursor'. But I'm now convincing myself that that a database term.

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Re:Signs that you are a bad programmer by kennywinker on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @08:33PM (#3132815)
Top of the stack?
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Re:Signs that you are a bad programmer by Zaak on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @10:16PM (#3133109)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coroutine
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Re:Signs that you are a bad programmer by Sniffnoy on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @08:42PM (#3132837)
Program counter?
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