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Questions tagged [history]

DO NOT USE THIS TAG. Questions about the history of programming are off-topic. For questions about browser history, use [browser-history] instead. For questions about the JavaScript library, use [history.js]. For questions about the HTML5 API, use [html5-history]. For questions about version control, use [revision-history]. For questions about recalling inputs in an entry box, use [input-history].

DO NOT USE THIS TAG

Instead of this tag, use more specific tags for programming concepts called history, such as:

Questions about the history of a programming concept or feature are off-topic on Stack Overflow.

1570 questions
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nginx: send all requests to a single html page

Using nginx, I want to preserve the url, but actually load the same page no matter what. I will use the url with History.getState() to route the requests in my javascript app. It seems like it should be a simple thing to do? location / { …
prismofeverything
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Where does 'Hello world' come from?

'hello, world' is usually the first example for any programming language. I've always wondered where this sentence came from and where was it first used. I've once been told that it was the first sentence ever to be displayed on a computer screen,…
Jacco
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Git - how do I view the change history of a method/function?

So I found the question about how to view the change history of a file, but the change history of this particular file is huge and I'm really only interested in the changes of a particular method. So would it be possible to see the change history…
Erik B
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Why number 9 in kill -9 command in unix?

I understand it's off topic, I couldn't find anywhere online and I was thinking maybe programming gurus in the community might know this. I usually use kill -9 pid to kill the job. I always wondered the origin of 9. I looked it up online, and it…
Alby
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102
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Why do stacks typically grow downwards?

I know that in the architectures I'm personally familiar with (x86, 6502, etc), the stack typically grows downwards (i.e. every item pushed onto the stack results in a decremented SP, not an incremented one). I'm wondering about the historical…
Ben Zotto
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Original purpose of ?

I am curious about the original purpose of the tag. Nowadays it is often used together with JavaScript to store variables in it which are sent to the server and things like that. HTML 2.0 was released in November 1995,…
Uooo
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Why might git log not show history for a moved file, and what can I do about it?

I've renamed a couple of files using git mv, used git stash, had a quick look at HEAD (without changing it) then did git stash pop to get the whole lot back again. My moves had disappeared from the commit list, so I redid them with git rm and the…
please delete me
90
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9 answers

System where 1 byte != 8 bit?

All the time I read sentences like don't rely on 1 byte being 8 bit in size use CHAR_BIT instead of 8 as a constant to convert between bits and bytes et cetera. What real life systems are there today, where this holds true? (I'm not sure if there…
Xeo
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If registers are so blazingly fast, why don't we have more of them?

In 32bit, we had 8 "general purpose" registers. With 64bit, the amount doubles, but it seems independent of the 64bit change itself. Now, if registers are so fast (no memory access), why aren't there more of them naturally? Shouldn't CPU builders…
Xeo
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History of Django's popularity

What sequence of events made Django the most popular Python web framework .. and still so? Even though several other frameworks exist. Note: This question is neither argumentative nor confrontational. I merely asked for (objective) "the sequence of…
Sridhar Ratnakumar
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Origin of the C# language name

I am a C and C++ programmer and am now trying to learn C#. I have bought the book Professional C# by Wrox publications. While migrating from C to C++ I had a doubt why ++ was added to C. Later on I realized that since ++ is an increment operator…
Prasoon Saurav
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6 answers

What is the point of DBNull?

In .NET there is the null reference, which is used everywhere to denote that an object reference is empty, and then there is the DBNull, which is used by database drivers (and few others) to denote... pretty much the same thing. Naturally, this…
Vilx-
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4 answers

PowerShell's Clear-History doesn't clear history

Recently I had to run a command that unfortunately required me to type a password right on the command line. Afterwards, I cleared my screen with "Clear", but also wanted to clear the command history so the offending command wouldn't show up in the…
Fopedush
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The History Behind the Definition of a 'String'

I have never thought about until recently, but I'm not sure why we call strings strings. I am a .NET programmer, but I believe the concept of strings exist in virtually every programming language. Outside of programming, I don't believe I've heard…
Rob P.
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Export subtree in Git with history

I have a folder in my Git repository that I'd like to move out in to its own repository. Is it possible to move the history of that folder along with the folder? I've previously been doing just a git rm -r --cached subfolder/ and then git init on…
matpie
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