Idempotence in Programming

08 August 2014 - Redwood City, CA

In mathematics, the concept of idempotence implies that an operation can be executed any number of times and still yield the same result as if it was only run once. f(f(x)) = f(x).

Programming-wise, the word means that some method or function which mutates a variable has no additional effect on the variable if it is called on it more than once, given the same input parameters. For instance, if you initialize a singleton, then try to reinitialize a new instance of that singleton, you will recieve the same instance.

It’s fun to see the similar vocablary sping up in programming since I came from a theory-heavy math/stats/physics background with less programming. Excited to see more of this!