|n.||1.||An image or representation; a portrait or pretended portrait.|
|2.||(Gr. Ch.) A sacred picture representing the Virgin Mary, Christ, a saint, or a martyr, and having the same function as an image of such a person in the Latin Church. The term is used especially for a highly stylized and conventionalized representation of a holy person, rich in symbolism and used in devotional services in many of the eastern Orthodox churches, especially the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches.|
|3.||a symbol, especially a symbol whose form suggests its meaning or the object it represents.|
|4.||(Computers) a graphical symbol for a data object whose form suggests the nature or function of the object; especially, such a symbol as viewed on the computer screen.|
|5.||any object of uncritical devotion.|
|6.||an outstanding example of something which has come to represent the class of things to which it belongs; a paragon; used of persons as well as objects.|
|Noun||1.||icon - (computer science) a graphic symbol (usually a simple picture) that denotes a program or a command or a data file or a concept in a graphical user interface|
|2.||icon - a visual representation (of an object or scene or person or abstraction) produced on a surface; "they showed us the pictures of their wedding"; "a movie is a series of images projected so rapidly that the eye integrates them"|
|3.||icon - a conventional religious painting in oil on a small wooden panel; venerated in the Eastern Church|
|1.||(language)||Icon - A descendant of SNOBOL4 with Pascal-like
syntax, produced by Griswold in the 1970's. Icon is a
general-purpose language with special features for string
scanning. It has dynamic types: records, sets, lists,
strings, tables. If has some object oriented features but
no modules or exceptions. It has a primitive Unix
The central theme of Icon is the generator: when an expression is evaluated it may be suspended and later resumed, producing a result sequence of values until it fails. Resumption takes place implicitly in two contexts: iteration which is syntactically loop-like ('every-do'), and goal-directed evaluation in which a conditional expression automatically attempts to produce at least one result. Expressions that fail are used in lieu of Booleans. Data backtracking is supported by a reversible assignment. Icon also has co-expressions, which can be explicitly resumed at any time.
Version 8.8 by Ralph Griswold
See also Ibpag2.
ftp://cs.arizona.edu/icon/, MS-DOS FTP.
Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.lang.icon.
Mailing list: email@example.com.
["The Icon Programmming Language", Ralph E. Griswold and Madge T. Griswold, Prentice Hall, seond edition, 1990].
["The Implementation of the Icon Programmming Language", Ralph E. Griswold and Madge T. Griswold, Princeton University Press 1986].
|2.||(graphics)||icon - A small picture intended to represent something (a
file, directory, or action) in a graphical user interface.
When an icon is clicked on, some action is performed such as
opening a directory or aborting a file transfer.|
Icons are usually stored as bitmap images. Microsoft Windows uses a special bitmap format with file name extension ".ico" as well as embedding icons in executable (".exe") and Dynamically Linked Library (DLL) files.
The term originates from Alan Kay's theory for designing interfaces which was primarily based on the work of Jerome Bruner. Bruner's second developmental stage, iconic, uses a system of representation that depends on visual or other sensory organization and upon the use of summarising images.