Action at a distance

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In programming, action at a distance is defined as having a variable or condition that your immediate program structure is dependent upon vary wildly based on difficult or impossible to identify operations in another part of the program.

An example might be having a data structure unpredictably change its format between when it is created and when you use it. In Perl, one way to observe this is by setting the variable $[, which sets the starting value of the numeric index of arrays, to something arbitrary, such as 20 or 4.

The most obvious way to avoid such a problem is to make changes in code at a local rather than a global level.

In science, action at a distance is a pejorative term meaning that a cause has had an effect despite not having a mechanism or medium. As such an action would refute reductionism, it is held as an example of pseudoscience or magical thinking. An example is telepathy - two consciousnesses communicating, even when there is no possible means for them to do so.

Gravity was held to be an example of action at a distance, and thus the graviton was hypothesised to explain its mechanism.

This current view of action at a distance may be revised in light of increasing develops in quantum theory, for example quantum entanglement.