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  • You're mixing up concepts. Reverse() is not an operator, a unary operator needn't return a value of the same type (e.g. !, delete, typeof), and operators are not delegates. But "in-place" is a fine term for a method that modifies its instance. [I didn't down-vote, but it looks like someone down-voted all the answers even though they're all useful.] Commented Mar 11, 2017 at 3:12
  • Not sure you are following. Any prototype can be represented by a delegate. "Operator" doesn't work for me (as I stated) so I say "Operation," and yes indeed Reverse() is a unary operation. But overall I agree this is all a little odd, yet I am using verbatim the terminology from the linked document, which seems to have been authored by some pretty smart folks. At least it is better than nothing. Commented Mar 11, 2017 at 3:31
  • Oh, I see! Note that to retrofit lambdas into Java, they built on the idea of a functional interface (a Java interface with only 1 method) so we can pass around ordinary Java objects to apply as "functions." (Brian Goetz has a tech talk on adding lambdas. Multiple times he says "the obvious approach would've sucked.") When creating functional interfaces for stream processing objects, they kind of abused terms like "operator." That's confusing! They must've run out of good names. I don't think it's a good source of terms for OOP methods that do/don't modify the receiver object. Commented Mar 11, 2017 at 5:58