selectororiented

Selectororiented is a neologism used to describe a programming and software-design approach that makes selectors the central organizing principle. A selector is a criterion or pattern used to identify a subset of data, components, or resources. The term is informal and not tied to a single language or framework, and its exact meaning varies between contexts.

In practice, selectororiented design favors declarative specifications that describe what to select rather than how to navigate structures. This can apply to user interface automation, where tests locate elements by selectors; to data processing, where routes or extractions are determined by selector patterns; or to component-based architectures where behavior is bound to selector matches.

Advantages include improved modularity, readability, and easier evolution of data schemas or UI structures when selectors remain stable. Potential drawbacks are selector fragility (small changes can break matches), performance overhead from matching many selectors, and a learning curve for developers not familiar with selector languages. There can also be a tension between expressiveness and specificity, leading to overly complex selectors or brittle dependencies.

Because selectororiented is not standardized, practitioners often coin project-specific conventions and may mix selectors from different ecosystems, such as CSS-like syntax, XPath, or custom patterns. See also CSS selectors, XPath, and general query languages for related concepts.