If PHP Were British (2011) • Hacker News Board

Re: If PHP Were British (2011)

#21

Post by tom_ » Tue, May 28, 2019, 3:51 PM UTC

In reality of course the only difference is that it gets spelled "colour"...

One thing I'm surprised to have seen only once is use of ¬ as an escape character, because it's so reliably unused for anything at all. (I noticed in the code that this program, which needless to say was written at a UK company, had no way of escaping ¬ itself, presumably because nobody had ever needed that.)

£ also seems a bit underused, but it's fairly specifically the UK's currency symbol, so it's not obvious else you'd use it for.

(But I suspect only UK keyboards have these chars, so it's probably no bad thing.)

Re: If PHP Were British (2011)

#22

Post by theandrewbailey » Tue, May 28, 2019, 4:02 PM UTC

The_suffocated wrote: post #15

I honestly think that his "what_about-perhaps" construct is nicer than "switch-case".

I agree: what_about and perhaps is very clear, not sure about the splendid or on_the_off_chance bits.

Re: If PHP Were British (2011)

#23

Post by sli » Tue, May 28, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

I did something similar to this many, many years ago with C just for fun.

https://gist.github.com/sli/718436

Re: If PHP Were British (2011)

#24

Post by petepete » Tue, May 28, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

tom_ wrote: post #21

In reality of course the only difference is that it gets spelled "colour"... One thing I'm surprised to have seen only once is use of ¬ as an escape character, because it's so reliably unused for anything at all. (I noticed in the code that this program, which needless to say was written at a UK company, had no way of escaping ¬ itself, presumably because nobody had ever needed that.) £ also seems a bit underused, bu…

The funny spelling of centre always gets me too, it just looks so wrong! I can get used to writing words that end in ise as ize, and colour as color. But center, fiber, liter, etc just don't sit right.

Re: If PHP Were British (2011)

#25

Post by cattlefarmer » Tue, May 28, 2019, 4:12 PM UTC

There's one for CSS too.

https://github.com/hashanp/postcss-spiffing

Re: If PHP Were British (2011)

#26

Post by robbrit » Tue, May 28, 2019, 4:21 PM UTC

Since Rasmus Lerdorf was in Canada, I wonder what this would look like if it were in Canadian English. It would retain the dollar signs and serialize(), but switch to "colour" and "centre". It would be required by law to support a French version for every keyword. All PHP developers would have the advantage of free treatment for carpal-tunnel and other RSI injuries.

What else?

Re: If PHP Were British (2011)

#27

Post by thanatropism » Tue, May 28, 2019, 4:25 PM UTC

Excel is localized to countless human languages. I wonder if it has a British version.

Re: If PHP Were British (2011)

#28

Post by smnrchrds » Tue, May 28, 2019, 4:28 PM UTC

petepete wrote: post #24

tom_ wrote: post #21

In reality of course the only difference is that it gets spelled "colour"... One thing I'm surprised to have seen only once is use of ¬ as an escape character, because it's so reliably unused for anything at all. (I noticed in the code that this program, which needless to say was written at a UK company, had no way of escaping ¬ itself, presumably because nobody had ever needed that.) £ also seems a bit underused, bu…

The funny spelling of centre always gets me too, it just looks so wrong! I can get used to writing words that end in ise as ize , and colour as color . But center , fiber , liter , etc just don't sit right.

It's just a matter of getting used to. I imagine these spellings do not evoke the same feeling in you, even though they are objectively following the same rule as centre and fibre:

Maple not Mapel

Cable not Cabel

Re: If PHP Were British (2011)

#29

Post by kijin » Tue, May 28, 2019, 4:32 PM UTC

exit() would be called brexit() as some of the commenters pointed out... but instead of actually exiting, it will hang indefinitely trying to choose which exit code to return.

Re: If PHP Were British (2011)

#30

Post by uwagan » Tue, May 28, 2019, 4:34 PM UTC

smnrchrds wrote: post #28

petepete wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The funny spelling of centre always gets me too, it just looks so wrong! I can get used to writing words that end in ise as ize , and colour as color . But center , fiber , liter , etc just don't sit right.

It's just a matter of getting used to. I imagine these spellings do not evoke the same feeling in you, even though they are objectively following the same rule as centre and fibre: Maple not Mapel Cable not Cabel

Able not Abel