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ASCII Pronunciation Rules for Programmers [2008]

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Re: ASCII Pronunciation Rules for Programmers [2008]

#31

Post by jpadkins »

jazzyb wrote: post #28

When I first started programming, I didn't know which of the two symbols / or \ was "forward slash" or "back slash", so I got into the habit of calling them "uphill" and "downhill", respectively. I still tend to use those terms when I'm working with people who aren't computer savvy, and those terms tend to be a bit more intuitive and help avoid confusion.

uphill and downhill assume going left to right. forward slash and backslash both assume going left to right.

How is this an improvement?

Maybe call them right-slash and left-slash, with the lean prefix implied? This would probably help our right to left language friends.

Re: ASCII Pronunciation Rules for Programmers [2008]

#32

Post by _delirium »

pluies_public wrote: post #19
DTanner wrote: post #15

I work with French programmers, so that opens an entire other can of worms. Colon becomes "two points" and semi-colon becomes "point comma".

Being French, I still find these names way better (as in clearer and more understandable for a foreigner) than the English ones. Why is ":" called a "colon"? That makes no sense!

It's from classical Greek/Latin rhetoric. In at least some grammarians' writings, there are grammatical units called the 'period', 'colon', and 'comma' (in decreasing order of granularity). The names became applied to punctuation separating those units as well.

Although, confusingly, I believe the English semicolon functions more similarly to the punctuation associated with a Greek/Latin colon.

Re: ASCII Pronunciation Rules for Programmers [2008]

#33

Post by RodgerTheGreat »

It's a little silly, but I've pronounced a '{' or '}' as a 'curly brace' ever since I played Cave Story[1], in which one of the main characters has that name. Before that, I think I called them 'curly brackets'.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_story

Re: ASCII Pronunciation Rules for Programmers [2008]

#34

Post by michaelcampbell »

meric wrote: post #20
spatulon wrote: post #14

Another source of confusion is the meaning of the word "brackets": +----+-----------------+-------------+ | | [] | () | +----+-----------------+-------------+ | US | brackets | parentheses | | UK | square brackets | brackets | +----+-----------------+-------------+

| AU | square brackets | parentheses | +----+-----------------+-------------+ :(

Is there nothing commonly called just 'brackets' in Oz?

Re: ASCII Pronunciation Rules for Programmers [2008]

#35

Post by michaelcampbell »

_delirium wrote: post #29
magicofpi wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you from? I've actually never heard it before (in the US).

I'm from the US, but I think I know it almost exclusively from Unix shell scripts and Perl documentation, where `foo` is called the "backtick operator".

Yes, I think it could be your (our) tech context more than geographical; I came up through the unix and perl worlds and am in the US, and have ONLY ever seen that as 'backtick'.

Re: ASCII Pronunciation Rules for Programmers [2008]

#36

Post by RodgerTheGreat »

jpadkins wrote: post #31
jazzyb wrote: post #28

When I first started programming, I didn't know which of the two symbols / or \ was "forward slash" or "back slash", so I got into the habit of calling them "uphill" and "downhill", respectively. I still tend to use those terms when I'm working with people who aren't computer savvy, and those terms tend to be a bit more intuitive and help avoid confusion.

uphill and downhill assume going left to right. forward slash and backslash both assume going left to right. How is this an improvement? Maybe call them right-slash and left-slash, with the lean prefix implied? This would probably help our right to left language friends.

Call me biased, but every programming language I'm aware of that isn't related to Piet[1] or Befunge[2] reads from left to right, and both of those are gag options. Programming languages in general take their cue from English, so it doesn't seem that unreasonable to me to assume that programmers know enough English to assume left to right.

  [1] http://www.dangermouse.net/esoteric/piet.html
  [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Befunge

Re: ASCII Pronunciation Rules for Programmers [2008]

#37

Post by michaelcampbell »

fbu wrote: post #18
DTanner wrote: post #15

I work with French programmers, so that opens an entire other can of worms. Colon becomes "two points" and semi-colon becomes "point comma".

As a French speaker it make total sense to me; it just describes it. I just searched quickly how to explain that the semi-colon is somehow half a colon. I couldn't find anything.

I'm not a French speaker, but those terms make perfect sense to me also, even though I've only just heard them here for the first time.

Re: ASCII Pronunciation Rules for Programmers [2008]

#38

Post by brunoc »

pmjordan wrote: post #27
pluies_public wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being French, I still find these names way better (as in clearer and more understandable for a foreigner) than the English ones. Why is ":" called a "colon"? That makes no sense!

Is the difference between ":" and ".." when pronounced obvious in French? In German, I'd say "Doppelpunkt" and probably "Punkt, Punkt," respectively.

It is pronounced almost exactly the same way (deux-points, point point) in french Canada. "Double-point" is valid according to Wikipedia, but I've never heard it before.

Re: ASCII Pronunciation Rules for Programmers [2008]

#40

Post by nailer »

michaelcampbell wrote: post #34
meric wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

| AU | square brackets | parentheses | +----+-----------------+-------------+ :(

Is there nothing commonly called just 'brackets' in Oz?

Yeah, these are brackets for me (), these are square brackets [].
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